ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH

FASCINASIAN INDUSTRY PANEL:
Off the Beaten Filmmaker’s Path

Friday, May 15, 2026 @ 6:00PM

Landmark Cinemas 9 Edmonton City Centre
10200 102 Ave NW, Edmonton

FREE

Panelists: Joselito II De Los Angeles, Omar Mouallem, Anne Mueller
Moderator: Vicki Van Chau
Co-presented by: Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society
Co-sponsor: Alberta Media Production Industries Association

This free event is an open, candid industry conversation that centres non‑traditional routes into filmmaking: careers that began through community storytelling, self-funded projects, online platforms, adjacent creative industries, cultural work, activism, or learning-by-doing outside film school and legacy systems. This panel invites local filmmakers to share how they built momentum without waiting for permission—how they found collaborators, sustained themselves financially, navigated gatekeeping, and defined success on their own terms. Panelists will speak honestly about detours, setbacks, hybrid careers, and the creative strategies that helped them survive and thrive in an industry not designed with them in mind. Whether you’re emerging, mid-career, or redefining your relationship to film, this conversation aims to validate alternative journeys and spark new ideas for forging a path that reflects who you are, where you come from, and how you want to create.

Vicki Van Chau is a Chinese-Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker and cultural worker based in Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. She has produced and directed award-winning films that have screened across Canada and internationally. She is currently the Executive Director of the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society, where she advocates on behalf of the independent media arts sector in Alberta. In 2022, she received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and was inducted into Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40. In 2023, she received the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the arts & culture in Alberta.

Joselito II De Los Angeles is a professional musician and filmmaker, and co-founder of Intertwined Studios in Edmonton, Alberta. He has worked on Azure Dragon of the East, DOOM: The Dark Ages and the NHL Playoffs as DoP to name a few. You can catch him working on set as a DoP, stills photographer, or camera operator.

Omar Mouallem is an author and filmmaker. His feature-length debut, THE LEBANESE BURGER MAFIA (Paramount+), a first-person documentary about the unlikely link between a fast-food chain and Lebanon’s civil war, premiered at Hot Docs 2023 and won Audience Choice at NorthwestFest, as well as Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the Silk Road Film Festival. He has directed three CBC documentaries, including DIGGING IN THE DIRT, an investigation into suicides in the oil and gas industry, and MAKING KAYFABE, an absurdist biographical comedy about his brief stint as a pro wrestler. Omar also wrote How Muslims Shaped the Americas, named one of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 books of the year, and has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and many others. 

Anne Mueller is a Vietnamese-Canadian educator and award-winning filmmaker based in Edmonton, Alberta. Her early years of working in theatre productions and on film sets sparked a deep passion for storytelling. Anne majored in Dramatic Arts and earned a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta. 

Her directorial debut, Cooking with Kyssara (2021), ran for three seasons on TELUS Optik TV and earned numerous film festival accolades. Anne later wrote, directed, and produced the documentary The Artist: A Creative Journey, featuring Canadian singer-songwriter Tyler Shaw. The film was nominated for Best Documentary by the Hollywood North International Film Festival and screened in theatres both across Canada and internationally. 

Currently, Anne is developing FALLING IN ACTION, a documentary spotlighting Asian-Canadian stunt performers and the creation of safe training spaces. She is also directing Radical Joy – An Azimuth Love Letter, a documentary about the legacy and new productions from the Azimuth Theatre. 

In 2024, Anne founded Misty Forest Films, with the goal to create uplifting, vibrant, and thought-provoking cinema that amplifies underrepresented communities. (Photo: Stef of Cinema Captures)