FIVE-PART DOCUMENTARY SERIES "ASIAN AMERICANS" NAMED WINNER OF THE PRESTIGIOUS PEABODY AWARD

(San Francisco, CA) — ITVS in partnership with WETA and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) today announced their five-part documentary series ASIAN AMERICANS has been honored by the prestigious Peabody Board of Jurors with a Peabody Award in the Documentary category. 

“We are overjoyed to be recognized for the production of ASIAN AMERICANS with a Peabody Award,” said Jeff Bieber, executive producer for WETA. “It is an honor to amplify and encourage a positive message of equality and demonstrate support for the Asian American communities. It is our mission to continue to provide our audience with programs that celebrate and educate viewers of Asian Americans’ influence and vast contributions to American history.”

“We celebrate what we were able to accomplish together on our landmark series ASIAN AMERICANS, through our collaboration with WETA, ITVS, and the team of amazing filmmakers,” said Stephen Gong, CAAM Executive Director. “Equally significant, in this most challenging of years for Asian Americans and all Americans, our partnership shone bright the very best of PBS and the public television community, at a time needed most.”

"We are so proud to support ASIAN AMERICANS in a time of escalating xenophobia and urgent need to shift the narrative,” said Sally Jo Fifer, ITVS President & CEO. “Our most heartfelt congratulations to Renee Tajima-Peña, S. Leo Chiang, Geeta Gandbhir, Grace Lee, and the entire ASIAN AMERICANS team."

ASIAN AMERICANS is a five-hour film series that delivers a bold, fresh perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. The film follows the stories of trailblazers, both prominent and forgotten, who had an impact on representation and what it means to be Asian American today. Told through intimate personal stories, the series cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played. The scope of the series extends from the first wave of Asian immigrants in the 1850s to the social and cultural turmoil of the twentieth century to modern refugee crises in a globally connected world.

ASIAN AMERICANS explores the impact of this group on the country’s past, present, and future. Led by a team of Asian American filmmakers, including Academy Award®-nominated series producer Renee Tajima-Peña (Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés). ASIAN AMERICANS is a production of WETA Washington, DC and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) for PBS, in association with ITVS, Flash Cuts and Tajima-Peña Productions. The series executive producers are Jeff Bieber for WETA; Stephen Gong and Donald Young for CAAM; Sally Jo Fifer for ITVS; and Jean Tsien. The series producer is Renee Tajima-Peña. The producer for Flash Cuts is Eurie Chung. The episode producers are S. Leo Chiang, Geeta Gandbhir and Grace Lee. 

Since its inception in 1988, ITVS has funded more than 1,400 films. Of those projects, 58 have been nominated for a Peabody Award and 43 have won. Notable wins include How to Survive a Plague by David France; Latino Americans by Adriana Bosch; Minding the Gap by Bing Liu, Marco Williams and Whitney Dow’s Two Towns of Jasper, each of which “remain as relevant today as when they were initially broadcast and have made an impact that is impossible to measure,” according to the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors. 

In 2017, ITVS was the recipient of the 76th Peabody Institutional Award for its “vital contributions to public discourse and knowledge.” The Board of Jurors praised ITVS’ integral place in the evolution of documentaries, saying “if any organization can claim a foundational place in the flourishing of documentary film over the past generation, it is the Independent Television Service (ITVS).”

About ITVS

ITVS is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that has, for over 25 years, funded and partnered with a diverse range of documentary filmmakers to produce and distribute untold stories. ITVS incubates and co-produces these award-winning films and then airs them for free on PBS via our weekly series, Independent Lens, as well as on other PBS series and through our digital platform, OVEE. ITVS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For more information, visit itvs.org.

About CAAM

CAAM (Center for Asian American Media) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. CAAM does this by funding, producing, distributing, and exhibiting works in film, television, and digital media. For more information on CAAM, please visit www.caamedia.org. Recent CAAM productions include the critically-acclaimed independent feature “Coming Home Again” by Wayne Wang, a concert special with Tony Award-winner Lea Salonga at the Sydney Opera House for PBS’s “Great Performances,” and “A Celebration of the AA and NHPI Community” featuring remarks from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and others.

About WETA

WETA is the leading public broadcasting company in the nation’s capital, serving Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia with educational initiatives and with high-quality programming on WETA Television and Classical WETA 90.9 FM. For national PBS audiences, WETA Washington, D.C., is one of the largest-producing stations of new content for public television in the United States, with news and public affairs programs including PBS NewsHour and Washington Week; films by Ken Burns such as The Civil War and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; and performance specials from the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. More information on WETA and its programs and services is available at www.weta.org. On social media, visit www.facebook.com/wetatvfm on Facebook or follow @WETAtvfm on Twitter.