Check out the official trailer for Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story, an intimate documentary portrait of the late award-winning photographer who documented the celebrations, struggles and daily lives of Asian American and Pacific Islanders, assembling an astonishing archive of nearly one million images. Lee died in 2021 at the age of 73 due to COVID.

Release Date

Directed by Jennifer Takaki, Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story world premiered at DOC NYC and will be released theatrically in New York (DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema) on April 19 and in Los Angeles (Laemmle Glendale) on April 26 with a regional expansion to follow.

Synopsis

For 50 years, Chinese American photographer Corky Lee documented the celebrations, struggles, and daily lives of Asian American Pacific Islanders with epic focus. Determined to push mainstream media to include AAPI culture in the visual record of American history, Lee produced an astonishing archive of nearly a million compelling photographs. His work takes on new urgency with the alarming rise in anti-Asian attacks during the Covid pandemic.

Director Jennifer Takaki followed Corky Lee for nearly 20 years, documenting triumphs and tragedy. Her intimate portrait reveals the man behind the lens.

Corky Lee was born in 1947 in New York to Chinese immigrants who owned a laundry in Queens. He majored in history at Queens College and became a community organizer in Manhattan’s Chinatown in the 1970s. Over the next five decades he photographed countless protests and cultural events in the Asian American Pacific Islander community. Lee’s photographs documented the birth and growth of the Asian American movement for social justice and he became known as “The Undisputed, Unofficial, Asian American Photographer Laureate.” His death in 2021 at the age of 73 due to Covid was mourned in the press worldwide.

Official Trailer

Watch the official trailer for Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story