From capturing defining moments in Guam history… to now being featured on an international stage… Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Manny Crisostomo is set to appear in HBO's new original documentary "The A List: 15 Stories From Asian and Pacific Diasporas."

The film highlights influential voices across Asian and Pacific communities — and for Crisostomo, it's an opportunity to showcase the stories, culture, and resilience of the CHamoru people to a global audience.

For decades, Manny Crisostomo has told stories through a camera lens. Capturing CHamoru culture, identity, and community. But this time — the storyteller became the story.

He told KUAM News, "As you know, I prefer to be on the other side of the camera and I prefer to be telling the story instead of being the story, but I just viewed it as an opportunity to have this larger megaphone, this larger platform to talk about the thing that is important to me — which is our people, the CHamoru people, the indigenous people of Guam and the Marianas."

Crisostomo is one of 15 individuals featured in HBO's new documentary "The A List: 15 Stories From Asian and Pacific Diasporas" - a film that moves beyond broad labels to tell personal stories of identity, culture, and belonging.

And for Crisostomo, it all started with an email he thought was too good to be true. "First of all they sent me a really nice letter, and I was thinking who is messing with me? Who is punking me with this letter?" he said. "I'm familiar with the producer and executive producer… asking me to be part of this. This was almost two years ago."

He eventually flew to New York for a three-hour interview — one that would be edited down to just a few minutes of film. But in that short time he made sure the heart of the Chamoru people was front and center.

"A lot of it was just my anecdotal experience photographing Chamorus, and what I feel in my heart. Talked about mahalang. I tried to explain to them what mahalang meant. That there is this longing, this deep longing, as Chamorus that we have. The only way to mitigate the mahalang, the only way to mitigate the longing, is to develop a sense of belonging," he said.

For Crisostomo, that belonging has always been found through community — whether on Guam or thousands of miles away. "If I can't be on Guam, I'm all over the country going to CHamoru events, CHamoru festivals, I kind of find my peoples," he said.

He also used the interview to explain one of the most important CHamoru values — inafa'maolek. Crisostomo recalling how he gifted the director one of his personal shirts after the interview.

He recalled, "I said dude, I just spent three hours trying to explain what Chamoru inafa'maolek is — it's this giving, it's this sharing, it's the support."Im giving you a shirt that cost $30 to make, but invariably your gonna edit, and put CHamoru people throughout a worldwide distribution take the shirt, it's okay. He was like oh I can pay you. I was like no- that's inafamaolek. Its reciprocal trade even though I'm getting the better end of the deal. He wants my shirt ill give him my shirt. He wants my shirt, I'll give him my shirt."

While the documentary puts him in the spotlight, Crisostomo says the mission has never changed. "I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing regardless of this documentary...there will be more awareness. People will understand who we are, talking about our culture — inafa'maolek, chenchule', costumbre CHamoru."

And above all else, he says it's critical that CHamorus control their own narrative. "It's really important to me that we tell our story," he said. "Not someone from the outside telling everybody else what the CHamorus are like."

"It's an amazing platform, to tell the world who we are. I hope I do a good job. I hope I don't embarrass myself."

And for the next generation of CHamoru artists and storytellers, he hopes this moment shows them what's possible. "I hope they are inspired by it," he said.

"The A List: 15 Stories From Asian and Pacific Diasporas" premieres May 14 on HBO Max.