AVI members in Australia might be interested in a story on SBS Film Online about the ‘Asian
Australian Film Forum (AAFF)’, Held in Melbourne, Australia, 12 – 13
November, co-convened by Dr Indigo Willing, AVI founder & VN adoptee (with Amadeo Marquez Perez),
and with a couple of speakers on one of the panels (held 13 Nov) who are
transnationally adopted, including VN adoptee Dominic Golding.

The forum also brings together wider connections between Asian
Australians from a variety of backgrounds and heritages, and with
sponsorship by AASRN and SBS.

Preview AAFF on SBS Film Online
http://www.sbs.com.au/films/article/single/895863/Asian-Australian-Film-Forum-Preview

The AAFF Official website:
http://www.asianaustralianfilmforum.com

Future AVI co-presented events include screenings of Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam.

The next one is in Brisbane 7pm on 7th September hosted by the Post Adoption Services Queensland. For Australian updates and the flyer to the above event see www.adopteefilms.info and for international news you can also go to the project website: www.thebabylift.com

Entry is by gold coin donation with collection going to Vietnamese orphanages sponsored by Against the Grain Productions (ATG) Productions.

Thank you to PASQ, IAFQ, Jigsaw QLD, AVI & IAC folks plus Tammy Nguyen Lee, Jared Rehberg and ATG Prod. for making this event possible.

A COMMUNITY VIDEO MAKING WORKSHOP

Thank you to our guest lecturer Amadeo Marquez-Perez, sponsors and the 15 participants of the below event (inc. adoptees from Vietnam, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Hong Kong and locally in Australia and adoptive families). If you were a participant and would like a DVD of your class exercises please email adopteefilms@gmail.com

Workshops – ’Telling Our Stories’ Video Making Workshop

PIC: Video workshop for adoptees held 31st July 2011

A video making workshop for adoptees and the adoption community of QLD, to be held Sunday 31st July from 12.30 – 3pm. The cost is free but registrations are encouraged (pref. by 28 July). More info on this workshop is posted at www.adopteefilms.info which in 2011 is co-presented by AVI and IAC and sponsored by various adoption related groups including Jigsaw QLD and the IAFQ.

Jessica Emmett writes:

When I first started to explore my adoption “self” over 6 years ago, the AVI network and its founding convener, Indigo ‘Indi’ Willing, were one of my first connections I’d made with other adult VN adoptees. I have been on the Advisory Committee for a few years now but always wanted to be able to give something back to AVI, I just didn’t know how. Then I saw Indi had asked in late May 2011 for help to update the site. This website is my way of contributing to AVI and our community it is dedicated to.

This has been a great project, and it was exciting to have explored the enormous amount of information from the adoptee community that had been shared on the original AVI website.

The AVI team welcomes more stories, contacts, photos and requests for information to be added/amended, while retaining the historical feel of some of the existing stories/events that have been gathered over the past eleven years that AVI has been around.

While the design of any website is secondary to the information and stories it shares, I wanted to explain a little history about its new ‘face’. Since the original site has been around for so long,  I felt that I didn’t want to alter the design too much that it might become a stranger due to drastic changes or feel, so I decided to keep it simple while taking elements of AVI’s original web design and logo.

And on that note, this website is now launched. Enjoy =)
Jess