LOCAL
ALL IN THE FAMILY Spokane-raised filmmaker Champ Ensminger revisits his Thai roots through the eyes of his grandmother in his new short film BY CHASE HUTCHINSON
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ust after filmmaker Champ Ensminger showed his award-winning short documentary Yai Nin in Spokane 16 months ago, the world descended into COVID chaos. And his former hometown became the last place the dedicated director and editor got to share in person his intimate look at his connection to family in Thailand, seen through the eyes of his grandmother, Ninlawan Pinyo. “We showed it last year at the Spokane International Film Festival,” Ensminger says. “It was special to actually have it screen for that. Our premiere was at the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, and then a week later it was Spokane, and then that was it.” Though “that was it” for in-person screenings and festivals, the short still caught people’s attention. It was named Best Documentary Short at the 2020 Seattle Asian American Film Festival and the Local Sightings Film Festival. The “Yai” of the title means Ensminger’s grandmother on his mother’s side and the “Nin” is a shortened version of her name, Ninlawan. Yai Nin follows the
businesswoman and family matriarch as she oversees the making of naem (pork sausage) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Ensminger’s grandmother has lived above the sausage factory her entire life and used her business to help support her family’s move to America to start a new life. The short, now available to watch on Vimeo, is one Ensminger still hopes to show in Spokane again, perhaps at one of his favorite places to see movies, the Garland Theater where he used to go to see midnight screenings, or at an outdoor screening at The Shop. He just wants to be able to have the film connect with the community where he grew up. “Immigrant families in Spokane aren’t used to seeing themselves on camera,” Ensminger says. “The film also goes out to people living in Spokane coming from different backgrounds — immigrant or BIPOC families that take pride in where they are coming from.”
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nsminger was born in Chiang Mai and raised in Spokane. He went to Ferris High School, class of 2007, before attending the University of Washing-
ton, where he got a degree in film studies and anthropology. He now works in Seattle as a part of the production team at World Famous on Capitol Hill. His experience growing up in Spokane as a firstgeneration American living far from his birthplace is one that deeply affected him when he got the opportunity to reconnect with his grandmother, who he only truly got to know upon returning to Thailand as an adult. “The trend for a lot of immigrant families and Americans who are existing as a diaspora of another culture, they have a hard time really keeping a hold on their native culture that they’re coming from,” Ensminger says. “I had very distant memories of being around them before I moved to the United States. I got to be reacquainted with my grandmother and all these people that live around her as an adult when I moved to Chiang Mai in 2013 and lived there for about two years.” Even as a child in Spokane, Ensminger says his family members maintained a connection to their history. ...continued on next page
JULY 22, 2021 INLANDER 33
