‘Great Wall’ film by Guam son, up for a James Beard Media award

A former Guam resident and 2013 graduate of Harvest Christian Academy is making waves as a director. 

His first film is a 21-minute documentary on a determined Chinese-American businesswoman following her dreams in South Carolina.

The passion project is now one of three features up for the coveted James Beard Media award. 

Residing in Greenville, South Carolina for over a decade, Rioin Oshiro currently runs an undercurrent film company, a dream that started with a Go Pro and YouTube University, learning everything he possibly could.

“I just loved the idea of capturing things through video. I had a buddy who'd capture like summer highlights and stuff, and I thought it was really cool. I got my hands on one, started doing it, I loved it and there was something about it that i always wanted to fall back to,” said Oshiro. “There was something special about this.” 

He was filming anything and everything, creating mini stories from family vacations  to day trips with friends and compiling an archive of his life that he could eventually share with his two kids when they get older.

His first big film ‘Great Wall’ was not only the first piece he was able to put the undercurrent film company stamp on, it was nominated for the James Beard Media award. 

The film focuses on one of Khailing Neoh’s journey to open a downtown Greenville restaurant Sum Bar. 

Oshiro met Neoh eating dinner at a friend’s house and was drawn to her story of exiting a career in engineering to bring dim sum to Greenville.

“With her in this point of her path and mine similar, just different worlds, I asked her, would you be interested in making more like a brand story kind of centered around the restaurant and using it as a commercial piece for the restaurant, and she said yes,” he said. 

For Oshiro, he has always been drawn to food and he looks back on it and credits his cultural upbringing on how food can bring people together.

“We started to pitch the idea...thinking about it, and sitting on it, how I wanted it to be more than  a surface level brand piece–I wanted it to have more meaning and depth to it,” he said. “She was very vulnerable. Very transparent in her story.” 

The nomination is in the category Visual Media-Sdhort Form, part the James Beard Foundation’s Broadcast Media awards. 

It recognizes “excellence in a food-related video production broadcast, streamed, accessed online, or through an app, up to 30 minutes in length.”

“One of the nominees is a CBS Sunday Morning Special..feeling like a small fish in a big ocean. I'm surprised but not surprised because I have been impacted by Khailing's story and I know there are others like her who resonate with her story and others like her who are waiting for someone to tell their story,” said Oshiro. 

 Where does the passion to tell Khailing's story come from?

“Food is central to a lot of these stories. The power without having to over-romanticize it, the power of food and what it can do…Its cool you just never know what comes out of that if you're not in that position to sit in a world that's just so fast paced...to sit, and just to listen and to learn from someone's story,” he said. 

The winner will be announced June 8 but Oshiro wanted to close with this.

“I’m very thankful for my upbringing. Very thankful for my cultural background and how it shaped me and how it's still shaping me. It's all thanks to my family, my friends, the island spirit, and ultimately I want to give glory to God,” he said.