The Student Life Office welcomes filmmaker Eliaichi “Ellie” Kimaro to campus on Monday, Oct. 14  for a presentation in the R.H. Stephens Room at 1 p.m. The Seattle-based filmmaker is a first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When Ellie was older and in an interracial relationship of her own, she wanted to better understand this world her father had left behind at 18.  When her father moved back to Tanzania for good, Ellie followed him to make a film about this culture.  What Ellie discovered in Tanzania, in her family and in herself is the subject of her personal award-winning documentary, “A Lot Like You.”

As both a cultural insider and outsider, Ellie asked questions that most people who grew up on Mt. Kilimanjaro would never think to ask. Much to Ellie’s surprise, the stoic women in her family opened up, telling stories about trauma and survival. Ellie reconciled this culture she’s inherited with how she defines herself today as a woman, an activist and mother.  “A Lot Like You” was named Best Documentary at the 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. A portion of the net proceeds from the film will help fund the construction of a girls’ dormitory at the Vunjo Secondary School in the Kimaro family village of Mwika.