Mar Elepaño
American film director (1954–2025)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mariano "Mar" Elepaño (1954–2025) was a Filipino American independent filmmaker, teacher, and the production supervisor of the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts, USC School of Cinematic Arts.[1]
Mar Elepaño | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mariano Elepano 1954 Philippines |
| Died | 2025 (aged 70–71) |
| Education | USC School of Cinematic Arts |
Elepaño was born and raised in the Philippines. He came to the United States to study film at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1975.[1] He joined the faculty at USC in 1993.[1]
Some of his short works of experimental animation (Lion Dance, Pendito, Winter, Burp, and Take 5)[2] were screened at the Asian American International Film Festival, New York, New York July 27, 1989 and at Filmex: Los Angeles International Film Exposition (Short Film) March 14–30, 1979.[3][4] In addition, Winter was screened at the Contemporary Animation from Los Angeles Artists Festival in 2006.[5] Rolando B. Tolentino in Animation in Asia and the Pacific described Elepano as "the prime [Filipino] mover of computer animation" in the United States (p. 177).[6]
Elepaño was a Fulbright Scholar in 2001. In 2007, he received a "California Council for the Humanities Grant Award to the Khmer Girls in Action (KGA)" which helped "teenage Cambodian American girls in the Long Beach [...] develop digital narratives about their identity and their connection or disconnection to their parents' generation."[7][8]
Awards
- 2007 California Council for the Humanities Grant Award [7]
- 2003 Steve Tatsukawa Memorial Fund Award [9]
- 2002 USC School of Cinematic Arts Staff Achievement Award [9]
- 2001 Fulbright Award (Malaysia)[10]
Publications
- Labtalk in Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts, edited by Russell Leong. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 1992.[11]
References
- John A. Lent, ed. Animation in Asia and the Pacific, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001.
- Tolento, Rolando B. "Identity and Difference in Filipino/A American Media Arts." In Screening Asian Americans edited by Peter X. Feng. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.