PROVOCATEUR: Fred Ho’s Legacy in a Time of Conformity

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Filmmaker Steven De Castro will screen his award-winning documentary film FRED HO’S LAST YEAR, now available for academic license.

What does it take for Asian American artists, mostly ignored, to make their mark? Controversial activist and avant garde composer Fred Ho, who passed away in April 2014, fought to overturn every field which he entered, striving to question their premises and holding others to the rise up to the principles they espoused. Although he adamantly promoted his arguments, he was well known for radically changing his position. He developed over many years unquestionable achievements of provocation in the fields of politics, Asian American identity, and music, with very little separation among the three. Always controversial, Fred’s music, writings, and example are an inspiration for friends and critics alike.

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Author Bio

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Steven De Castro is an award-winning filmmaker in the midst of several documentary projects. He is in postproduction with Heroes of the Philippines, a documentary on the Ampatuan Massacre, the greatest murder of journalists in human history. A few months ago he returned from West Africa where he filmed Blood Drum Spirit, a documentary where Massachusetts jazz musicians go to West Africa to discover the roots of African American music. He is in production for a documentary about the New People’s Army, an armed revolutionaries fighting in the Philippines. He currently is releasing Fred Ho’s Last Year, a feature film about an avante garde jazz composer and public intellectual who is dying of cancer. Aside from other commercial works, he produced and directed Newyorkustan, a series about the lives of Muslim New Yorkers. Before he was a filmmaker, De Castro was a trial lawyer and served as Human Rights Commissioner of Jersey City.