original films by ina adele ray

"I work with appreciation and passion for filmmaking throughout the spectrum of Formalism, Classicism, and Realism." - IAR 

interpreting freedom

2D Documentary & 360 VR Video - Work-in-progress
Behind the scenes photo of Interpreting Freedom while Bahroz drives an Uber.
A short documentary portrait of Bahroz Mohmand and his experiences in Afghanistan as an interpreter for U.S. Special Forces during the war and also growing up under the Taliban. He began interpeting for the U.S. military after graduating high school in Kabul at age 16. It helped him support his family. His interpretation work meant life or death for suspects detained by U. S. military during the war in Afghanistan. Now he is an security professioanl for a big box deptartment store and works part-time as an Uber driver in Hayward, CA. Meet him and learn about is journey. There will also be a 360 stereoscopic film (virtual reality) component to this project to put audience members “inside” the world of Bahroz. He founded a non-profit organization, Interpreting Freedom Foundation to help support Afghani interpreters now residing in the U.S. suffer from war trauma.

The Red room Project

 360 VR Video - Music Documentary - Running time: 5 min
The Red Room Project is an artist portrait and 360 VR music documentary following the evolution of Oakland-based rap artist Shane Lassiter, aka Shino Smoke who has matured in his craft after migrating from his home in Sacramento to the artist enclave of Oakland. ​ Shino finds inspiration, connectedness, and healing in his Red Room from the trauma of violence and tragedies in his artist community like the Ghost Ship Fire in Oakland. The 360 immersive experience of the film will be viewed at the "The Red Room Project" album listening party, created by Shino Smoke in collaboration with Ina Adele Ray in 2018. It will also be exhibited at the Oakland Museum's Cipher Sunday with the Respect Hip Hop Exhitbit 2018 as well as the EPIC2018 Conference in Honolulu, HI. 
Producer / Director: I. Adele Ray
Co-Producer / DP: Noam Eshel
Editors: I. Adele Ray & Ian Drummond
AC/Associate Producer: Khamall Jahi
AD: Muata Howard
(VR Demo available upon request.)
Behind-the-scenes with ShinoSmoke at Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire
and a stereoscopic Vuse 360 VR camera in Oakland, CA.  
Ba Ngoai (far left), Ong Ngoai (far right), Adele's sister, Mary Claire (bottom left) and Adele (bottom right) circa 1980. 
Producer/Director/Editor: I. Adele Ray
Producing Advisor: Vivian Kleiman
Communications Consultant: Jennifer Crystal Chien
Awarded City of Oakland Individual Artist Grant 2017

Family Chapters: Ông Bà Ngoại (Grandparents) and the Miracle 
​[Formerly titled "Vietnamerican peace" & "Lost Pictures"]  

HD Color Documentary  - Running Time: 10 min 
This film is part of a series of films [Family Chapters] with stand alone 5-7 minute episodes that takes us through the lore of the filmmaker's (Adele's) lineage of both her Vietnamese and Scotch-Irish American ancestry as she grapples with transgenerational trauma from war and violence. In this real-life “Joy Luck Club” meets “The Hatfields and McCoys”, Adele’s family stories are passed down to her by family members in stylized narrative with dreamy flashback sequences and archival material. Adele heals her own core psychological wounds (depression. anxiety, anger stemming from family traumas passed on to her by earlier generations) by uncovering her family folklore. These true stories are epic from a Romeo and Juliet “shoot ‘em up” in rural East Tennessee to a miracle on a mountain in Vietnam in "Family Chapters: Ông Bà Ngoại (Grandparents) and the Miracle", 
Screenings of work-in-progress:
- Association for Asian American Studies Conference, San Francisco, CA (2018)
- Family & War: Women Filmmakers Asserting the Personal, Islamic Cultural Center of Northern CA, Oakland CA (2018) 
​- 2020 Conference, Oakland, CA (2017)
- United States of Asian America, San Francisco, CA (2017)

Parallel adele

HD Color Short Documentary - Running time: 16 min (2008)
Two half Vietnamese documentary filmmakers, both named Adele, weave a shared narrative of mixed Asian (hapa) experiences through interviews with 7 other mixed race subjects. History, memory, and anecdotes on multiracial ethnicity are represented through archival images, super 8 film, verité, and interview.
Parallel Adele has screened at 13 festivals, including the SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival, Wesleyan, NYU, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. It is distributed by Third World Newsreel.

Producer/Editing Advisor: I. Adele Ray
​Director/Editor: Adele Free Pham

EL PASO VIETNAM

16mm b&w Short Documentary - Running time: 10 min. (2003)
In Texas during the Vietnam War, a smart, sassy, Vietnamese language teacher meets her future husband before he leaves for her hometown, Saigon, as told by her daughter through interviews, old photos, and archival footage.

Producer/Director/DP/Editor: I. Adele Ray

​Previous Screenings & Awards (2002-2015):
2015: “40 Years After” (Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Diaspora Vietnamese Artist Network, California College of the Arts)
2012: - Everynobody's Business: Experiments In Place, Home And Family (NYU) 
2010: - 3 Women: Short Films By Mixed-Race Vietnamese American Filmmakers, Reel Works (Brooklyn, NY)
- Techniques of the Observer Screening Series (Mumbai and Delhi, India) 2007:  - Immigration and Migration Series at Univ. Texas, Austin 2004:  - Vietnamese Diaspora Film Symposium College of Staten Island  - Northeast Historic Film Summer Film 
Symposium (Bucksport, Maine) ​- Slant: Bold Asian American Images, Aurora Picture Show (Houston, TX) - Chicago Asian American Showcase - Cinemasia Film Festival (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)  2003: "Asian North American Visual Culture and Racial Representation" (U. of   
Toronto) - Vietnamese International Film Festival (UCLA) - Asian Pacific American Film Festival at the Smithsonian (Washington, DC) - Hirshon Film Festival (NYC) - Rooftop Films (Brooklyn) - Visual Communications Asian Film Festival (Los Angeles) - San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
- Creatively Speaking Harlem Film Festival (New York, NY) 
2002: - Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival - New School Forum at the Backup Film Festival (Berlin, Germany) - San Diego Asian American Film Festival
Awards: “Best of Show Award" at the New School Invitational Student Film Festival - "Documentary Tribute Award" at Mixed Messages 
​

MAO'S RED BOOK

16mm Color Experimental Film - Running time: 5 min. (2009)
A lyrical reconstruction of a 16mm print from 1967, "CBS News Report: Red China Diary with Morley Safer". The film contains analog optical printing and non-camera film making techniques like scratching on film emulsion and drawing on clear film leader. The contemporary audio track juxtaposes notions of “revolution” in an American urban setting with the visual propaganda from Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China from the 1960’s. 
​
Director/Optical Printer/Editor: I. Adele Ray
Music by: DJ Shadow

Screened in 2010::
- "3Women: Short Films by Mixed-Race Vietnamese-American Brooklyn-based Filmmakers" at Reel Works
- "Strange Things" at The New School

JERSEY DYKE

HD Short Comedy - Running time: 11 min ​(2007) ​
 Screenings:
- 2008 North Carolina International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 
​- ​27th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival​
- Funny or Die (more "funny" votes then "die" votes)
​​Debbie Gibson is her idol, hulahoops are her passion, and New York City is in her horizon---Gem, the totally outrageous Jersey Dyke, knows no boundaries! Inspired by John Waters and very bad lesbian romance films, star-crossed Catholic-school-girl lesbian lovers are torn apart by family pressures. Marcy, the ingénue, backs down from her true love, Gem, in fear of her mother's wrath. Gem, the film's hero, escapes the social pressure to be 'straight' in Jersey by running away to the Big Apple where she hopes to pursue her dream of becoming a professional hula-hooper.

Director/Producer/Writer/Editor: I. Adele Ray
Co-Writer / Actor: Teale Failla
DP: Marshall Rose
AD: Nicholas Whitaker
Associate Producer: Mike Turney