Filmmaker's Focus on Gay and Lesbian Asians Wins Coveted Award

Gay people are not just white people.

That was the premise behind Richard Fung's hour-long documentary, Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians, which is being honored next week with an award from the Center for LGBTQ Studies in New York City.

Released in 1985, Orientations explored Asian-Canadian gay and lesbian communities that existed only underground in the 1980s as a minority within a minority.

Fourteen Asian lesbians and gay men shared their experiences of coming out, racism, activism and cultural expression in the film, and now Fung has been invited to show it to a new audience, 30 years later, and offer a lecture on both his film and his work, which NBC News hailed for showcasing issues from "racial identities to sexuality, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS to immigration, and how those topics have defined LGBTQ and social movements through time."

The Kessler award, to be given to Fung next Wednesday at the Graduate Center at City University of New York's Elebash Hall, is given annually to "a scholar who has, over a number of years, produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies," according to the Center for LGBTQ Studies.