| Gene Cajayon |
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Gene Cajayon (born circa 1972) is a Filipino American Writer and Film Director . He directed the Independent Film '' The Debut '', the first American Theatrical movie featuring a predominantly Filipino American cast and storyline. Cajayon was born in Saigon, Vietnam to a Filipino father and French Vietnamese mother, during the Vietnam War . The family immigrated to the United States and settled in Garden Grove, California , a predominantly White community. Cajayon grew up Assimilating into the culture, and at the same time experienced racism due to being "brown." He took a Filipino American history class at UCLA , where he learned about his heritage and realized the stereotypes of Asian Americans in Hollywood films. He attended film school at Loyola Marymount University . Cajayon's senior thesis project was a 10-minute short film (called ''The Debut'') that documented a Filipino American teenage boy trying to go to Cal Arts against his father's wish for him to go to UCLA, who thinks he is foolish, irresponsible, and shedding his family's culture. Cajayon showed the short film to potential investors to help finance a full-length feature based on the short film, to show on the big screen the young Filipino American experience contrasted with the traditional culture of their parents. He ended up using a Grassroots movement at all levels – financing, casting, individual distribution to theaters and promotion – that resulted in almost ten years from conception to theatrical release. According to a featurette on ''The Debut'' DVD, his difficulty stemmed from convincing Asian American investors of an older generation to the seemingly unflattering portrayal of young Fil-Ams as poor and African American Culture -driven to an (anticipated) white audience. Much of the financing was achieved through small donations by working-class Fil-Ams. EXTERNAL LINKS
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