Media for social change

Homepage address: www.hapanimation.com

Interests: Racial Justice

Biography: Jeff Chiba Stearns is an award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, born in Kelowna, BC, of Japanese and European heritage. His film work incorporates various techniques - animation, documentary, and experimental. In 2001, he founded Meditating Bunny Studio. His short animated films have screened at film festivals around the world and have been broadcast in Canada by the CBC. In 2005, he completed the award-winning classically animated film, “What Are You Anyways?” The film is an exploration of his life growing up half-Japanese and half-Caucasian in a small Canadian town, and how he dealt with being typecast as a minority and overcame his struggle for self-identity. After creating “What Are You Anyways?” the first animated film that explores Hapa issues, he has become an international spokesperson for mixed-race advocacy. The film has screened at over 40 international film festivals and won 7 awards including the award for Best Animated Short Subject at the Canadian Awards for Electronic and Animated Arts. Currently he is working on a documentary entitled, One Big Hapa Family. He has also written articles for national publications and lectured around the world at conferences and universities about mixed-race identity, cultural awareness, animation process, and Hapa issues. His latest award-winning film, Yellow Sticky Notes, was animated with just a black pen on over 2300 sticky notes and is currently traveling on the international film festival circuit. On top of filmmaking, he is also the classical animation instructor at the Center of Arts and Technology Kelowna and the Vice President of the Okanagan Film Festival.

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