Six Must-See Bay Area Documentaries at CAAMFest 2026

The 44th CAAMFest kicks off May 7–10 in San Francisco’s Japantown, just as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month gets underway. At a time when Asian actors made up only 3.7% of lead roles in the top theatrical films of 2025, this film festival paints a far more holistic portrait of Asian American storytelling.

CAAM, the Center for Asian American Media, is a nonprofit organization that funds, distributes and spotlights the works of Asian American filmmakers. This year, in addition to national and international titles, the festival has an especially strong selection of documentaries showcasing Bay Area stories.

These films explore our famously multicultural culinary scene, the rise of Silicon Valley Indian tech entrepreneurship, and the San Francisco Giants’ immense popularity in Japan, among other subjects. Here’s your guide to six very Bay Area documentaries:

‘Meals That Made Us’

May 8, 5:30 p.m.
AMC Kabuki

Did you know there’s a Filipino restaurant in Oakland that doubles as a speakeasy mahjong den? What about the Sikh temple in Sunnyvale run by volunteer tech workers that delivers meals to unhoused communities?

Meals That Made Us, a new digital series directed by Nisha Balaram, explores how the Bay Area’s vibrant culinary landscape came to be. Episodes include ones on local foraging and crabbing, and the birth of modernized traditional cuisines by a new generation of tastemakers. Balaram demonstrates that food is more than simply nourishment for AAPI communities — it’s a form of language that breaks down borders.

In the series, Balaram interviews a plethora of restaurant owners, chefs, writers and social media personalities (including KQED Arts & Culture’s own Luke Tsai) who discuss the history of Asian immigration in the Bay Area and the evolution of their beloved heritage cuisines.

This screening will be followed by a live Q&A with the director and featured guests from the documentary.

‘About Face: Disrupting Ballet’

May 9, 11 a.m.
AMC Kabuki

“It’s true that one of the first acts of tyrants is to erase history, to wipe out the recorded history of a people.”

Can you guess where this quote is from?

If you somehow managed to guess that it’s one of the countless online hate comments made against Phil Chan, resident choreographer at the Oakland Ballet Company, in response to his mission to modify racist Asian caricatures in ballet, then you are correct.

Why does simply wanting to make an art form more inclusive incite accusations of tyranny? How can we address issues of orientalism and exoticization while preserving the artistry of ballet? These are the questions Jennifer Lin explores in her documentary, About Face: Disrupting Ballet.

The film follows Chan and his longtime friend, Georgina Pazcoguin, who was the first female AAPI soloist at the New York City Ballet. The pair demonstrates that advocacy is about neither canceling classics nor erasing history, but about nurturing a more diverse future for the art form.

‘The Dao of Thao’

May 9, 3 p.m.
AMC Kabuki

Thao Nguyen’s life story is full of idiosyncrasies and surprises. The Bay Area theater performer and former artistic director of San Francisco’s Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center is the daughter of Vietnamese war refugees. She’s also a queer woman who partnered with a cis white man, with whom she’s now raising their mixed-race son, all while pursuing a PhD at Stanford.

In Khai Thu Nguyen’s documentary The Dao of Thao, produced by W. Kamau Bell, our loveable protagonist prepares for her next comedy show, which explores her intersecting Asian American and queer identities amid new motherhood.

What does potty training have to do with institutional racism? Khai Thu Nguyen shows an artist navigating not only her personal life experiences, but also structural inequality, and doing it all through humorous yet humanistic on-stage storytelling.

‘Breaking the Code’

May 9, 5 p.m.
AMC Kabuki

The phrase “Silicon Valley Indian Mafia” may sound familiar to anyone with proximity to the Bay Area tech scene. In Breaking the Code, director Ben Rekhi documents the history of the mafia’s undisputed godfather, Kanwal Rekhi — who also happens to be his actual father.

The public knows Kanwal Rekhi as the co-founder of Excelan and IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), and, most notably, as the first Indian American founder and CEO to take a venture-backed company public on NASDAQ in 1987.

But his private life tells the story of the son of an army general from India. Born with a stutter and ostracized from his family, he immigrates to America in search of a new life, only to face racial discrimination. The film is not just about a tech pioneer’s remarkable rise to success, but also an intimate portrait of family and sacrifice along the road to greatness in the entrepreneurial world.

‘Diamond Diplomacy’

May 10, 2 p.m.
AMC Kabuki

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy Yuriko Gamo Romer’s Diamond Diplomacy, a film chronicling the fascinating, century-long role the sport has played in strengthening diplomatic ties between America and Japan, even amid war. And in the center of that diplomacy is San Francisco.

It’s said that San Francisco Seals player Lefty O’Doul’s popularity in Japan may have briefly forestalled the heights of World War II. Beginning in 1964, when Masanori “Mashi” Murakami was recruited to play for the San Francisco Giants, cultural exchange between the two countries became literal: American players began signing with Japanese teams, and Japanese players with American teams.

The 2025 runner-up at the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, Diamond Diplomacy presents a compelling history of baseball as a vehicle for community that transcends borders and time.

‘The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook’

May 10, 4:15 p.m.
AMC Kabuki

When the government fails to protect its people during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the Auntie Sewing Squad (ASS) steps up!

Directed by San Francisco State University ethnic studies professor Valerie Soe, The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook tells the story of how a Facebook group blossomed into a mutual aid movement made up of BIPOC, queer “aunties.” During the pandemic, performance artist Kristina Wong started a small volunteer group to sew masks for hospitals and MUNI workers; it quickly grew into a network of thousands distributing masks and resources to vulnerable people, from rural farmers to Indigenous communities.

Humorous and uplifting, The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook is a testament to the power of solidarity and radical care in times of political strife.