ECLIPSE challenges the idea that a 360-degree perspective, found in a medium like VR, can be allseeing and omniscient. The subject’s movement and presence reveal the limits of the camera and its resulting expressive possibilities. Like an eclipse where the sun, moon, and earth come into alignment, this work presents the interplay of camera, subject, and audience.


Masami Kawai is a Los Angeles-born filmmaker, who divides her time between Oregon and LA. She received her BA from Hampshire College, where she focused on Visual Arts, Radical Pedagogy, and Post-Colonial Studies. For her thesis, she made an experimental documentary about trying to convince her mom, who worked in a restaurant kitchen, to become a union organizer. After graduation, she devoted herself to community organizing before pursuing filmmaking again. In 2013, she received her MFA in Directing from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. She currently works as a cinema instructor at the University of Oregon. Kawai participated in Film Independent’s diversity program, Project Involve. She was a selected director in the Francis Ford Coppola One-Act play series. She also received a fellowship from LA’s Visual Communications, which supports emerging Asian American filmmakers. Her work has screened at various venues, including the Rotterdam Film Festival, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, Portland International Film Festival, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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