By Jana Monji, AsAmNews Arts & Culture Writer
Mid-pandemic doesn’t seem like a time filled with golden opportunities, but Gold House decided that with the momentum of The Farewell, Crazy Rich Asians, and Oscar Best Picture winner Parasite, 2021 is the right time to start a Gold List. This isn’t a list for the naughty and nice, but the kind that you should check out more than twice. It’s a list to honor the most outstanding Asian Pacific Islander achievements in film each year.
Minari wins Best Picture (shared with Sound of Metal), Best Director for Lee Isaac Chung (shared with Chloe Zhao for Nomadland), Best Actor for Steven Yeun (shared with Riz Ahmed for Sound of Metal), Best Actress for Yeri Han (shared with Leah Lewis for The Half of It), Best Supporting Actor for Alan Kim (shared with Orion Lee for First Cow), Best Supporting Actress for Yuh-Jung Youn (shared with Phillipa Soo for Hamilton) and Best Original Screenplay for Lee Isaac Chung (shared with Alice Wu for The Half of It). Sound of Metal received two nods (Best Actor and Best Picture) as did Nomadland (Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay).
Gold House is a nonprofit collective of Asian founders, creative voices and leaders hoping to unify the world’s largest populace–Asians and Pacific Islanders–to enable more authentic multicultural representation.
Who are the Gold List voters and and how many are there? They are more secretive than the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who number about 90. According to Larisa Jiao, communications fellow at Gold House, the Gold List team has “decided to keep that number internal now.”
The inaugural Gold List has ten categories and is voted on by the Gold Open Advisory Council, Gold House Members (the premier nonprofit collective of leading API creatives, executives, and founders), CAPE Board Members and Advisors (the premier API-entertainment nonprofit), and other entertainment leaders.
Gold Open Advisory Council, which decides which films Gold Open will support, include people like Abhijay Prakash (President, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group), Asad Ayaz (President of Marketing, Walt Disney Studios), Franklin Leonard (Founder, The Black List), Janice Min (Contributing Editor, TIME), Janet Yang (Officer & Board Governor, AMPAS) and Kim Yutani (Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival).
CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) works to change representation in Hollywood through nurturing and engaging creative talent and executive leadership, providing content and cultural consulting, and championing projects for critical box office and streaming success.
On the criteria and voting process, Jiao wrote in an email:
To be eligible, the nominee (i.e., director, producer, screenwriter, actor, or actress) must be of Asian or Pacific Islander (API) descent and can only be nominated for their achievements in the film industry within the qualifying time period specified by major film awards each year. For the Best Picture and Best Animated Feature categories, the film must also contain at least one authentically-portrayed API leading actor or actress.
The Gold List is determined by weighing the combination of number of votes received by eligible voters; number of major awards already won by Gold List nominees for their achievements in the qualifying year; and number of times recognized as a frontrunner by top critics and leading entertainment press outlets in the qualifying year.
Gold House is a collective of “pioneering Asian founders, creative voices and leaders dedicated to forging stronger bonds that enable the Asian diaspora to unlock more authentic, more successful and longer lives for all” according to the Tumblr website for Gold House chairman and co-founder, Bing Chen.
Catching up with Chen for a phone interview found him getting acquainted with New York. The former Global Head of Creator Development and Management for YouTube is used to moving around. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee where he learned an appreciation for $11.99 buffets, Chen also spent time in Shanghai and Orange County while growing up. “The trick to buffets,” he explained with a laugh, “is, you have to get one of everything from every station. The more you mix-and-match the better buffet-er you are.” Chen’s favorite Los Angeles buffet, LA Hometown Buffet in Burbank, has closed.
As a globe trotter who confesses that “going to New York in the middle of winter or the middle of a pandemic” one has to be “either a genius or an absolute moron,” Chen explained that despite the distribution of the vaccine in progress, he remains “very skeptical that we’re going to be back in the offices this year.”
His late father was a financier and his mother, a retired accountant turned housewife, spoke Mandarin at home. Chen feels they are the American success story, one that he continues and means to pay-forward with the Gold House.
“We wanted to make sure more Asian films, filmmakers and talent receive the critical acclaim they deserve particularly during the awards season,” he said. The Gold House has “long been champions of Asian films” through things like financing and distribution. Recognizing achievements with the Gold List is like “the last leg” of their promotional plans. Two things worked as catalysts. The first was when “Minari was relegated to the best foreign picture” in the Golden Globes and thus, eliminated from the best picture competition. Chen cites “the inconsistent employment of the foreign language rule” in comparison with Inglorious Basterds where over 50 percent of the film was in a foreign language.
Secondly, Chen noted the disparity with the Parasite Oscar win, where none of the actors were nominated for performance Oscars.
Looking at the list, you might wonder just what Gold House and the Gold List mean by Asia. Chen remarked, “Asian equals Asia.” That means Armena and Saudi Arabia are included. . (An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Riz Ahmed as Egyptian. He is British Pakistinani.)
Chen said voters are required to see all the films and that future Gold Lists will include additional categories and communities.
Today’s launch includes ten exclusive interviews. The winners on the Gold List are:
Best Picture
Minari and Sound of Metal
Honorable Mentions: The Half of It, The White Tiger, Yellow Rose
Best Director
Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) and Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Honorable Mentions: Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger), Diane Paragas (Yellow Rose), Alice Wu (The Half of It), Alan Yang (Tigertail)
Best Actor
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) and Steven Yeun (Minari)
Honorable Mentions: Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger), Dev Patel (The Personal History of David Copperfield), Harry Shum Jr. (All My Life)
Best Actress
Yeri Han (Minari) and Leah Lewis (The Half of It)
Honorable Mentions: Hong Chau (Driveways), Tsai Chin (Lucky Grandma), Eva Noblezada (Yellow Rose)
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Kim (Minari) and Orion Lee (First Cow)
Honorable Mentions: Lucas Jaye (Driveways), Tzi Ma (Mulan), Rajkummar Rao (The White Tiger)
Best Supporting Actress
Phillipa Soo (Hamilton) and Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)
Honorable Mentions: Priyanka Chopra Jonas (The White Tiger), Gong Li (Mulan), Lea Salonga (Yellow Rose)
Best Original Screenplay
Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) and Alice Wu (The Half of it)
Honorable Mentions: Mong-Hong Chung and Yao-Sheng Chang (
A Sun), Diane Paragas (Yellow Rose), Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca), Alan Yang (Tigertail)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger) and Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Best Documentary Feature
Honorable Mentions: 76 Days, The Donut King, The Social Dilemma
Best Animated Feature
Bombay Rose and Over the Moon
Honorable Mentions: Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, On-Gaku: Our Sound, A Whisker Away
Gold House and CAPE have included exclusive conversations with several of their stars and filmmakers, including:
- All My Life (Harry Shum Jr.)
- Be Water (Bao Nguyen, Shannon Lee, W. Kamau Bell, Jeff Chang)
- The Donut King (coming soon) (Alice Gu)
- Lingua Franca (Isabel Sandoval)
- Minari (Lee Isaac Chung, Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Alan Kim, Yuh-Jung Youn, Noel Cho)
- Mulan (Niki Caro, Yifei Liu, Yoson An, Jason Scott Lee, Tzi Ma, Rosalind Chao, Ron Yuan, Xana Tang)
- Over the Moon (Cathy Ang, Janet Yang, Peilin Chou, Gennie Rim)
- Sound of Metal (coming soon) (Riz Ahmed)
- The White Tiger (Adarsh Gourav, Ramin Bahrani)
- Yellow Rose (Diane Paragas, Eva Noblezada, Lea Salonga, Princess Punzalan)
These panels, along with more information about Gold List, can be found at goldopen.com/goldlist.
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