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 It  all began in 2019 with a casual lunch at the local Turkish restaurant  when Aby Rao, Clodagh Lyons-Bastian and Scott Phillips got together to  discuss films about immigration and refugees. Little did they realize  they would embark on a journey called Home Is Distant Shores. The film  festival amplifies refugee and immigrant experiences through art to  increase awareness and compassion. The next HIDS festival on May 9, 2026  will be in Cary. 

Learn more online: 

https://www.homeisdistantshores.com/ 

Started  in the 1990s, NAI serves refugees and immigrants with wraparound  services all under 1 roof. Clients take classes for Citizenship, Driver's Education, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL),  access case management, receive health navigation support, and build  support relationships that ease the trauma of forced migration. Clients  also have access to a preschool for ages 3-5, a school navigation  (Refugee School Impact) and youth mentorship programs for ages 5-18, as  well as a community garden. NAI's next community event will be their  annual Gala in 2026. 

PAVE NC (Pan Asian Voices and Experiences N.C.) is a nonpartisan, volunteer-run  initiative to share the stories and experiences of Asian American and  Pacific Islander peoples (AAPIs) in N.C., while also providing a  platform to connect AAPI communities so that they may collaborate with  and support each other. 

 “A Journey Through Angel Island” is the latest video I’ve made to shine a  light on this National Historic Landmark. Built in 1910 to enforce the  Chinese Exclusion Act, the only time in American history that a group  was singled out and barred from coming to the United States, illustrates  the complexity of our immigration policies. As a descendant of Angel  Island Immigration Station detainees, I’m deeply committed to  enlightening viewers about its significance. 

 At the age of 13, Nyasha left her home in Zimbabwe and came to South  Africa as an illegal immigrant. The film follows her seven years later  in her new, temporary home, the border town of Musina. Here, the strong  woman struggles to find her place between the past and the future,  between her dream of running her own beauty salon and the hardships of  everyday life. And over and over again, she fights to be seen not as a  migrant, but as a human being. 

 Sherpa of Queens follows Serap Jangbu and recalls his life from his home  country of Nepal compared to his current life in New York City. 

 Ma's Kitchen is a semi-autobiographical short film (which will become a  feature film) about Debbie Vu, her mother, their language barrier and  straddling between two very different cultures, Vietnamese and American. 

 Like migratory birds, these kids cross borders facing adverse situations  in search of better living conditions. From a shelter in northern  Mexico, the voices of boys and girls show that dreams survive despite  the uprooting and hostility of the trip. 

 Unfortunate circumstances in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 forced  several people to leave their beloved country. Sachi Dely, an artist  based out of Greensboro, NC, experienced something similar two decades  ago in Vietnam. Through this visual poem, Sachi renders advice to new  refugees to rekindle hope and faith. 

 FRANK treks back home to his parents after recently being laid off with  his young daughter KASS in tow. With their lives packed in a pickup  truck, they drive across the California desert, hoping to make it to  their destination in one piece. 

 An intimate portrait of a sweet shop that has been an anchor for the  Japanese-American community in Little Tokyo since 1903. The ingredients  of the brightly-colored pieces of mochi-gashi that line Fugetsu-Do's  wood-paneled cases include so much more than rice flour and sweet bean  paste. Mixed inside are stories of joy and pain, tradition and racism,  legacy and loss. Survival is never easy; it’s complicated and messy,  full of contradictions and surprises. In the three generations that the  Kito Family has been running Fugetsu-Do, the store has become a memory  bank for the community and the stories that line its walls could not be  more relevant in today's America. 

 Apolitical mom finds her voice: Lakshmi urges South Asians to shape their children’s and local future. 

 A grieving Islamic Sunday school teacher begins to question his reality when the stories he teaches follow him home.