Filmmaker Sokly Ny, A.K.A Don Bonus | Photo © Center for Asian American Media

A.K.A. Don Bonus
Aired on NPR’s “All Things Considered”
By Heidi Chang

In the late 1970s, more than a million Cambodians were killed under the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge. One of the refugees who escaped is now living in San Francisco, where he goes by the name of Don Bonus. And when he was a teenager, he was given a video camera to document his life in America.

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Don Bonus and his family end up settling in San Francisco, where his family is harassed in the housing projects. During his senior year in high school, Bonus changed his name from Sokly Ny to Don Bonus to become Americanized and also because his classmates were making fun of his Cambodian name.

Filmmakers Don Bonus and Spencer Nakasako | Photo © CAAM

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Bonus shot more than 70 hours of videotape of his family, friends, and sometimes himself, talking candidly into the camera. His one-hour documentary called “A.K.A. Don Bonus” was edited down with the help of San Francisco filmmaker Spencer Nakasako.

In this story, filmmaker Wayne Wang also explains how he came up with the idea for making the video diary.

“A.K.A. Don Bonus” won a Golden Gate award at the 1995 San Francisco International Film Festival. The film made its television premiere on the PBS series “P.O.V.” in 1996.

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Filmmaker Spencer Nakasako won a National Emmy Award for “A.K.A. Don Bonus