GREENVILLE — "Great Wall" was Rioin Oshiro's first feature film, and it turned out to be quite the debut. Over the weekend, Oshiro captured a prestigious James Beard Foundation media award — considered the Oscars of food-related recognition — for his short film " Great Wall ." The film follows Khailing Neoh's windy path from engineer to restaurant owner as she opened Greenville's only dim sum restaurant, Sum Bar.
Email Sign Up! It tracks her experience as a first generation Chinese American following in the footsteps of her parents, who were compelled to serve Americanized food in their restaurants in Ohio and didn't wish the grueling lifestyle upon her. "This is about someone who is wrestling with trying to honor her parents and understand how much they've sacrificed," Oshiro told The Post and Courier in May, "but at the same time following her dream of going back to the very thing that her parents were trying to prevent her from." On June 8, the 21-minute movie won the Visual Media-Short Form category of the media awards, defeating “CAMINANTE” video series by the La Mafia YouTube channel and “Remembrance: Recreating a Jewish family’s recipes” by CBS' "Sunday Morning.
" "Great Wall" was directed by Oshiro and co-produced by Neoh, along with Evan Rogers, a local filmmaker who recently organized a TEDxTalk at Unity Park and previously produced the movie " Spellers." Originally from Guam, Oshiro moved to Greenville to attend Bob Jones University, where he studied.