14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Program Booklet

Transcript

Make your reservation at soutHern CaLiFornia’s preMier resort. We got you excited this summer with Dive and ‘ritas Cantina. You should know that there’s more. This December, reserve your space at our new event center. With banquet space for up to 1,000 people and concert seating up to 2,200, The Events Center will double as our event and concert venue. Experience our grand finale next Spring when we unveil our new 402-room Hotel Tower, upping our total room count to 1,065 luxurious rooms including 148 suites. For more info visit us at Harrahsrincon.com or join us on Facebook. Must be 21 or older to gamble. Know When to Stop Before You Start®. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Owned by the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians. Managed by HCAL, LLC. ©2013, Caesars License Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Welcome to the 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival, presented by Pacific Arts Movement. Ready for the ride? Our programming team has packed 140 films from 15 countries into 10 glorious days of rich storytelling, providing a cinematic journey around the world - all from the comfort of your seat. As we take your imagination to new heights, you will meet some of the world’s most exciting filmmakers. We also invite you to join in provocative conversations about globalization, immigration, the environment, and how love really does conquer all. From our opening night film, a blockbuster romantic comedy directed by Xue Xiaolu, FINDING MR. RIGHT, to Productions - who started their career at UCSD. And a special panel with our own former Marketing Director and Korean adoptee, Dan Matthews, on the remarkable discovery of his birth family and the role that media plays in sharing that story with the world. I am personally so proud of this Festival and the community it brings together. What we do is about more than just film. It’s about expanding minds and creating transformational experiences. This is our year-round mission and commitment at Pacific Arts Movement. And we certainly don’t do it alone. From our beloved members who financially support us year-round, to our corporate sponsors, community partners, board of directors, and volunteers - we thank you. To my amazing, rockstar staff - thank you for making the impossible possible. To my dear husband, Louis Song, words can never express how deeply moved I am by your support and love. Finally to you, our patron, we welcome you with open arms and hope you enjoy the journey! Carpe Diem, LETTER FROM executive director our gripping closing night film, DOCUMENTED directed by Jose Antonio Vargas, each film in this Festival was chosen thoughtfully and with purpose. Of course, we are always delighted to welcome returning filmmakers like UCSD Alumnus Byron Q (RASKAL LOVE), Grace Lee (AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS), J.P. Chan (A PICTURE OF YOU), and Jason DaSilva who is featured in our Centerpiece film, WHEN I WALK (do not forget your tissue!). LEE ANN KIM Plus, we have two more homecomings of note. First, the 10th anniversary of YouTube phenom - Wong Fu 6 Founder & Executive Director 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival TABLE OF CONTENTS About Pac-Arts................................................................................................................ 8 Schedule............................................................................................................................10 Ticketing............................................................................................................................14 Special Events................................................................................................................. 15 Venues................................................................................................................................16 Sponsors...........................................................................................................................20 Letter from Artistic Director..................................................................................... 25 Board of Directors........................................................................................................26 Chairman’s Letter.......................................................................................................... 27 Membership..................................................................................................................... 33 George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker....................................................................... 37 Festival Jury....................................................................................................................38 FILM PROGRAMS • • • • • • Special Presentations.........................................................................................39 Asian American Panorama............................................................................... 53 Asia Pop!.................................................................................................................83 Masters.................................................................................................................... 101 Discoveries..............................................................................................................111 Late Night..............................................................................................................127 Staff List......................................................................................................................... 162 Special Thanks............................................................................................................. 164 Film Index/Print Source List................................................................................... 166 Special Presentations pg. 39 Asian American Panorama pg. 53 Asia Pop! pg. 83 Masters pg. 101 Discoveries pg. 111 LateNight pg. 127 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 7 About Pacific Arts Movement Moving Pictures, Moving Minds photo by robert dahey Pacific Arts Movement (Pac-Arts) is one of the largest nonprofit media arts organizations in North America that focuses on Asian American and Asian international storytelling. Our mission is to create transformational experiences through the media arts. The purpose of our MOVEMENT is to transform hearts and minds, inspire innovators, and make visible new stories and traditions. We are committed to helping our community transcend borders and elevate conversations about the world we live in. 8 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival While best known for our San Diego Asian Film Festival, our robust, year-round programs also include: A weeklong Spring Showcase Membership Screenings & Film Forums Reel Voices for youth Drive-By Cinema spring showcase membership screenings reel voices drive-by cinema As a 501 (c)(3), we rely on memberships, donations, ticket sales, grants, and sponsorships to produce our mission-based programs. We welcome you to JOIN THE MOVEMENT in a way that’s meaningful to you! www.pac-arts.org [email protected] 619-400-5911 C/SDAsianFilm M@PacArtsMovement #SDAFF 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 9 All film programs (except noted below with *) take place at the digiplex Mission Valley at Hazard Center. Times and films are subject to change, and additional screenings may be added. For the latest schedule, visit www.pacarts.org/sdaff. SCHEDULE of programs Birch North Park Theatre Digiplex Mission Valley UCSD Price Center Theater THURSDAY, Nov. 7 6:30PM FINDING MR RIGHT* (123 mins) pg. 40 4:00pm 4:15pM 5:50pM 6:10pM 6:30pM 6:30pM 7:15pM 7:55pM 8:20pM 8:50pM 9:00pM 9:55pM 10:00pM friday, nov. 8 SHORTS: AIGOOOOOOOOOO! (93 mins) pg. 69 IF ONLY (100 mins) pg. 88 SHORTS: CLEARING CUSTOMS (98 mins) pg. 75 36 (68 mins) pg. 112 HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS (116 mins) pg. 87 IT’S A WONG FU HOMECOMING!* (90 mins) pg. 50 AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY (82 mins) pg. 54 ILO ILO (99 mins) pg. 120 UNIDENTIFIED (89 mins) pg. 80 UNBEATABLE (116 mins) pg. 110 RASKAL LOVE* (83 mins) pg. 62 THE TERROR LIVE (98 mins) pg. 94 SHADY (94 mins) pg. 130 11:00am 12:25PM 12:30PM 1:15PM 1:30PM 1:45PM 2:00PM 2:30PM 3:45pm 4:00PM 4:05PM 4:35pm 4:45PM 5:55PM 6:45PM 7:05PM 7:50PM 8:30PM 9:00pm 9:45PM 10:05PM SATURDAY, NOV. 9 SHORTS FOR SHORTIES (49 mins) pg. 77 A ROLLING STONE* (54 mins) pg. 122 PLASTIC PARADISE (57 mins) pg. 61 GOLDEN GATE GIRLS (90 mins) pg. 56 THE BIT PLAYER (111 mins) pg. 84 to my dear granny* (117 mins) pg. 95 shorts: bad education (94 mins) pg. 74 trapped (92 mins) pg. 125 drug war (107 mins) pg. 104 THE HAUMĀNA (95 mins) pg. 57 THE SANDWICH MAN* (108 mins) pg. 107 A PICTURE OF YOU (83 mins) pg. 60 YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI (159 mins) pg. 99 A TOUCH OF SIN (133 mins) pg. 109 IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT (100 mins) pg. 89 SHORTS: TRENDING QUEER (106 mins) pg. 78 VERY ORDINARY COUPLE (112 mins) pg. 96 THE WAY WE DANCE (110 mins) pg. 97 BLIND DETECTIVE (129 mins) pg. 102 ON THE JOB (121 mins) pg. 92 ABDUCTEE (95 mins) pg. 128 10 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Digiplex Mission Valley UCSD Price Center Theater Digital Gym Cinema SUNDAY, NOV. 10 12:00pm 12:10pm 12:25pm 12:35pm 1:00pm 2:10pm 2:20pm 2:30pm 2:45pm 2:50pm 4:15pm 4:30pm 5:15pm 5:25pm 6:30pm 6:45pm 7:10pm 7:30pm 7:50pm REEL VOICES (120 mins) pg. 66 HOMESICK (89 mins) pg. 119 TBA TRAPPED (92 mins) pg. 125 A BREATH FROM THE BOTTOM + KONG PEH TSHAT* (72 mins) pg. 115 IF ONLY (100 mins) pg. 88 SHORTS: ANIMATION (85 mins) pg. 72 PANEL: SEPARATED AT BIRTH (90 mins) pg. 50 FOREVER LOVE* (124 mins) pg. 86 SAKE-BOMB (82 mins) pg. 68 UNBEATABLE (116 mins) pg. 110 LOOTERA (136 mins) pg. 90 YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT (64 mins) pg. 81 SHORTS: CURSES IN CURSIVE (98 mins) pg. 76 WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW?* (104 mins) pg. 98 WHEN I WALK (85 mins) pg. 42 ON THE JOB (121 mins) pg. 92 MORAL SLEAZE (73 mins) pg. 59 THE TERROR LIVE (98 mins) pg. 94 1:30PM 2:30pM 3:40pM 4:00pM 5:30pM 5:45pM 6:00pM 6:30pM 6:30pM 7:35pM 7:55pM 8:35pM 8:35pM 9:00PM MONDAY, NOV. 11 NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY (250 mins) pg. 106 YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI (159 mins) pg. 99 IF ONLY (100 mins) pg. 88 MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR (37 mins) pg. 58 BENDS (97 mins) pg. 113 ZONE PRO SITE: THE MOVEABLE FEAST (145 mins) pg. 100 FIRE IN THE BLOOD (84 mins) pg. 116 COLD COMES THE NIGHT (90 mins) pg. 55 CLOSED CURTAIN* (106 mins) pg. 103 VERY ORDINARY COUPLE (112 mins) pg. 96 A TIME IN QUCHI (109 mins) pg. 108 A TOUCH OF SIN (133 mins) pg. 109 CONFESSION OF MURDER* (119 mins) pg. 85 DRUG WAR (107 mins) pg. 104 4:00PM 4:20PM 5:45PM 5:45PM 6:00PM 6:15PM 6:45PM 7:30PM 8:20pm 8:35PM 8:50PM 8:50pm 9:00PM TUESDAY, NOV. 12 TO WEAVE A NAME (57 mins) pg. 79 CONFESSION OF MURDER (119 mins) pg. 85 FOREVER LOVE (124 mins) pg. 86 THE GrEAT NORTH KOREAN PICTURE SHOW* (94 mins) pg. 117 HAFU (87 mins) pg. 118 LOOTERA (136 mins) pg. 90 BIG BOY (89 mins) pg. 114 YUMEN (65 mins) pg. 126 IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT (100 mins) pg. 89 CLOSED CURTAIN (106 mins) pg. 103 SOUL (111 mins) pg. 93 HOW tO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY (79 mins) pg. 105 ILO ILO (99 mins) pg. 120 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 11 SCHEDULE of programs (cont.d) Digiplex Mission Valley Cinepolis Del Mar Digital Gym Cinema New Central Library Encinitas Library WEDNESDAY, NOV. 13 4:00pm 4:35pm 4:55pm 5:40pm 6:00pm 6:30pm 6:45pm 7:15pm 8:05pm 8:30pm 8:45pm 9:00pm THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN PICTURE SHOW (94 mins) pg. 117 BENDS (97 mins) pg. 113 FIRE IN THE BLOOD (84 mins) pg. 116 ZoNE PRO SITE: THE MOVEABLE FEAST (145 mins) pg. 100 HOMESICK (98 mins) pg. 119 THE WAY WE DANCE (110 mins) pg. 97 SHORTS: ANIMATION (85 mins) pg. 72 HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS* (116 mins) pg. 87 KARAOKE GIRL (77 mins) pg. 121 WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? (104 mins) pg. 98 TBA TBA 4:00PM 5:15PM 6:00pM 6:15pM 6:20pM 6:40pM 7:35pM 8:15pM 8:45pM 9:45pM THURSDAY, NOV. 14 SHORTS: ALL OUT OF LOVE (95 mins) pg. 70 TBA A TIME IN QUCHI (109 mins) pg. 108 NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY* (250 mins) pg. 106 TBA A STORY OF YONOSUKE (160 mins) pg. 123 HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS (116 mins) pg. 87 soul (111 mins) pg. 93 RASKAL LOVE (83 mins) pg. 62 MARUYAMA, THE MIDDLE-SCHOOLER (119 mins) pg. 129 FRIDAY, NOV. 15 7:00pm DOCUMENTED (90 mins) pg. 44 SATURDAY, NOV. 16 2:00PM 3:45PM 6:00PM PLASTIC PARADISE* (57 mins) pg. 61 HAFU* (87 mins) pg. 118 SHORTS: CURSES IN CURSIVE* (90 mins) pg. 76 12 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival TICKETING Tickets for shows at Digiplex go on sale at the Mission Valley Box Office starting Nov 4. Walk-up tickets for programs at non-Digiplex locations are available at that venue’s box office one hour before showtime. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.pac-arts.org/sdaff. GENERAL Opening Night (FINDING MR. RIGHT)....$15 (vouchers accepted) Closing Night (DOCUMENTED).................$15 (vouchers not accepted) General Admission............................................$11.50 Student/Senior/Military..................................$9 (at the door only) UCSD Price Center Theater..........................$9 or Free for UCSD students, faculty & staff discounts not accepted) residents Cinepolis................................................................$20 (vouchers and other Encinitas Library................................................$9 or Free for Encinitas Festival 4-pack...................................................$40 All Festival Pass..................................................$250 (includes annual membership) MEMBER (must show membership card at box office) Opening Night (FINDING MR. RIGHT)...... $12 (vouchers accepted) Closing Night (DOCUMENTED) .................. $12 (vouchers not accepted) General Admission ............................................. $8 UCSD Price Center Theater ........................... Free (must get ticket from UCSD Box Office) passes not accepted) Cinepolis ................................................................. $15 (vouchers, all-fest Encinitas Library.................................................. Free All Festival Pass ................................................... $150 Group Tickets (minimum 10).... $9 (opening night and general), $13 (closing night film) 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 13 TICKETING (cont.) Free Films at Four Pick up tickets at the Digiplex Box Office starting Nov. 4 (limit 2 per person) SOLD-OUT SCREENINGS | RUSH LINES When a program is listed as Sold-Out, there is a very good chance seats will be available through a “rush line” at the theater. Rush lines take place outside the theater as early as 30 minutes before the show. We will offer all open seats 15 minutes before showtime on a first come basis to those waiting in the “rush line.” 4-PACKS & TICKET VOUCHERS You must redeem individual comp and 4-pack ticket vouchers for the show of your choice at the box office. You can trade in multiple ticket vouchers to the same show. Comp and 4-pack ticket vouchers can be redeemed for Opening Night (Nov. 7), but cannot be redeemed for the Nov. 13th screening of HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS at Cinepolis or the Nov. 15th screening of DOCUMENTED. Any unused tickets cannot be carried over to the next festival. DISCOUNTS All discounts are redeemable at box-office only. • • • $2 off per ticket for Cox customers (must show proof of being a Cox customer) $2 off per ticket off for Viejas Club Members (must show membership card) $2 off per ticket for San Diego Public Library card holders for Tuesday, Nov 12 programs only REFUND POLICY No refunds for unused tickets, 4-packs, all festival passes. Exchanges are only available when a program is oversold. 14 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SPECIAL EVENTS It’s not a Festival without parties. So put on that body glitter and let the good times roll! THU NOV. 7 | OPENING NIGHT PARTY | 9:30PM - Close Wang’s North Park 3029 University Ave. , San Diego, CA 92104 Free for ticket holders, Special VIP section for passholders Sponsored by Union Bank FRI NOV. 8 | IT’S A WONG FU PARTY! | 8PM - 11:00PM The Loft, UCSD 911 Lyman Lane , Price Center East, 2nd Floor, La Jolla, CA 92093 $10 general, $5 UCSD students (must show ID at door), free for pass holders Sponsored by UCSD Alumni Office FRI NOV. 8 | BARFLY AFTER PARTY | 10:30PM - Close 909 Prospect St. #100, La Jolla, CA 92037 Free for pass holders or RSVP for guestlist to [email protected] Presented by SoBiTV and Point Entertainment SAT NOV. 9 | GALA AWARDS DINNER | 5:30PM – 9:00PM Town & Country Hotel, Mission Valley 500 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108 $200/seat, to RSVP: [email protected] Presented by Wells Fargo FRI NOV. 15 | CLOSING NIGHT PARTY| 9:30PM - Close Hotel Indigo Level 9 Rooftop Bar 509 9th Ave, San Diego, CA 92101 Hosted appetizers for passholders Sponsored by Hotel Indigo 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 15 VENUES The majority of the Festival will take place at the Digiplex Mission Valley, where the main box office is also located. birch north park theatre digiplex mission valley ucsd price center theater Birch North Park Theatre (Nov. 7) 2891 University Ave. San Diego, CA 92104 619.239.8836 Digiplex Mission Valley (Nov. 8-14) 7510 Hazard Center Dr. San Diego, CA 92108 619.574.8684 UCSD Price Center Theater (Nov. 8-10) 9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla, CA 92093 858.534.8497 *Parking at Gilman Parking Structure is limited. Rate: $2 per hour or $16 all day on Friday, free all day Saturday and Sunday. 16 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival  digital gym cinema cinepolis del mar NEW CENTRAL LIBRARY ENCINITAS LIRBARY Digital Gym Cinema (Nov. 11, 12, 14) 2921 El Cajon Blvd. San Diego, CA 92104 619.230.1938 Cinepolis Del Mar (Nov. 13) 12905 El Camino Real San Diego, CA 92130 858.794.4045 New Central Library (Nov. 15) 330 Park Blvd. San Diego, CA 92101 619.236.5800 *Street parking and limited structure parking available. Encinitas Library (Nov. 16) 540 Cornish Dr. Encinitas, CA 92024 760.753.7376 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 17 CREATE YOUR OWN MOVIE! FALL CAMP Nov. 25-27 1st-3rd grade & 4th-6th grade WINTER CAMP Jan. 6-10, 13-17 3rd-5th grade & 6th-8th grade YOUTH MEDIA & TECH CAMP FALL: GENERAL $155 // MEMBERS $145 WINTER: GENERAL $225 // MEMBERS $195 2921 El Cajon Blvd San Diego, CA 92104 619.230.1938 www.digitalgym.org/mediacamp IN NORTH PARK SPONSORS MAJOR GRANTS Large theater sponsor small theater sponsorS AUDIENCE AWARD GALA PRESENTER 20 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival GALA SUPPORTERS Opening Night closing night Spotlight free films at four VENUE SPONSORS education partners screening sponsors JHIG’S HAIR STUDIO DRS. Craig & Sylvia Reid UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 21 OFFICIAL AIRLINE major media sponsor official radio sponsor official tV sponsor OFFICIAL PRINT SPONSOR public relations media sponsors REEL VOICES & YOUTH DAY SPECIAL EVENT SPONSORS community sponsors IN-KIND DONORS Blacklava | bob hoffman video | bmw san diego | chipotle | coke bottling co. | del mar rendezvous | phuong trang restaurant | popeye’s | rubios | sansai | st. petersburg vodka | PHANCY 22 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Stella Artois salutes the spirit of independent film. StellaArtois.com Always Enjoy Responsibly. © 2013 Anheuser-Busch InBev S.A., Stella Artois ® Beer, Imported by Import Brands Alliance, St. Louis, MO CATCH PAC ARTS’ NEWEST URBAN LEGEND ON THE STREETS OF SAN DIEGO WWW.DRIVEBYCINEMA.COM @DRIVEBYCINEMA The New York Times recently paid tribute to 20 young directors to watch, and not surprisingly, the list featured two Pac-Arts favorites: Na Hong-jin (The Chaser) and Lixin Fan (Last Train Home). But the entry that struck me most was for 33-year-old Barry Jenkins of Medicine for Melancholy fame. In the accompanying interview, he talks about growing up black and poor in innercity Miami. He recalls having to boil water in a kettle to bathe, as well as the satellite dish in the backyard that beamed in some of his first film memories. And then there was the summer he spent discovering films at Blockbuster. “I remember watching a film called 301/302,” he says, “And having this feeling of how big the world was.” 301/302, for those who don’t know it, is a somewhat forgotten Korean drama with horror undertones. It’s not a film one normally thinks will inspire a young man in Miami seeking adventure, nor the title one would expect to expand the world. But it did. And there are plenty of films like it, gathering dust on foreign film sections of vanishing video stores, waiting to change somebody’s life. More than any other anecdote, this is the one that’s most inspired me this year. What films are going to make us feel infinitesimally small before the grand expanse of possibility that is the world? And which of those films can also make us feel bigger than ever, giving us the courage to step out of our individual villages and explore other ways of feeling? Not surprisingly, border-crossing is a big theme at our festival this year. But not that fuzzy, we-are-the-world hand-holding between neighbors. We’re bookending our festival with two border-crossing films that ask us, sometimes uncomfortably, to think more expansively about mobility, legality, and the American dream. In between those two films are 140 others that remind us of how big the world is and what we can achieve within it. That films like CLOSED CURTAIN, A STORY OF YONOSUKE, and NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY even exist tell us, in their own humble ways, that indeed anything is possible. Brian Hu Artistic Director LETTER FROM ARTISTIC director 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 25 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Pacific Arts Movement is overseen by a passionate group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to help grow a dynamic organization. Board members are in charge of governance, ensure adequate resources, and help guide the strategic direction of Pac-Arts. Board members serve a minimum two-year term. If you are interested in learning more about board service, contact us at [email protected] Stephen Chin, Chairman, Sharp Health Plan Harlen Bayha, Co-Vice Chair, Wells Fargo Stephen Lew, Co-Vice Chair, S. Lew & Associates Amethyst Lewis, Secretary, Echelon Marketing Group Steven Hong, Treasurer, TAC Financial Dan Hom, Chairman Emeritus, Focuscom Inc. Paul Bergman, McGregor & Associates, Inc. Kathryn Hammelman, Qualcomm Andy Hoang, CSU Long Beach Varsha Israni, Individual Investor Sheila Abrenica Kanoya, Port of San Diego Jeff Krebs, M.D, Kaiser Permanente Benjamin Lee, BluFi Lending Shirley Park, PROVEN Inc. Mitchell Reff, Biogen Idec Janis Takahashi, Rady Children’s Hospital Auxiliary Gary Wong, (Retired) Banking Executive Wendy Wong, Ken Blanchard Leon Wu, Bank of America Merrill Lynch 26 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Welcome to the 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival! It’s that special time of year when our Film Festival family comes together to embrace the diversity of our community, and we’re thrilled that you’ve joined us for our special celebration. I’ve been honored to serve as Chairman of Pacific Arts Movement for four wondrous years. These four years have been a time of dynamic growth and change for our family. Working with Lee Ann Kim and her staff, as well as my talented Board colleagues, we’ve overseen many exciting developments for our organization during my term. Thank you for the opportunity to make a difference for our Pac-Arts family – from our new headquarters at NTC; to our new name in “Pacific Arts Movement;” to the many new venues we’ve established to bring us together, such as the Spring Showcase, Member Film Forum, Producer’s Club, and Drive-By Cinema. San Diego is an ever-evolving region of the world, which seems to grow more complex with every day. Pacific Arts Movement embraces our region’s transnational community. We seek to create transformative experiences through film and the art of storytelling. And in this collective film experience, we hope to transcend archaic views and to inspire new stories. Congratulations to Lee Ann and her staff, to the Board of Directors, as well as to the hundreds of volunteers, who make a difference. And thank you to the members and supporters of the Pacific Arts Movement – we honor your continued support and passion. STEPHEN R. CHIN Board Chairman LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 27 Sharp Health Plan is a proud sponsor of the San Diego Asian Film Festival As the only locally-based commercial health plan, we not only serve the people of San Diego County — we are the people of San Diego County. Advocate We believe our members deserve a trusted health care partner and advocate. Family We believe our members are important, and health care should be personal. Neighbor We believe it’s important to live, work and play in the same community as our members. We believe in the art of ca r ing . SHP68A ©2011 SHC (619) 228-2300 or 1-800-359-2002 | www.SharpHealthPlan.com Proud Supporters of The San Diego Asian Film Festival 101 W Broadway Suite 1450 San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 233-7778 www.focuscominc.com facebook.com/ focuscominc youtube.com/ focuscominc linkedin.com/ company/ focuscom-inc On-the-dot messaging Focuscom Inc. knows that as a company, you have limited resources, which is why our messages and strategies are designed to always hit center target for your business. On-the-dot messaging | Advocacy for community diversity High-level of professionalism | Strategic Communication www.facebook.com/focuscominc www.twitter.com/focuscominc 101 W Broadway, Ste 1450 | San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 233-7778 | www.focuscominc.com www.youtube.com/focuscominc www.linkedin.com/company/focuscom-inc You are an artist. You see the true beauty in creative expression. You strive to elevate our culture. You believe the arts make our community and the world a richer place. For your dedication and your passion, we salute you. Union Bank is proud to sponsor the 14th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. Community Banking – 530 B Street, Suite 1200, San Diego, CA 92101 Lawrence Henry, SVP Regional Executive, 619-230-3085 East Encinitas Branch – 47 North El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024 Adrienne Scott, AVP & Branch Manager, 760-942-4996 unionbank.com ©2013 Union Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Southwest Airlines is devoted to serving the community. ® Southwest Airlines is with you in the air and in your community, sharing our spirit of LUV at every destination along the way. From celebrating cultural events to partnering with local organizations, we are proud to be part of the community. It’s a pleasure to serve you, because your community is our LUVing destination. ©2013 Southwest Airlines Co. Proud to support the San Diego Asian Film Festival! 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 33 membership roster (as of 9/27/13) LIFETIME - $10,000 Paul Bergman & Sandra ChongBergman Allan Camaisa Johnny Chou Marshall Gamboa Wendy Gillespie Matt Jumper Jeff Krebs & Fritz Friedman Ed & Shirley Lee Diana Mar Jip-Chuh & Virginia Mar Jip Steve & Cheryl Peace Pat Pepper Mitchell & Miyo Reff CORPORATE - $5,000 San Diego Interfaith Housing Foundation BENEFACTOR - $2,500+ Elvin & Kristen Lai PRODUCER - $1,000+ Theresa Battle & Michael Frazier Jesse & Pearl Charfauros Stephen Chin L. Pete & Todd Futa Randy Gage & Liese Harter Fred & Debbie Gerlach Dan Hom Gayle Hom Varsha Israni Paul & Kali Kim Chong Lee Stephen Lew Micaela Mar Jip Anthony & Grace Olaes Dennis & Elaine Otsuji Donald Pian & Kar-Beck Wong Jacquelyn Sherman-Rustin Louis Song & Lee Ann Kim Dominic Tong & Katherine Bowdish Gary & Kathy Wong Leon Wu & Sambath Tiep PATRON - $500+ Jenny Benson Jennifer & Derek Brunelle Doris Cheng Devin Chin-Lee Thomas Dring Lois Fong-Sakai & Willie Sakai Amy & Nancy Hobbs Sheila Abrenica Kanoya Jaejung Kim & Greg Park Terry Kovarik Kent Lee & Phuong Huynh Phillip Lorenzo Lani Lutar Jerrilyn Malana Dr. Bridget McDonald Joseph Ongsiapco & Fawn Yang Cuong Trang Linda & Charles Tu SUPPORTER - $250+ Elgin Aguilar Emil Ayoubkhan & Michelle Tubon Harlen Bayha June Bayha Cornelio Buu-hoan Richard Caasi Han Chiu & Wendy Wong Leeva Chung Diem Do Tammy & Bill Dodds Chris & Monica Emery Richard Forsyth & Katherine Leonard Gregg Garner Roxanne Girard & Ed Nesfield Geoffrey Graham & James Tee Kathryn Hammelman Erika Hiramatsu & Michael Cheswick Edwin Hon Carole Huston Gene Huh Paul Kalmar Melanie Le Forestier Dae Lee & Lina Park Rich Lee Amethyst Lewis & Quentin Jammer Aaron Ling Nancy Liu Johnny Mah Lynne Matthews Joe Mendoza Kathryn Nguyen Thanh Nguyen Elizabeth Nolan Chris Paffendorf John & Mariette Pascasio Jeremy Pizzola & Gayle Ta Brian Quan Luis Ramos Steve Sato Marion So Mark Strauss Patrick Van Schoote Kenneth Wade Diane Wong DONOR - $100+ Anita Aldrich Elias Almazan Malou Amparo & Marcus Robas Trish Ang & Steve Sadler Mylinh & Andrew Arnett Tim Ascough Gale Barlow Steve Barlow Dennis-Michael Broussard Chris Cate & Maria Lourdes Cabuang Grant Cameron Kristine Chang Arounny Chann & Ham Phonephaly Sam Chen 34 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Jonathan Cheng Allan Chin Sonia & Jeffrey Chin Patrick & Steph Clark Helen Cruz & Allan Regala Elizabeth Devin Mark & Anne Eichman Melissa & Bill Eisenhamer Sonja Erion Toshiye Estes Jonathan Fohrman Rey Francisco Marie Gabriel Virginia Gallanosa Joshua Gardner Linda & Gordon Gidlund Russell Ginns & Beverly DiGregorio Kikue & Ken Graeber Marketa Hancova Kaori Hashimoto & Tom Jacobson Lily Higman Steven Hong Traci Hong Patricia Hughes Lindsey & Benjamin Inouye Jeff Iwami & Kotowa Moriya Rizzhel Javier Gary Jensen Tom & Shari Johnston-O’Neill Randy & Marilyn Kaforey David & Carol Kawamoto Eric Lallana Aileen & Benson Lam Megan Lam Yvonne Law & Chad Seitz Donna Lee Jimmy Lee Karen Lim & Nathan Ginoza Linda Vista Multi-Cultural Fair, Inc. Jessica Liou May McLean Mike Meier Patricia & Fred Miyahara David Molina Tiffany Nakanishi Katya Newmark Lyman Ng Laurel Nishida Amy Okamura Shirley Omori & Efton Woodford Shane Pak James Paguyo, Jr. Shirley Park Dr. Vincent Pham & Yaejoon Kwon Ty Phimmasone Alan & Elaine Pizzola Guy Poirier Peter Quon Rick Raimondi Craig & Sylvia Reid KR Ridge Art Rivera Joseph Allen Ruanto Ramirez Anne Rosser & Matthew Eggar Shirley Sanz Robert Schultz & Betty Nguyen Grace Seid Massoud Shirazi Jana Sze Roland Tactay & Justin Lewis Janis Takahashi Nancy Taylor Joyce & Bill Teague Annamarie Till Dan Titieni Greg Toya Duane Trammell & Robyn Sarvis Duke Tran Wayne & Betsy Tsukamoto Wendy Urushima-Conn & Bart Conn Jan Vangrov Rainer Wagester & Marlene Dinklage Andy Wang Wilda Wong & Nick Venti FRIEND - $55+ Morlette Adame Amee & Madhu Alagiri Joanne Arellano Patricia Bayha Yurica Beltrano Eloise Bienvenu Arnie Bondoc Greg Brown Wayne Brown Aaron Bruce Jose Bucud Shu-Fun Burns Arthur Carbonell Mark Carroll Lettie Cepe Jennifer & Grace Chang Jegan Chen & Erica-Anne Okamura Perry Chen & Zhu Shen Yinuo Chen Renee Chin Dr. Don & Janine Chu Forrest Chu Judy Chung-Lee & Benjamin Lee John & Carla Dacapias Rachel Darvin Kathy David Zeinabu Davis Cheryl Dawley Emmanuel De Guzman Kaye de Lancey Lawrence Dumpit Rebeckah Fan Bruce Farmer Joe Fernando Ashley Fifield & Sylvie Estrella Salvador & Shirley Flor Victor Flores Mark Anthony Gadia Matthew Goldman Jim Gottlieb Andy Gonzalez Wendy Grice Lori Guild & Oswaldo Wegrzyn Victor Gutierrez Cynthia & Seth Hacker Joanne Hayakawa Kathi Heiser Patricia Heras Sylvie Hinh & Jerry Lu Jamie & James Hoang Mye Hoang & Dave Boyle Nancy Hom Tom & Loretta Hom Frank Howley & Josie Zuill Rita Huang Suzanne Ito Margaret Iwanaga-Penrose Joni Jamora & Grayson Wilson Mark Wayne Javier 35 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival MEMBERSHIP ROSTER (cont.) FRIEND - $55+ (cont.) Marilyn Jones Hannah Joya Ken & Connie Kalb Clare Kanoya Angela Kim Jane Kim & Jerry Heavey Scott & Jean Kim Tony Kraft & Suzanne Hagen Hana Kwon Li-Yun Ting Lai Toan Lam Duc Le Trinh Le Tamara Leach Gilbert Lee & Kay Tuo-Huber Mitz Lee Monica Lee Yvonne Lee Jeffrey Lehmann Daniel K. Lew Amethyst Lewis Alanna Light & Kayla Colburn Jennifer Lo Alexis Lorenzo Jonathan Louie & Andy Schell Edna & Kelvin Low Robin Low 36 Jeffrey Luong & Jennifer Wang Huy Ly Gloria Ma Dean Macaoile Joseph Mangat & Andrea Nievera Barney & Sandy Mann Paul Marra & Joel Valenzuela Joel Mata & Eunice Sanchez-Mata Daniel Matthews Richard McCann Yonathan Mekonnen Erwin Mendoza Iman Mikhail Jon Miller Scott & Grace Miller Keith Momon Carlo Muzquiz & Carlo Muzquiz Jr. Elizabeth Nelson Elizabeth Neubrand Nora Hom Newbern Stefan Nguyen Dale Novina Bill & Tracey Olson Kiyoko Omori Glen Ong Donal O’Sullivan Gary Osumi Laurine Ota James Paguyo, III Arlene & Rosalie Paraiso Raymond & Debby Park Crissy Pascual & Brett Millar Judy Patacsil Rodney Peffer Roger Perez Robert Perry Johnny Philavanh Cindy Pon Christina Ree & K. Wayne Yang Bill Reeve Joceline Remigio Julia Richardson Stuart & Linda Robinson Daniel Roose Anne Louise Ross Bruce Rowe Minou Sadeghi & Maryam Khosravi Armando Salvador Joseph & Diane Sampson Ruth Marie San Filippo Robert Sanchez Kiyomi & Timothy Sankary Diapa Sanogo Rhona Santos William & E-Fann Saung David Shina Emily Shirazi Shawn Skinner & Huong Duong Lani Smith Jerome Stenehjem Jing Song Samantha Summar Pavee Suvagondha Louie Tejada Hao Teng Don Tolentino Viet Tran Rowena & Lianna Treitler Thomas Truong Wayne & Betsy Tsukamoto Yen Tu Felix Tuyay Erica Ueland Dominique Valentino Joseph Vecchio Chris Voight Nguyen Vu & Chris Merriman Leslie Wilson Michael Wong Richard Wong Michael & Criselda Yee Everly Yeo Leo Zhang STUDENT - $35 Brian Bacsal Maryanne Bilbao Roussel Calumpong Alejandra Contreras Daisy Cortez Ludivico Estrada Staci Gaines Monica Gutierrez Dieu Ho Alex Honore Jessica Hsieh Kanyon Iwami Alex Kim Nick Leon-Guerrero Tania Li Kristin Pearey Kent Pun Sara Rosenthal Woo-Jin Shim 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 2013 george c. lin emerging filmmaker AWARD Each year since his passing, the San Diego Asian Film Festival has proudly presented an Emerging Filmmaker Award in honor of former Program Director George C. Lin. A scientist by trade, George co-founded the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival in 2000, and then joined SDAFF in 2003. Quirky, loving, and passionate, he championed all things independent – film, music, art. George passed away in San Diego on October 14, 2008, after a long battle with cancer. This year, SDAFF is proud to announce that the 2013 George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award goes to Leslie Tai for two excellent short films, GRAVE GOODS and SUPERIOR LIFE CLASSROOM (pg. 76). These hugely original, powerfully personal, and wonderfully vibrant experimental documentaries reinvigorate Asian American video-making and embody the independent spirit that George represented. Ticket sales from the shorts program CURSES IN CURSIVE (which includes both of Leslie Tai’s shorts) will be donated to the George C. Lin Memorial Fund. Congratulations, Leslie Tai! GEORGE C. LIN 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 37 FESTIVAL JURORS 2013 Rowena Santos Aquino is a Lecturer in the Department of Film and Electronic Arts at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), where she teaches documentary film history and theory and Japanese cinema. She is also the senior staff film critic for the Toronto-based film website Next Projection, and a contributing writer for the Los Angeles-based arts and entertainment magazine Asia Pacific Arts. Her work has also been featured in  Transnational Cinemas, Asian Cinema, LOLA, and Modern Korean Cinema, among others. Eun Jung Park is an art historian, independent curator, and educator. She recently curated an exhibition for the Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles for the 20th anniversary of the ’92 riots. She teaches a course that she created entitled “From Dr. Noh to Margaret Cho: Asian Americans, Mass Media, and Popular Culture” at UCSD.  Her recent publications include “Korean American Cultural Expressions: Evolution of P’ungmul” for Koreans in America: History, Identity and Community, an anthology edited by Grace Yoo. Dr. Park received her B.A. in Art History from UCLA and PhD in Visual Art History, Theory & Criticism from UCSD. Eugene Suen is a filmmaker and producer. Raised in Taiwan and the U.S., he worked as a film development executive and festival programmer before turning to filmmaking. He produced Lee Isaac Chung’s Abigail Harm, a project supported by Tribeca Film Festival’s All Access program and Busan’s Asian Project Market. The film, starring Amanda Plummer, Will Patton, and Burt Young, was an official selection at the Busan International Film Festival and the Torino Film Festival. It won the Grand Prize and Best Director award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Sudeep Sharma is a film programmer and educator. He is currently an Associate Programmer - Documentaries for the Sundance Film Festival and has worked in various capacities for the Sundance Institute including for the Feature Film Program and the Documentary Fund. He is also a programmer for the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. He is a PhD candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA and has taught at universities throughout Southern California. He has an MA in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA and a BA in English from George Washington University. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.  38 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Finding mr. right Special Presentations 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 39 SPECIAL PRESETNATIONS Opening Night Film Nov. 7 (Thursday), 6:30pm, Birch North Park Theatre finding mr. right A good romantic comedy is like a cup of your favorite coffee. Warm, comforting, and with plenty of caffeine! Director Xue Xiaolu (Ocean Heaven, SDAFF ’11) brews a strong one with her latest box office hit, FINDING MR. RIGHT. Pregnant and armed with her baby daddy’s credit card, Chinese bombshell Wen Jiajia (Tang Wei of Lust, Caution) finds her way to Seattle to deliver her unborn child. As soon as she touches down, Jiajia’s already snobbishly yelling at her timid driver, Frank (Wu Xiubo). She knows money can get her what she wants, and her bills and bling cause drama with her fellow pregnant housemates in the “maternity mansion.” Little does she know, things will take a turn as she learns to adjust to her new life in the states and as a new mother. Enemies become friends and friends become potential lovers. Confusion sets in, and Jiajia is faced with choosing a life of luxury and isolation, or an ordinary one full of love. A clever spin on the classic rom-com, with nods to Sleepless in Seattle and Beyoncé, FINDING MR. RIGHT is as a 21st century global romantic comedy should be. There are the familiar weddings, cute babies, and shots of beautiful Seattle, but also a potent jolt of insight into the headspace of an upward- and outward-dreaming China. – Melody Cheng CHINA | MANDARIN, ENGLISH | 123 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Xue Xiaolu CAST Tang Wei, Wu Xiubo, Elaine Jin Best Actress, 2013 Shanghai Film Critics Awards Official Selection, 2013 Udine Far East Film Festival Co-Presented by House of China, SD Chinese Women’s Association, SDSU Confucius Institute, Solar Turbines, Families with Children from China - San Diego Filmmaker scheduled to attend 40 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 41 SPECIAL PRESETNATIONS Centerpiece Film WHEN I WALK NOV. 10 (sunday), 6:45pm, digiplex mission valley USA/CANADA | ENGLISH | 85 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Jason DaSilva Official Selection, 2013 Sundance Film Festival Best Canadian Feature Documentary, 2013 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival Best Documentary, 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Co-Presented by The Buddhist Temple of San Diego, PROVEN, The Ken Blanchard Companies Filmmaker Jason DaSilva has tackled a number of subjects in his past documentaries, from American jazz to the U.S. government’s policies on deportation. They’ve taken him from India to Cuba to Kenya. With his extraordinarily moving new film WHEN I WALK, DaSilva turns the camera inward, onto himself. WHEN I WALK is not just about MS. It’s about personal moviemaking from the perspective of somebody whose ability to make a film is being tested day by day, especially as he starts to lose focus – not just mental focus, but also ocular focus. Last and certainly not least, the documentary In the opening moments of the documentary, DaSilva is on a family vacation at Airport Beach in St. Maarten. He falls on the sand and the simple task of getting up becomes difficult and tedious. It turns out the fall was an early instance of multiple sclerosis, and he caught it on camera. A day after being diagnosed with MS, DaSilva instinctively continued to turn the camera on himself and his family, narrating what he discovers about his own body, about the disease, about disability access in New York City, and about his own capacity to persevere. is about love. Used to life as a charming, affable, good-looking man, DaSilva comes to grips with romance from a wheelchair. What he and the audience discover is incredible, romantic, and life-affirming. WHEN I WALK is a masterfully-executed personal documentary with astonishing clarity and insight into what the human spirit can accomplish. – Eric Lallana 42 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 43 SPECIAL PRESETNATIONS Closing Night Film DOCUMENTED nov. 15 (Friday), 7:00pm, New Central Library USA | ENGLISH, TAGALOG, SPANISH | 90 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Jose Antonio Vargas, Ann Lupo Gala Screening, 2013 AFI Docs Film Festival Co-Presented by Filipino American Lawyers of San Diego, Japanese Historical Society of San Diego Filmmaker scheduled to attend Jose Antonio Vargas’ family didn’t expect he’d be a success. They didn’t expect that he’d find a network of supporters who’d believe in his promise. They didn’t expect that talent, courage, and hard work could allow him to transcend his questionable background. In other words, they did not fully anticipate the power of the American dream. Jose was brought to the U.S. at age 12. He didn’t have papers, but his grandparents in California didn’t think it’d be a problem because they figured he’d go into the service industry like they did as immigrants from the Philippines. But Jose learned English, made friends, became a star student, edited the school paper, acted in plays, went to college, found a job with the Washington Post, and won a Pulitzer Prize. DOCUMENTED is not a documentary about Jose Antonio Vargas’ achievements. It’s about, as he puts it, living in a different kind of reality – that even though he grew up on Anne of Green Gables, Will Smith, and Salt-n-Pepa, even though he pays taxes and pledges allegiance to the stars and stripes, he cannot share in the same liberties as any other American, nor can he hug his mother in the Philippines as any other human being could. The autobiographical DOCUMENTED is one of the year’s most powerful documentaries not because it’s a compelling rags-to-riches tale, but because it’s the chronicle of a most unenviable process: Jose’s coming-out as an undocumented American, his shaky self-discovery as an activist and symbol, and perhaps most crushingly, his learning how to be a son to a mother he hasn’t seen since she let him go nearly 20 years ago. As a documentarian, Jose Antonio Vargas is a natural storyteller, nimbly narrating his life story through snippets from public appearances, archival materials, and riveting footage with his biological and non-biological families. Through it all, the irony isn’t lost on him that a most imperfect nation produced, in many ways, a model American. What gets lost in the discussion of immigration reform, and which DOCUMENTED so emotionally discovers, is that the perfecting – and careful re-examining – of America is only possible with people like his high school principal or his newspaper colleague or his lola and lolo who understood that compassion often begins with a leap of faith. –Brian Hu 44 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 45 THE SAN DIEGO ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL IS A PROUD SPONSOR OF JOIN US FOR COCKTAILS AFTER CLOSING NIGHT FILM, NOV. 15 AT LEVEL 9 ROOFTOP BAR 509 9TH AVE., GASLAMP QUARTER @HOTELINDIGOSD SPECIAL PRESETNATIONS THE YOUNG AND THE YOUTUBE – CELEBRATING WONG FU productions by Vincent Pham I must admit it was only four years ago when I first heard undergraduates at the University of Illinois – a university located in the middle of cornfields and pig farms – chatter about a group of YouTube media makers making the rounds of the college circuit. I wondered, “Who are these guys that captured the hearts and eyes of Midwest high school-turned-collegekids through the Internet?” Little did I know that Wong Fu Productions was well on their way to becoming modern day media pioneers. In their ten-year tenure as Wong Fu Productions, these three digitally savvy and photogenically gifted men – Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, and Philip Wang – have created and cultivated a media conglomerate, partnering with Far East Movement (who fly high like a G-6) to create the International Secret Agents, and teaming up with YouTube stars like Kevin Wu (KevJumba) and Ryan Higa (Nigahiga). They co-opted their “nice guy” image and re-appropriated their own “awkwardness” to create the Nice Guy Design line and Awkward Animal plush animals. At a time when traditional media was seeking to strengthen its grip in the digital realm, and when the Internet was slowly transitioning to a visual medium powered by widespread highspeed broadband, WFP operated proudly and visibly in the niche interstices of media, churning out short and long videos with Asian American men and women in the forefront, and converging media before media convergence was even a thing.  Yet, perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that Wong Fu started on the campus of UCSD, through class projects in the classrooms by the beaches and away from but within reach of the bright lights of Los Angeles, the center of mainstream media production and its entertaining yet cookiecutter formulas. Perhaps the optimism and cozy confines of a supportive college scene, combined with a burgeoning San Diego-based Asian American film festival and the exposure to intellectuals and media-makers speaking about Asian American media issues, cultivated an environment ripe for three Asian American men to create, film, and distribute their own work. Or perhaps, simply, it was the right place, at the right time, with the right group of friends for YouTube stardom. But it wasn’t that they were and are YouTube stars, but rather  how  they became YouTube stars. Ten years ago, these three slightly awkward Asian guys from UCSD uploaded a grainy music video of themselves onto their Vincent Pham is assistant professor of Communication at California State University San Marcos, and the co-author of Asian Americans and the Media. 48 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival own personal internet server: a lip-synced performance of Justin Timberlake’s “Señorita.” Unabashedly confident, incredibly endearing, and fully engrossing, the video spread from inbox to inbox, from dorm room to dorm room, and from campus to campus on highspeed internet trails, making you  feel that you were a part of their fun or that you could be just like them. In a way, they showed us what the Internet could be, serving as an alternative to the exclusionary and quickly encroaching mainstream media and an alternative to the angry and often racist tweets of contemporary social media. They showed us that friends could create together, succeed together, and grow together with the whole world watching. From grainy videos made for college assignments to slick, high-quality productions seen around the world, their YouTube stardom underscores the work and influence of these young men who, for the past ten years (an eternity in Internet time) have reshaped and reconfigured the mediascape and the representational terrain of Asian Americans. Whether folks barely know them or have followed them for ten years, WFP’s influence is best summarized by those kids in the Midwest, far away from the diverse shores of California, who, with only mobile phones and laptops, now have more than just the Bruce Lees and Long Duk Dongs, and can see before them ever-evolving stories in Wong Fu videos that serve as positive, guiding lights in an ever hostile mediascape. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 49 SPECIAL PRESETNATIONS Panel Discussions IT’S A WONG FU HOMECOMING! Co-Presented by UCSD Alumni SEPARATED AT BIRTH NOV. 10 (SUNDAY), 2:30pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY On February 21, 2013, aspiring Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman received a Facebook message from somebody who found her in a YouTube video. Her name was Anais, she lived in France, and like Sam, was a Korean adoptee. They also looked identical. Could they be twins separated at birth? The same year, Daniel Matthews (DANakaDAN), also a Korean adoptee, decided to seek out his birth parents in Korea. Not only did he find them, but he discovered he had a sister…and a twin brother. This summer, Dan visited his biological family in South Korea. Both revelations were facilitated by new media – Sam as an aspiring actress on KevJumba’s channel, Dan as a music artist who got involved with various international adoptee support groups. And both Sam and Dan are documenting their discoveries on film. Both will be at this year’s SDAFF for a panel discussion and to share clips from NOV. 8 (friday), 6:30pm, UCSD PRICE CENTER THEATER From “Señorita” to International Secret Agents, the three men behind Wong Fu Productions have become the most influential figures in Asian American cinema today. This year, Wong Fu marks its tenth anniversary, and SDAFF invites Wesley, Ted, and Philip to celebrate their success with a panel and presentation at the place where it all started: UCSD. 50 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival their forthcoming projects. Coming to san diego in April 2014 Co-presented by Mo`olelo perforMing Arts CoMpAny And pACifiC Arts MoveMent tackling a full-on-complete-double-rainbow of issues ranging from Asian immigration, to anti-Asian sentiment, to boba tea, the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors make the world a better place one comedic sketch at a time. Your Health Care Reform Experts ELT Insurance Services is a proud sponsor of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. We can help you navigate the maze of health care reform so that you can get the best plans at the lowest cost. • Lowest Cost Solutions • Commitment to highest quality service Ed Lee, President ® 16835 W. Bernardo Drive, Ste. 212 San Diego, CA 92127 858.304.3000 x22 www.eltinsurance.com MEDICAL | DENTAL | LIFE | 401K | LONG TERM CARE the HAUMĀNA Asian American Panorama 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 53 asian american panorama AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS NOV. 8 (friday), 7:15pm, digiplex mission valley usa | ENGLISH | 82 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Grace Lee Audience Award, 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival Co-Presented by NAPAWF-SD, Women’s Inernational Center, Japanese Historical Society of San Diego We would all be so lucky to know a Grace Lee Boggs: activist, feminist, author, speaker, and philosopher. As of this writing she is still socially active at age 98. Grandmotherly in appearance but fierce and outspoken – sometimes to the point of making people cry during arguments – she embodies the spirit of the words she once spoke: “You don’t choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be.” In her previous The Grace Lee Project (SDAFF ’05), filmmaker Grace Lee (no relation to Boggs) created diverse portraits of people who share her name. Grace Lee Boggs though, warranted a film all of her own. The Chinese American Boggs has long been an advocate for the rights of African Americans, who have in turn embraced her and her husband, auto worker and fellow activist James Boggs. Shot over a decade in Boggs’ home city of Detroit, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY offers a reverential but also critical overview of her ideas and accomplishments, deeply influenced by Marx and Hegel. It also takes a sobering, though optimistic, look at the city’s history. Able to adapt her methods and ideas to a changing environment, Grace Lee Boggs has become a symbol of sustainable activism. – Wilda Wong Preceded by: SPEAKING OUT USA | 6 MINS | 2013 DIRECTOR Steve Nagano In this incredible footage from 1981 government hearings, Japanese American internment survivors refuse to be silenced. 54 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival cold COMES THE NIGHT NOV. 11 (MONDAY), 6:30pm, digiplex Mission Valley USA | ENGLISH | 90 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Tze Chun CAST Alice Eve, Bryan Cranston, Logan Marshall-Green Free for Pac-Arts members! asian american panorama From former SDAFF Grand Jury Winner Tze Chun (Children of Invention, SDAFF ’09) comes his long-awaited sophomore feature, COLD COMES THE NIGHT, a stirring, greasy boiler of a dramatic thriller. It follows Chloe (Alice Eve), a motel owner who needs to get her finances in order to maintain custody of her young daughter Sophia. The sudden appearance of near-blind criminal Topo (played by Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad), his driver, and a sack of cash puts mother and daughter in danger, but also presents an opportunity for Alice to avert her imminent dead-end. As with his Sundance selection Children of Invention, Chun proves especially sensitive to the plights of families in low-visibility, high-impact situations, often on the brinks of legality. But with COLD COMES THE NIGHT, Chun reveals an ability to thrive with star actors and Hollywood-caliber sets and scenarios, also a testament to producer Mynette Louie (California Solo, Children of Invention). The film is a throwback to the great moral thrillers of the 90s – contained, atmospheric, intimate pieces like A Simple Plan that test how far we are ready to go to save ourselves. – Brian Hu Filmmaker and producer scheduled to attend 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 55 asian american panorama GOLDEN GATE GIRLS NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 1:15pm, digiplex mission valley hong kong | ENGLISH, CANTONESE, MANDARIN | 90 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR S. Louisa Wei Official Selection, 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Filmmaker scheduled to attend Co-Presented by Bionic Sisters Productions GOLDEN GATE GIRLS begins with memories. Of director Esther Eng’s intelligence. Of friends working on Eng’s films in Honolulu or New York. We see a picture of the slick-haired San Francisco-born director, and lobby cards for her films like Mad Fire Mad Love. That’s just about all we have left of one of Asian American cinema’s most fascinating and elusive figures, the savvy and dandyish director Esther Eng, who as a queer, female director in California in the 1930s and 40s was so far ahead of her time we’re still struggling to keep up. Director S. Louisa Wei begins her journey in 2009, when she uncovered boxes of Eng’s personal photos found discarded near San Francisco’s airport. Wei brings these photos with her as she tracks down Eng’s surviving family and friends. Memories of an old colleague coalesce into a tribute to one of American cinema’s forgotten pioneers. Wei strings the recollections together with archival images, animation, and most valuably, the little remaining footage of Eng’s films like Golden Gate Girl, which also has the designation of being Bruce Lee’s first onscreen appearance. Eng remains something of a mystery throughout. She slips from San Francisco to Hong Kong and back again with a private determination. And yet the portrait that emerges is a vivid one. It’s the dream of Asian-ness in the U.S. more generally – that of Anna May Wong, Pearl Buck, James Wong Howe, and Soong May-ling – at a crossroads in history. If Eng remains elusive, it’s because, like so much of Asian American women’s history, she had been rejected as inconsequential – until now. – Brian Hu 56 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival THE HAUMĀNA NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 4:00pm DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY usa | ENGLISH, HAWAIIAN | 95 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Keo Woolford CAST Tui Asau, Mary Paalani, Kelly Hu Audience Award (Narrative), 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival asian american panorama Jonny Kealoha (Tui Asau) struggles to his Hawaiian cultural heritage in order to win his students over and prepare them for the prestigious Royal Hula Festival.  An independent feature film produced in Hawai’i and featuring a mostly local cast and crew, THE Haumāna is a warm and uplifting film that provides a detailed look at the Hawaiian tradition of hula and wipes away many of the old Hollywood stereotypes to set the record straight. Tui Asau displays both charm and complexity in the lead role, and the supporting cast provides plenty of surprises, including a wonderfully hilarious performance by Kelly Hu, who is brilliantly cast against type. – Gene Huh make ends meet as the host of a Polynesian luau show for tourists. Despite his obvious charisma, Jonny is going nowhere in life due to his incorrigible womanizing and drinking. And so it surprises everyone when Jonny is appointed the instructor of a high school boys hula class after the passing of his former Kumu Hula (master hula teacher).  Neither his new students, each of whom have their own obstacles to overcome, nor dedicated girls instructor Napua (Mary Paalani) are impressed by Jonny’s lounge music credentials and his lack of cultural knowledge.  Now facing the possibility of denying his beloved Kumu Hula’s dying wish, Jonny must reconnect with Closing Night Film, 2013 Hawaii International Film Festival Cast members scheduled to attend Sponsored by Co-Presented by Nā Koa Kai Canoe Club 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 57 asian american panorama MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR NOV. 11 (MONDAY), 4:00pm, digiplex mission valley usa | ENGLISH, KOREAN | 37 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Deann Borshay Liem, Ramsay Liem FREE SCREENING! Excellence in Documentary Short Filmmaking Award, 2013 Asian American International Film Festival Sponsored by The Hom Family Foundation Since 2000, Deanne Borshay Liem has won over audiences worldwide with two emotional and groundbreaking documentaries on adoption: First Person Plural and In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee (SDAFF ’10). With her latest film, MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR, Deanne and Ramsey Liem bring the same poignant clarity to individuals physically separated from families by an uncrossable and devastating line in the sand – specifically the 38th parallel, otherwise known as the DMZ. “forgotten” due to the temporary armistice which created the DMZ. If anything, these problematic names hint at the irresolvability of separation, the heart of Liem’s masterworks. With powerful archival footage, MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR takes audiences through a moving lesson on irrepressible longing through the ways four overseas Koreans continue their simple efforts to reunite families in spite of the DMZ, six decades later. MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR comes at an Informed by Ramsey Liem’s larger oral history project on Korean American immigrants, MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR is not your typical documentary on the Korean War, sometimes called “unknown,” “unfinished,” or important time. On the 60th anniversary of the armistice and increasing calls for Korean unification, this film is a rare chance to revisit the still active impact of war on families blown across different shores. – Christina Ree 58 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival MORAL SLEAZE NOV. 10 (SUNDay), 7:30pm, digiplex mission valley usa | ENGLISH | 73 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Jiyoung Lee CAST Jiyoung Lee, Matthew Gallo, Max Fisher Official Selection, 2013 Atlanta Film Festival asian american panorama When you’re the props mistress working on your jackass boyfriend’s sexploitation film that he’s determined to make  on his iPhone, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Inspired by a and less-than-positive Woody Allen’s past “anti- pokes fun at pretentious DIY video-making culture by creating a character who is both an unwilling participant and an annoyed observer of a ridiculous project that will surely bring her very little in return, let alone love. Filmmaker and cast scheduled to attend relationship With off-the-wall comedic timing that swerves around sense and decency, MORAL SLEAZE is the announcement of a new comedic talent in director and actor Jiyoung Lee. It’s awkward, but also weirdly adorable, maybe disgusting, definitely entertaining, and without doubt one of the most refreshing Asian American films we’ve seen in a while. – Wilda Wong characters,” MORAL SLEAZE, the first feature by Jiyoung Lee, dares to explore what happens when your boyfriend treats you like a wench, you’re morbidly afraid of bedbugs, you’re coerced into making illuminated underwear, and you’re also the caterer on an indie film set… which also happens to be your apartment. With a pit bull’s passive aggressiveness, Lee 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 59 asian american panorama NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 4:35PM, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY A PICTURE OF YOU usa | ENGLISH | 83 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR J.P. Chan CAST Jo Mei, Andrew Pang, Jodi Long Filmmaker and cast scheduled to attend Deaths in the family affect people differently, depending on what each individual knows from experience with the deceased. But sometimes things are complicated by what they don’t know. In A PICTURE OF YOU, two estranged siblings go through the belongings of their late mother only to uncover a photo that, through humor and repulsion, overturns their opinions of an otherwise angelic family member. The siblings are Jen (Jo Mei) and Kyle (Andrew Pang) who drive to the outskirts home of their late mom (Jodi Long). The bubbling tension is palpable. Kyle resents Jen for not being there in the final days. Jen has other things on her mind, including two friends who are joining the siblings in the woods. The photo they find isn’t the only discovery they make during the ritualistic cleaning, and coming to terms with mother isn’t the only healing they will undertake. First-time feature film director (and SDAFF regular) J.P. Chan draws from his personal experiences – Eric Lallana Preceded by: LONESOME TOWN CANADA | 3 MINS | 2013 DIRECTOR Grace Wang A snapshot of Coney Island to the sounds of Ricky Nelson. to deliver a tender, honest portrayal of a family entering its next stage. 60 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival PLASTIC PARADISE: THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 12:30PM, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY NOV. 16 (SATURDAY), 2:00pm, ENCINITAS PUBLIC LIRBARY Do you know what happens to baby albatrosses on Midway Atoll? Do you know why girls are hitting puberty at an earlier and earlier age? Angela Sun, sportscaster and former Current TV correspondent, answers these questions by first asking this one: if plastic never goes away, where does it go? An avid diver, surfer, and swimmer, Sun lets her deep love for the ocean lead her into investigating the lasting effects on global ecosystems of one of the best blessings and worst curses to be invented in the modern world. After years of wading through red tape, Sun finally makes it to the famed “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and puts herself on the front lines as she crashes a convention to secretly interview the people behind plastics manufacturing, and gets her blood tested for BPA after deliberate exposure via a store receipt. In the seven years it took to make the film, Sun met the best of environmental preservationists and the worst of corporations hell-bent on keeping plastic production alive. The result is a film that moves the grassroots and has the audience thinking twice before grabbing a straw to go with a beverage. – Wilda Wong asian american panorama usa | ENGLISH | 57 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Angela Sun Filmmaker scheduled to attend Co-Presented by I Love A Clean San Diego 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 61 asian american panorama NOV. 8 (Friday), 9:00pm, UCSD Price Center Theater Nov. 14 (Thursday), 8:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley USA | ENGLISH | 83 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Byron Q RASKAL LOVE Official Selection, 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Filmmaker scheduled to attend Co-Presented by UCSD Alumni Director Byron Q burst onto the scene with his debut feature Bang Bang (SDAFF ’11), a gangster film that boasted two unlikely features for the genre: Asian Americans and San Diego. The film was praised for its gritty authenticity and stylized visuals, and Byron Q was credited for his commitment to drawing from real life, from the locations to the actors, most of them non-professionals, many of them from the streets. One of the supporting actors was Vanna Fut, a real life OG of the Tiny Raskal Gang (TRG). From Pomona to Tacoma, from b-boying to gang-banging, Fut’s story is one of growing up, making tough decisions, making the most of his street knowledge, and becoming a mentor to the next generation. Byron Q combines found footage and dramatic reenactments to chronicle the testy, loveinducing feeling of brotherhood that takes young men into and out of the streets. It’s also a testament to the brotherhood between director and subject, two homies with a story too powerful to keep lidded and too incredible for fiction. – Erwin Mendoza 62 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival connected ••••• to the arts We applaud Pacific Arts Movement for their ongoing work that does so much to enrich our hearts and minds. As a sponsor of the arts, we’re strong believers in the power of self-expression. And we proudly support those organizations that share our vision. Connect at sdge.com. ©2013 San Diego Gas & Electric Company. All copyright and trademark rights reserved. 0713 CELEBRATE ASIAN CINEMA COX IS A PROUD SPONSOR OF THE 14th SAN DIEGO ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL Cox Advanced TV brings you the best programming from home. Catch the latest news, drama series, films, music and much more from TV JAPAN, CTI-Zhong Tian Channel, SBTN, TFC, Filipino On Demand, Myx TV, ART, Bollywood Hits On Demand and TVK-Pop On Demand. CALL TODAY! 888-201-7378 cox.com/sandiego Programming not available everywhere and subject to change. Names and logos of featured programmers and program services are the property of their respective owners. © 2013 CoxCom, Inc., d/b/a Cox Communications California. All rights reserved. asian american panorama NOV. 10 (SUNDAY), 12:00pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY 120 MINS Free screening! Sponsored by REEL VOICES Since 2005, Reel Voices has empowered local high school students by teaching them the art of documentary filmmaking. This intense, 12week summer internship helps students become socially-conscious storytellers, learn Final Cut Pro editing, and experience all stages of production and post-production. This year, Reel Voices presents the work of 12 students whose work touch on issues ranging from family, to music, to the regular folks from BRUCE THE CVS MAN 4 MINS | DIRECTOR Kiara Devine A glimpse into the life of one man who offers a daily dose of happiness. WOULD? 9 MINS | DIRECTOR Jae Bireley An in-depth look into a childhood spent in the violent inner city of Los Angeles and the longterm psychological trauma that follows. WHAT IS FRIEND(SHIP)? 5 MINS | DIRECTOR Sierra Green An exploration of the  meaning and Free post-screening reception sponsored by Chipotle and Popeye’s the community. MAKE IT HAPPEN 7 MINS | DIRECTOR Michael Guyen (Nghia) A young network marketer tries to make it in the business field. emotion behind friendship and the memories of people in the community. BREAKING REALITY SURFER’S BOND 8 MINS | DIRECTOR Emily Bergersen A father-daughter pair’s love for the art of surfing. WE TRULY ARE BULLETPROOF 9 MINS | DIRECTOR Eli Shand The journey of a group of San Diegan K-Pop fans as they prepare for the upcoming 2013 K-CON dance cover competition. 7 MINS | DIRECTOR Angeleena Tiaokhiao After a back injury, one teen finds breakdancing. BEING DIABETIC 5 MINS | DIRECTOR Kristal Salazar The ups, the downs, and the best thing that can happen when you’re a diabetic. 66 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival UPWARD BOUND 5 MINS | DIRECTOR Vivian Diep Students who have completed the Upward Bound program contemplate the future and an ideal summer. CRESCENDO 12 MINS | DIRECTOR Austin Gatus Teachers, students, and professionals discuss music as empowerment amongst youth. A LETTER TO ALEX 6 MINS | DIRECTOR Jackie Recinos An intimate view of the relationship between a mother and her young son. PROUD TO BE LOUD 7 MINS | DIRECTOR Jeremie Sunico Trash metal band Archfiend grows from small garage to the stages of the San Diego music scene. asian american panorama 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 67 asian american panorama NOV. 10 (sunday), 2:50pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY USA, JAPAN | ENGLISH, JAPANESE | 82 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Junya Sakino CAST Eugene Kim, Gaku Hamada, Marlane Barnes, Jessika Van Official Selection, 2013 SXSW Film Festival Best Screenplay, 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Filmmakers scheduled to attend SAKE-BOMB Sebastian (Eugene Kim) is angry. It’s a hopeless, lonely, and improbably funny anger that can only be summed up by the name of Sebastian’s vlog (“FOB Mother Fucker”), through which he assaults viewers with his radical perceptions on race and his loathing for any association between Asian Americans and foreign-born Asians. Enter his foreign-born cousin, Naoto (Gaku Hamada of Chips, SDAFF ‘12), who needs Sebastian’s help to find the woman he longs for in Northern California. Their ensuing road trip binds Sebastian and Naoto and reveals truths about both men, especially Sebastian, whose anger, as it turns out, may be severely misdirected. SAKE-BOMB, the first feature by Junya Sakino, skewers the narcissistic notion of identity-asanger, while spinning an oddball comedy about family and redemption. With a biting script from Jeff Mizushima (director of SDAFF faves Etienne! and Salad Days), and great performances by Kim, Hamada, and a funny Marlane Barnes (iCarly, The Twilight Saga, Mad Men), SAKEBOMB takes us from identity blogging to white woman fetish to the crazy things that ultimately make us happy. – Phillip Lorenzo Preceded by: THE CURIOUS CASE OF TOMMY DO USA | 7 MINS | 2013 DIRECTOR Angeli Landayan Tommy Do’s life, as reflected in the rotations of routine and spinning laundry. 68 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SHORTS: AIGOOOOOOOOOO! 93 MINS FREE SCREENING! asian american panorama NOV. 8 (friday), 4:00pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY CHOONGSHIM, SOSO DIRECTOR Kim Jung-in SOUTH KOREA | 36 MINS | 2012 North Korean illegal immigrant in China takes refuge with her massage parlor customer. THE SAME OLD SONG DIRECTOR Hyerhang Cho SOUTH KOREA | 10 MINS | 2013 Dependent and unemployed stay-at-home dad sees no end to his despair. THE LINE DIRECTOR Kim Soo-jin SOUTH KOREA | 27 MINS | 2013 A young woman must decide between saving herself or her young neighbor. SWEET CORN DIRECTOR Joo Hyun Lee SOUTH KOREA | 19 MINS | 2013 The generation gap between father and son peeps its head when they attempt to save their primary crop. If we could put in more o’s or more !!!’s in the title we would. These shorts from Korea are that good. Sponsored by The Hom Family Foundation 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 69 asian american panorama NOV. 14 (thursday), 4:00pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY 95 MINS FREE SCREENING! SHORTS: ALL OUT OF LOVE Whether you’re running on empty or filled to the brim, love manifests in the strangest ways. Sponsored by The Hom Family Foundation NO LONGER THERE DIRECTOR Noboyuki Miyake JAPAN | 23 MINS | HD | 2013 A man who makes artificial teeth envisions the lives of his recipients. THE MAN IN THE FISH POOL DIRECTOR Le Lam Vien, Do Nhu Trang VIETNAM | 18 MINS | HD | 2012 A lonely writer reflects on a past love as if it were present day. PLAN B DIRECTOR John Lopez USA | 12 MINS | HD | 2013 A young couple dealing with pregnancy contemplates their options. SAMNANG DIRECTOR Asaph Polonsky USA | 22 MINS | DCP | 2013 The lead baker of a Cambodian donut shop feels threatened when asked to train the boss’s sister. ALL THE SPLENDOUR OF THE YEARS DIRECTOR Charlene Wang TAIWAN, USA | 20 MINS | 35MM | 2013 Two star-crossed lovers reunite nearly thirty years after an unexpected breakup. 70 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival T H I RT I E T H A N N I V E R S A RY Y E A R FILMFEST 3 0 t h E D I T I O N | M AY 0 1 - M AY 1 1 , 2 0 1 4 LA ASIAN PACIFIC V I S U A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S p r e s e n t s t h e S U B M I T Y O U R F I L M T O D AY W W W. V C O N L I N E . O R G / F E S T I VA L /ASIANFILMFESTLA @ASIANFILMFESTLA /VCFILMFEST asian american panorama NOV. 10 (SUNDAY), DIGIPLEX MISSION Nov. 13 (WeDNESDAY), DIGIPLEX MISSION SHORTS: ANIMATION: THE ILLUSION OF LIFE 2:20pm, VALLEY 6:45pm, VALLEY 85 MINS BRAIN DIVIDED USA | 5 MINS | 2013 | CG DIRECTOR Joon Soo Song, Josiah Haworth, Joon Shik Song Guy meets girl, guy offends girl, and girl leaves. But will he have the last laugh? CYCLOID JAPAN | 3 MINS | 2013 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR Tomoki Kurogi A hypnotic trip backwards through a life of impermanence. KATACHI SUMO ROLL USA | 4 MINS | 2013 | STOPMOTION DIRECTOR Jay Kim A sushi chef does his best to satisfy an unappreciative customer. DUCKHAMMER AND JAPAN, POLAND | 3 MINS | 2013 | STOPMOTION DIRECTOR Katarzyna Kijek, Przemyslaw Adamski “Katachi” means “shape” in Japanese. This one is made of approximately 2000 silhouettes extracted from PVC plates using a computer­ controlled cutter. Some mature content. Cast and crew scheduled to attend. How do you coax life out of thin air? Find out in this program dedicated entirely to the magical art of animation. Co-Presented by The Art Institute of California – San Diego, Platt College BEAVKID GET BUCKETS USA | 6 MINS | 2013 | 2D TRADITIONAL DIRECTOR Dave Quion Two slacker friends go to the park and try to win some furniture by beating a gecko and a rhino at basketball. LOUD BOY USA | 4 MINS | 2013 | 2D TRADITIONAL DIRECTOR Amy Lee Memories are triggered as a young woman shares her experience of adolescence. WITHIN WITHIN RESCUE TAIWAN | 6 MINS | 2013 | CG DIRECTOR Po Chou Chi Three bumbling scientists try their best to rescue a dying planet at all costs. UK | 3 MINS | 2011 | 2D DIGITAL + VIDEO DIRECTOR Sharon Liu An exploration of the complicated relationship between Hong Kong and China. 72 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival STILL I BREATHE USA | 3 MINS | 2012 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR Sang Lee, Zack Lydon An inventor plans out every minute detail of his life, even down to his own death. THE BRIDGE CHRONICLES FRANCE | 4 MINS | 2010 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR Hefang Wei A volunteer watches over a bridge on the Yangtze River where several suicides have taken place. THE PRESENT TAIWAN | 15 MINS | 2013 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR Joe Hsieh A random meeting between a married man and a precocious girl quickly turns into fatal attraction. CHICKEN OR THE EGG USA | 3 MINS | 2013 | CG DIRECTOR Elaine Wu An egg­ -loving pig falls in love with a chicken and must decide what comes first, Chicken or the Egg? YELLOW STICKY NOTES | CANADIAN ANIJAM CANADA | 8 MINS | 2013 | 2D PEN & STICKY NOTES DIRECTOR Jeff Chiba Stearns For the first time in Canadian history, 15 of Canada’s most celebrated independent animators come together to create one collaborative animated film. REQUIEM FOR ROMANCE CANADA | 7 MINS | 2013 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR Jonathan Ng A modern­ -day couple’s secret love affair comes to a bittersweet end during an evening phone call, ancient-Chinese style. A KNOCK ON MY DOOR USA | 10 MINS | 2012 | 2D DIGITAL DIRECTOR David Chai Escaping a life of sadness and adversity, a young Korean boy moves to America and learns that even though life is full of hard knocks, the time does come when it’s safe to answer the door. asian american panorama 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 73 asian american panorama SHORTS: BAD EDUCATION NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 2:00pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY 94 MINS From the school of hard knocks come the outrageous, the transgressive, and the hilarious. THE PERILS OF GROWING UP FLAT-CHESTED DIRECTOR Yulin Kuang USA | 18 MINS | 2013 Katya wants to be her more study voluptuous for KONG PEH TSHAT OR : HOW I LEARNED TO TELL A LIE DIRECTOR Shang-Sing Guo TAIWAN | 30 MINS | 2012 A wrongly-accused rural boy loses his innocence when the real world refuses to believe him. THE FUTURE IS NOW! DIRECTOR Chicky Otani, Jeannie Wong USA | 2 MINS | 2013 Chicky and Jeannie show off the latest wares in hygiene technology. A RAINY DAY FOR EARTHWORMS DIRECTOR Gary Mei USA | 16 MINS | 2013 After a terrible accident, a young boy must come to peace with his friends. PYRO & KLEPTO DIRECTOR Justin Chandra USA | 23 MINS | 2012 A boy and girl connect romantically in spite of their impulsive disorders. IN BETWEEN MY HANDMADE MOMENTS DIRECTOR Tiger Souvannakoumane USA | 5 MINS | 2013 Dad his doesn’t daughter’s approve of delightful partner Owen. handmade cards. 74 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SHORTS: CLEARING CUSTOMS 98 MINS asian american panorama NOV. 8 (FRIDAY), 5:50pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY From werewolf hotels to Cannes, we smuggle in the very best film DRAFT DAY DIRECTOR Josh Kim SOUTH KOREA, THAILAND | 9 MINS | 2013 Born as males, two transgender women take their turns in the Thai draft lottery. NEW YEAR’S EVE DIRECTOR Eileen C. Hsu USA | 6 MINS | 2013 As the clock ticks, a younger brother tries to convince his sibling to loosen up. PSYCHADELIC FAMILY DIRECTOR Akio Hiramatsu JAPAN | 27 MINS | 2012 After agreeing to run away MORE THAN TWO HOURS DIRECTOR Ali Asgari IRAN | 15 MINS | 2013 Young Iranian couple anonymously – and illegally – seeks medical help. MADE IN CHINATOWN DIRECTOR Kevin Lau USA | 17 MINS | 2013 Young seamstress mulls over the consequences of her pregnancy. HONEYMOON SUITE DIRECTOR Zao Wang CHINA | 14 MINS | 2013 On the night of a full moon, a hotel clerk gets a most unusual assignment. with his mother, a teenager’s perspective will never be the same again. MEMORY BLOCKS DIRECTOR Jessica Liu SINGAPORE | 10 MINS | 2013 Singaporean friends are bound by their waning adolescence and a retro beat. morsels from around the world. 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 75 asian american panorama Nov. 10 (Sunday), 5:25pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 16 (Saturday), 6:00pm, Encinitas Library 98 MINS SHORTS: CURSES IN CURSIVE Shoulder pad hoarders. Pyramid schemers. Super Cuts playaz. These unruly women throw down in style. INHERITANCE DIRECTOR Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz USA | 27 MINS | 2013 A poetic journey through the multifaceted lives of an Iranian American family. PAGPAG DIRECTOR John Paul Su PHILIPPINES | 15 MINS | 2013 A scavenging, foul-mouthed grandmother hopes to get her granddaughter adopted immediately. SUPERIOR LIFE CLASSROOM DIRECTOR Leslie Tai USA | 6 MINS | 2013 Taiwanese women in the Bay Area find themselves through Amway. MY MOTHER’S JADE GRAVE GOODS DIRECTOR Leslie Tai USA | 12 MINS | 2013 Out of a beloved grandmother’s DIRECTOR Irene Young storage container KOTOBUKI / TO US DIRECTOR Kimie Tanaka JAPAN, SINGAPORE | 15 MINS | 2013 A single woman returns home on her 30th birthday, only to find that things have changed with current and former loved ones. “THAT GUY…WITH GREAT HAIR” DIRECTOR Diana Li USA | 5 MINS | 2012 Gender trouble meets Diana Li at Supercuts. USA | 18 MINS | 2013 A mother and daughter’s relationship intensifies when a boy gets involved. come packages of memories. 76 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SHORTS FOR SHORTIES! NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 11:00AM, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY 49 MINS asian american panorama FREE SCREENING! Sponsored by Animated and live-action short films for kids and their families. LITTLE MAO DIRECTOR Allan Tong CANADA | 7 MINS | 2012 | LIVE ACTION On the baseball diamond, MY NAME IS ASIROH DIRECTOR Asiroh Cham USA | 5 MINS | 2013 | LIVE ACTION, STOP-MOTION A young girl discovers the story behind her unusual name. DORONCORON DIRECTOR Yuichi Ito JAPAN | 3 MINS | 2012 | 2D DIGITAL A boy made of soil comes alive and meets various creatures. Q&X DIRECTOR Zumi Mizokami USA | 5 MINS | 2013 | LIVE ACTION Gboi-fly meets Xara on a most unusual trip to Earth. BOX OF HEARTS DIRECTOR Asako Ushio USA | 7 MINS | 2013 | LIVE ACTION Over breakfast, a 10-year-old girl asks a question about love. TRACES OF JOY DIRECTOR Louis Yeum, Jeff Tran CANADA | 8 MINS | 2012 | CG On an inner-city playground, two children play with an imaginary character. Co-Presented by Barnard Asian Pacific Language Academy CURIOUS CAT’S CHRISTMAS DIRECTOR Jiyoon Lee USA | 4 MINS | 2013 | CG A curious cat nearly kills himself in search of gifts on Christmas Eve. HU’S GAME DIRECTOR young Kim USA, SOUTH KOREA | 7 MINS | 2012 | CG An outcast is forced to come up with a creative way to make new friends. Shaun Seong- power gets to Bobby’s head. PLAYING THE PIANO DIRECTOR Yi-Chien Chen TAIWAN | 3 MINS | 2013 | 2D TRADITIONAL A little girl’s piano-playing transports her on a journey. 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 77 asian american panorama SHORTS: TRENDING QUEER NOV. 9 (SATURDAY), 7:05pm, DIGIPLEX MISSION VALLEY 106 MINS From military mayhem and dance fever to girl muscle, the LGBT chatter is getting louder. Co-Presented by Family Health Centers of San Diego, Greater San Diego Business Association, Guys Like Us, North County LGBTQ Resource Center, San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus, San Diego PFLAG, San Diego POZabilities, UCSD LGBT Resource Center, Queer Student Union of San Diego State University, Long Yang Club of San Diego, FilmOut, NAPAWF-SD BORN TO DANCE THIS WAY DIRECTOR Jerell Rosales USA | 12 MINS | 2012 Fierce and fabulous, Joo Si auditions for the opportunity of a lifetime. OBAMA IS/AND ME DIRECTOR Stevan Lee Mraovitch FRANCE | 16 MINS | 2013 On the eve of Obama’s election, a celebration turns ugly in a Paris ghetto. DRAFT DAY DIRECTOR Josh Kim SOUTH KOREA, THAILAND | 9 MINS | 2013 Born as males, two transgender women take their turns in the Thai draft lottery. CLEANER DIRECTOR Masami Kawai USA | 18 MINS | 2013 Desire mixes with the bonds of blood in the world of Koreatown gangs. ENTWINE DIRECTOR Raymond Yeung USA | 10 MINS | 2012 A decision must be made after Danny’s loving relationship disintegrates into indifference and betrayal. IT’S ONLY US DIRECTOR Mikey Pantoja USA | 12 MINS | 2012 Timothy pulls out all the stops to win over his handsome date. MEMORY OF A BUTTERFLY DIRECTOR Tin Lee USA | 10 MINS | 2013 The love story between two young women unfolds against the backdrop of Chinese opera. HOWARD DIRECTOR Carolyn Wong CANADA | 19 MINS | 2013 Filmmaker Carolyn Wong delves into the life and murder of the uncle she never knew. 78 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival TO WEAVE A NAME asian american panorama Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 4:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley USA | ENGLISH, HAWAIIAN | 57 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Christen Hepuakoa Marquez FREE SCREENING! One of the best Hawai’i films in recent years begins in New York City, where filmmaker Christen Hepuakoa Marquez wonders about her lengthy Hawaiian middle name. Christen’s lived in the continental U.S. for most of her life, arriving in Seattle with her white father after her Hawaiian mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and deemed unfit to raise Christen and her brothers. However, Christen’s Hawaiian name continued to haunt her like a long rope tethered to a distant, shadowy place. And at the end of that rope would be, inevitably, her mother, whom none of the siblings have seen in ten years. Pilgrim garb and living as a near-recluse. Their reunion and attempt at reconciliation is handled with an anxious determination by Christen and her camera, and the result is exceptionally moving. But what sets TO WEAVE A NAME apart from most films about Hawaiian culture is that it refuses to romanticize the search for roots. Here, returning to one’s culture is difficult, not natural. It’s a process of research, diagnosis, mending, weaving. And it’s done not simply for the pleasure of identity but as a bold act of healing across oceans and generations. – Brian Hu Preceded by: MAKOTO: OR, HONESTY Official Selection, 2013 Hawaii International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 CAAMFest Sponsored by The Hom Family Foundation TO WEAVE A NAME documents Christen’s journey back to Hawai’i, first with her siblings, then by herself. The mother they meet is eccentric, stubborn, a little awkward, and sometimes very difficult. But she’s mom, just decked out in USA | 5 MINS DIRECTOR Christopher Yogi An impressionistic take on a return home to Hawai’i. 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 79 asian american panorama UNIDENTIFIED Nov. 8 (Friday), 8:20pm, Digiplex Mission Valley USA | ENGLISH | 89 MINS | SD | 2013 DIRECTOR Jason R. Miller CAST Eric Artell, Parry Shen, Eddie Mui World Premiere Filmmaker and cast scheduled to attend By now, we’ve seen plenty of hangovers in Vegas, both on film and in real life. And of course we know that what happens in Vegas stays there. But what if one of your friends has a camera to record what transpires? For all to see could be the personal drama, the flights from loan sharks, or even… the otherworldly. UNIDENTIFIED mixes the human drama of the buddy road trip film with the intimate, sometimes invasive nature of the found footage genre. But another genre lurks by the wayside. In the film, four friends evade earthly dangers and discover that something from beyond is what they should really be worried about. Life moments are captured with a personal yet efficient touch that generates the right tension at the right time. With impressive effects and lots of laughs, UNIDENTIFIED is an exciting first feature by Jason Richard Miller, who cut his teeth on genre films like Frozen, Chillerama, and the Hatchet trilogy. This comedic ride into the unknown features SDAFF alum Parry Shen (Better Luck Tomorrow, the Hatchet films) and Eddie Mui (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Dark Blue). – Phillip Lorenzo 80 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT asian american panorama Nov. 10 (Sunday), 5:15pm, Digiplex Mission Valley USA | MANDARIN, ENGLISH, SPANISH | 64 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Lynne Sachs Official Selection, 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival “Moon… working / sun… sleep.” Shift beds, which exist in China and below-the-radar in the U.S., provide a place to sleep by the hour, largely for the working poor far from home. In the aptly titled YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT, experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs probes the informal family formed within the tight quarters of one such shift bed apartment in the heart of New York Chinatown. Beautifully blending anecdotes, evocative audio textures, and an ensemble of elderly immigrant performers/participants, YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT is sumptuous and exploratory, bringing us a Chinatown we have never seen before in film. Working with interviews and non-actors, some of whom are shift bed residents themselves, Sachs uses a dedicated mix of storytelling modes, including stage performances and poetry, blended in with Chinese wedding singing and line dances. Where the film truly flowers is in its many moments of casual intimacy – chopping a watermelon, combing hair, massaging a friend’s shoulders – and the luxury of hearing remarkable stories that emerge from old folks: snakeheads, family violence under Chairman Mao, a nightclub named after Chinese wage pay, mattresses for the poor, a mother’s imprint in a bed.  Sachs’ camera roams through a Chinatown that goes above and below ground level; vivid scenes in weddings, mahjong parlors, choked bedrooms, and cramped kitchens trace an urban network that feels as palpable, dense, and human as the Internet can often feel, with feared borders and struggle deep in the pores. – Christina Ree West Coast Premiere 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 81 WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? Asia Pop! 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 83 ASIA POP! THE BIT PLAYER Nov. 9 (Saturday), 1:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG | 111 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Jeffrey Jeturian CAST Vilma Santos, Marlon Rivera, Ruby Ruiz Audience Choice Award, NETPAC Award, Director’s Showcase, 2013 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Toronto International Film Festival Sponsored by Jhigs Hair Studio On every TV soap set are the bit players – or “ekstras” – and amongst them is someone like Loida, a seasoned bit actor who dreams of one day landing the speaking role that will push her career to the next level. Played by the legendary Vilma Santos, Loida and her fellow bit players hang out on set, waiting to be cast as anonymous faces in a primetime soap opera starring some of the biggest names in television. (Look for cameos by the Pinoy Heartthrob, the Sexiest Woman in the Philippines, and the Over-the-Top Contrabida). And yet, the bit players show more gusto and dedication to their work than their more famous colleagues and, in this film anyway, turn out to be the true stars. Director Jeffrey Jeturian (Bisperas, Be Careful with My Heart), no stranger to the soap opera school of production, satirizes the telenovela formula for comic effect, provoking the audience with a social realism that depicts the exhilarating, mundane, and at times, humiliating experience of being at the bottom of the showbiz hierarchy. It boldly pulls back the curtains on the ratingsdriven television industry to reveal the real cost of cheap labor. At the heart of it is Vilma Santos as the earnest protagonist, solidifying her status as a master of her craft. – Malou Amparo 84 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival CONFESSION OF MURDER ASIA POP! Nov. 11 (Monday), 8:35pm, Digital Gym Cinema Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 4:20pm, Digiplex Mission Valley SOUTH KOREA | KOREAN | 119 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Jeong Byeong-Gil CAST Jung Jae-Young, Park Si-oo, Director Jeong Byeong-Gil’s last film Action Boys combined an SVU-like plot with Korean melodrama. His latest, CONFESSION OF MURDER, ups the ante, this time following the efforts of Police Lieutenant Choi (Jung JaeYoung) and his struggle to find the killer who left a scar on his face, and his body of work. It begins, as these things often do, with a chase that leaves blood stains but no suspects. Years and drinks go by and Liuetenant Choi’s case turns cold. On the last legs of the case’s statute of limitations, Choi gets his lead through improbable means. The handsome Lee Doo-Seok (heartthrob Park Si-Hoo) releases a book chronicling how he committed the murder. Korean TV eats the story up and pits cop against killer on the air for the entire country to see and swoon over. Harboring some doubts, Lieutenant Choi continues his own search for the real killer. Jeong piles on the action and the revenge, as well as developments that could only be described as surreal. Action-crime dramas are known to keep audiences guessing, but in Jeong’s hands, the twists are especially dizzying. – Erwin Mendoza Kim Youn-Ae Thriller Award, 2013 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival Best Screenplay, 2013 PaekSang Arts Awards Sponsored by 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 85 ASIA POP! FOREVER LOVE Nov. 10 (Sunday), 2:45pm, UCSD Price Center Theater Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 5:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley TAIWAN | TAIWANESE, MANDARIN | 124 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Aozaru Shiao, Toyoharu Kitamura CAST Blue Lan, Amber An, Edison Wang Sponsored by UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series, The original English title of FOREVER LOVE was “Hollywood Taiwan,” which summons the romanticism of the dream factory, as well as the aspiration of Taiwanese cinema to dream in big marquee lettering. Though it’s about the blackand-white golden age of Taiwanese-language filmmaking of the late 1960s, it’s an extravagantly colored, cloud puff of delight, a world illuminated by limelight, if not the shimmering moon itself. The film depicts the rose-colored memory of a 70-year-old who recalls his years slumming it as a successful screenwriter of films with titles like “Spy No. 7 on Monster Island.” Little inspires him until he crosses paths with plucky fangirl Meiyueh, who soon becomes the love of his life. Like a randier, giddier Om Shanti Om set in Taiwan, FOREVER LOVE celebrates past filmmaking traditions not simply through nostalgia, but through a blast of campy fun, especially in the performance of Amber An, who plays Mei-yueh as a time-bomb of hysterical energy. Despite the comic delirium, the film drives the point home in a final stretch that’s surprisingly moving, becoming a music-infused love-across-thedecades tear-jerker that’s more “Bollywood Taiwan” than anything else. It’s a poignant, puppy-dog take on movie obsession standing in for the tenacity of love. In an uncommonly good year for Taiwanese comedies, FOREVER LOVE resurrects past laughs to declare optimism for the filmmaking – and love – to come. – Brian Hu Filmmaker scheduled to attend 86 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS ASIA POP! Nov. 8 (Friday), 6:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 7:15pm, Cinepolis Nov. 14 (Thursday), 7:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley SOUTH KOREA | KOREAN, ENGLISH | Like a Mentos in your mouth, HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS is easily the most refreshing, visually effervescent, off-kilter romantic comedy out of Korea this year. Make that from anywhere. It’s a seesaw of mania and comedy, bouncing around in a visual wonderland filled with laughout-loud humor and breakout star turns by Oh Jung-Se and the perpetually interesting Lee SiYoung, last seen together in Couples. The title’s glitchy retro grammar says it all. A happy mix of B-movies from the 60s, Three Stooges antics, and female how-to aesthetics, HOW TO USE GUYS brings us Choi Bona, a surly advertising assistant who glares through fluffy bangs and cinched hoodie as she is continually overworked and dumped on by her male peers. On one advertising shoot, Bona butts heads with Lee Seung-jae, an eccentric pop star on the verge of losing his celebrity luster. After stumbling on a self-help VHS box-set (VHS!), Bona unleashes Dr. Swarski, a William Shatner-esque video genie who infects the film with throwback gender advice.  The real treat is Lee Si-Young whose Bona is Unabomber meets Pikachu, unapologetic, charming, and a perfect parry to Oh’s preening comedy. Startlingly, HOW TO USE GUYS is the debut from Lee Won-Suk, who doesn’t stray too far from the rules of romantic comedy but delivers with unforgettable mentholated happy freshness. – Christina Ree 116 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Lee Won-Suk CAST Lee Si-Young, Oh Jung-Se, Park Young-Gyu Audience Award, 2013 Udine Far East Film Festival West Coast Premiere Sponsored by 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 87 ASIA POP! Nov. 8 (Friday), 4:15pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 10 (Sunday), 2:10pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 11 (Monday), 3:40pm, Digiplex Mission Valley PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG, ENGLISH | 100 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Jerrold Tarog CAST Lovi Poe, Paulo Avelino, Benjamin Alves Official Selection, 2013 Busan International Film Festival Best Film, Director’s Showcase, 2013 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival North American Premiere Sponsored by IF ONLY Filipino cinema surely knows ridiculous, over-thetop drama, but rarely does a Filipino film portray love in a way that is refreshingly earnest in all its tragic irony. IF ONLY does exactly that. The film practically swept the awards at the Director’s Showcase of this year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, and shows us that Filipino cinema is ready, and able, to step up its game. It is the day of Andrea’s wedding to Robert, who possesses the golden trifecta of in-law acceptance: he’s handsome, powerful, and, watching, that Dennis knows a little too much about the bride-to-be. More questions about Andrea and Dennis begin to arise, and slowly her secret past is revealed and we begin to learn exactly why Andrea is so unsure about her pending marriage. As the bride, Lovi Poe is spectacular in her honesty and absolutely glows on-screen with each of her three leading men. While the film is non-linear, the story itself is refreshing in its simplicity. Director Jerrold Tarog (Senior Year, SDAFF ‘11) captures love and excruciating heartbreak effortlessly without ever needlessly delving into melodrama. This is, simply, a love story for the lovers. – James Paguyo Co-Presented by FilAmFest most importantly, wealthy. Yet, she is clearly distracted. Dennis, the wedding videographer, arrives to shoot some pre-wedding interviews and it is clear to Andrea, and the rest of us 88 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT Nov. 9 (Saturday), 6:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 8:20pm, Digiplex Mission Valley HONG KONG | CANTONESE | 100 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Herman Yau ASIA POP! The adventures of Bruce Lee’s most famous teacher continue in the fifth Ip Man movie since Wilson Yip’s blockbuster Ip Man (SDAFF ’09). As with his 2010 The Legend is Born: Ip Man, Herman Yau has his latest, THE FINAL FIGHT, focus on the man and his surroundings. In the former, we see a young Ip Man growing up in rural Foshan. This time we’re in Hong Kong in the 1950s, with screen legend Anthony Wong as the titular hero in his later years. Ip Man teaches Wing Chun, his special brand of kung fu, while his students attract trouble on a daily basis. Unsuccessfully avoiding violence, Ip Man inevitably unleashes his talent for punishing evil-doers, especially when he discovers that his wife cannot return to Hong Kong due to political turmoil. A budding romance between our hero and singer Jenny conveniently breaks up the action as Ip Man battles an array of local thugs, rival-school master Chung Ng, and finally the scar-faced gangster, Dragon. Released this year alongside another Ip Man story, Wong Kar-wai’s luscious The Grandmaster, THE FINAL FIGHT stands apart as a kung-fu history lesson authenticated by British-Chinese conflict, union strikes, and opium addiction. Ip Man, always the renaissance hero, is a teacher, a lover, a peacemaker, and of course one bad-ass kung-fu fighting machine. – Otto Lai Preceded by: KUNG FU DATE USA | 2 MINS | 2013 DIRECTOR Akiko Izumitani Is there anything more romantic than butt kicking? CAST Anthony Wong, Gillian Chung, Eric Tsang Opening Night Film, 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival Sponsored by Drs. Craig & Silvia Reid at Vivalachi Alternative Health and Wellness Services 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 89 ASIA POP! Nov. 10 (Sunday), 4:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 6:15pm, Digiplex Mission Valley INDIA | HINDI | 136 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Vikramaditya Motwane CAST Sonakshi Sinha, Ranveer Singh, Barun Chanda Sponsored by LOOTERA Pakhi is a spoiled, implacable daughter of an aristocrat. Varun is a quiet, handsome archaeologist who arrives in Pakhi’s home to try his luck with the treasures he suspects are buried below. And so he digs, burrowing not only into the soil, but into the imagination of Pakhi, an aspiring writer closeted from the world, who finally has her window opened by Varun the intellectual, so she pulls back the curtain and stares. LOOTERA is a film of beautiful silences. No, beautiful everything: sets, props, people, music – even the air seems tinted with superior dust. It’s 1953, the fading years of the aristocracy, when acres of orchards are marked for socialization and corridors of treasures – probably stolen goods anyway – are about to be subsumed by the government. There is a nostalgia for pre-Nehru 90 power of love. Piercing, forbidden, and dangerous love between a modern woman and a commoner with a dark secret. In only his second feature, Vikramaditya Motwane (Udaan, SDAFF ’11) teems with ambition, combining a Victorian romance with a classic Hollywood crime saga, borrowing from early Guru Dutt and Satyajit Ray’s Charulata, and then compounding it to David Lean proportions. LOOTERA paints love as an escape from history, a sanctuary from both the upper class and the underworld, but knows that it can only be just a painting, never reality. In several scenes, Varun admits that though he can’t paint, he wants to make nothing less than a masterpiece. LOOTERA feels the same way about trying for love. – Brian Hu 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival class privilege, but it’s tempered by the slashing FO R T H E B ES T I N ASIAN ACTION YOUR SOURCE COM E GET SOM E. W ELLGOUSA . COM COM I NG TO SDAFF 2 01 3 I P MAN: TH E FI NAL FIGHT CONFESSION OF MURDER ON THE JOB DRUG WAR ASIA POP! Nov. 9 (Saturday), 9:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 10 (Sunday), 7:10pm, Digiplex Mission Valley ON THE JOB PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG, ENGLISH | 121 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Erik Matti CAST Joel Torre, Piolo Pascual, Gerald Anderson Director’s Fortnight, 2013 Cannes Film Festival Sponsored by We open on two men, Tatang (Joel Torre) and Daniel (Gerald Anderson), making their way through a noisy street festival. They spot their target, then finish him off, mafia-style. But Tatang and Daniel are no mafiosos. They’re prisoners who are allowed outside prison walls as guns- personal involvement with Manrique leads him down a road with no right and wrong, but is one that might lead him to the true circumstances of his father’s death. The result is an edge-of-your-seat underworld thriller worthy of comparison to those we’ve seen from Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. Yet there’s something distinct about the social complexity of ON THE JOB, and the way survival conspires against our emotions and morals that is distinct to the Philippines and to the sensibilities of famed director Erik Matti. – Eric Lallana Co-Presented by SDSU Andrew Bonifacio Samahan for-hire. In these corrupt streets, there must also be cops like Francis (Piolo Pascual), a rising star in the police force who exudes confidence and excellence like his late father. And of course they cross paths with politicians like Manrique (Michael de Mesa), who aspires to be the next Vice President of the Philippines. Francis’s 92 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival SOUL ASIA POP! Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 8:50pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 14 (Thursday), 8:15pm, Digiplex Mission Valley TAIWAN | MANDARIN, TAIWANESE | 111 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Chung Mong-hong CAST Jimmy Wang Yu, Joseph Chang, Liang He-chun Sushi chef Ah-Chuan collapses. The reason isn’t immediately clear, but when he’s taken back to his 70-year-old father’s cabin in the woods, we begin to wonder if it might be ghostly possession that’s stricken him. Soon, lacerating violence explodes out of the hypnotized AhChuan, played with ominous quiet by Joseph Chang (GF*BF, SDAFF ‘12). And then there’s the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu (The One-Armed Swordsman) as his no-nonsense father with secrets and a shovel. Wang unnerves us with his gruff speech and odd timing. He’s the magnetic center of an offbeat thriller that’s constantly shifting around our expectations of crime, family, and the human body itself. Chung Mong-hong’s films are like cavernous adventures of glowing surfaces and disorienting personalities. They come from a somewhat morbid place, but are full of wonder, rendered in saturated palettes, unusual angles, and unexplainable interactions between people. SOUL is thus the perfect showcase of his skills, employing his sinister tendencies for the telling of a possession story. The high stylization and twisty storytelling of Parking and the grim worldview of The Fourth Portrait combine in the best ways, unleashing a most effective and creepy work of blood-splattered suspense. – Brian Hu Official Selection, 2013 Toronto International Film Festival Best Narrative Feature, 2013 Taipei Film Festival Sponsored by 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 93 ASIA POP! Nov. 8 (Friday), 9:55pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 10 (Sunday), 7:50pm, Digiplex Mission Valley THE TERROR LIVE SOUTH KOREA | KOREAN | 98 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Kim Byung-Woo CAST Ha Jung-Woo, Lee Kyoung-young, Jeon Hye-Jin Closing Night Film, 2013 Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival Sponsored by Once an illustrious TV personality, Yoon YoungHwa has been downgraded to the talk radio circuit, where, as host, he sleepwalks through political debates with callers. One caller in particular riles his patience, and Young-Hwa tries to hang up on him. Peeved, the caller threatens to blow up the nearby Mapodaegyo Bridge. When the phone call ends, the bridge explodes, right on cue. Young-Hwa’s awake now. Not just because of the violence, but also because he has a direct line to the terrorist. A media exclusive. A chance to prove himself again as a high-ratings broadcaster. The following 90 minutes play out in real time as Young-Hwa, his producers, and the mysterious caller butt egos and aspirations with an urgency made electric by the live camera. It’s a chess match that turns shockingly physical, and Ha Jung-Woo (The Chaser, Never Forever) commands every scene with the precision required to pull off this cinematic stunt. Comparisons to Network and Dog Day Afternoon are warranted, but THE TERROR LIVE really sets itself apart with its provocative and deathly-sharp political edge, wrapped up as a tense, strapped-to-your-seat thriller set completely in the broadcast booth. Director Kim Byung-Woo proves to be as sensational an action director as any working in Korea today. – Brian Hu 94 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival TO MY DEAR GRANNY ASIA POP! Nov. 9 (Saturday), 1:45pm, UCSD Price Center Theater TAIWAN | MANDARIN, TAIWANESE | 117 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Chu Yu-Ning CAST Chang Shiou-yun, Lawrence Ko, Lin Mei-hsiu Opening Night Film, 2012 Golden Horse Film Festival US Premiere Sponsored by UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series, Grandmothers hold a special place – part lifesworn guardian, part squishy embrace. Silent grandmas: even more magnetic. Their faces simultaneously restorative and filled with secrets, as if they know the heart is a muscle, one that happens to be shaped like a fist. Utterly heartwarming and at times a 90-year-old first-time actor whose sheer depth of presence is one of the true pleasures of the film. The film also gives us the many ways mother and grandmother arrange themselves around each other, sensitive to triplines and tending social walls, each with a kind of care, itself another kind of love.  And  shimmering underneath the family’s antics and twists are the boy’s budding captivation with the long-ago analog charm of moviemaking. TO MY DEAR GRANNY is ultimately about gravitational pull, the way three people can gel into a flock attuned to each other as an emotional whole. A pull so strong that it surrounds an adult with a love irrepressible even from the other side. – Christina Ree fantastical,  TO MY DEAR GRANNY  showcases one such grandmother and a family, like many in the world, in which a grandparent becomes the single most important relationship to a child, and the hardest loss for an adult. In this semiautobiographical tale,  A-Da (Lawrence Ko), his mother, and grandmother are cleaved together by the early death of his father. In that absence, an indelible love emerges between Da and his stoic grandmother, played by Chang Shiou-yun, 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 95 ASIA POP! VERY ORDINARY COUPLE Nov. 9 (Saturday), 7:50pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 11 (Monday), 7:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley SOUTH KOREA | KOREAN | 112 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Roh Deok CAST Lee Min-Ki, Kim Min-Hee, Ra Mi-Ran Best Feature Film, Asia New Talent Competition, 2013 Shanghai International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 New York Asian Film Festival Best Actress, 2013 PaekSang Arts Awards It begins with a breakup. One so serious our young heroine can no longer watch her favorite K-drama. (That’s pretty serious.) The ex-couple insists on indifference, but a trailing documentary camera reveals otherwise. A box office hit that beat out G.I. Joe 2, VERY ORDINARY COUPLE is about a very ordinary relationship, but one with all the absurdity of love-in-denial and the pitfalls of self-diagnosis gone awry. Funny, smart, refreshing, and unrestrained, VERY ORDINARY COUPLE lives in this charming sweet spot – a mix of dry humor and a fleshy earnest heart, beating to the everyday cadence of a Seoul overflowing with young workers. Dong-Hee and Jang Young are bank employees in an uneasy romantic truce, bartering between outbursts and delicately balancing the unruly and the polite. They break up, date, and break up again, spy on text messages and new dates, all while keeping their status a secret from their co-workers.  The film builds to the very real possibility of DongHee and Jang-Young’s separation, one that’s as heartbreaking as it is fully acceptable. This is a smart outcome for a romantic comedy. Even smarter is that the film unfolds with utter realism without ever losing its light comedic cover.  Lee Min-Ki and Kim Min-Hee’s  performances are meticulous – internal registers of cagey doubt, exhaust fumes, and crisp happiness, swimming like goldfish underneath a young Seoulite’s cautious observation post. They deliver the daily muscle tension below the surface of commitment. This is why tears are instantly triggered no matter how settled a person may feel, and why two people might reevaluate and try again. – Christina Ree 96 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival THE WAY WE DANCE ASIA POP! Nov. 9 (Saturday), 8:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 6:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley HONG KONG | CANTONESE, ENGLISH | 110 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Adam Wong CAST Cherry Ngan, Babyjohn Choi, Tommy “Guns” Ly Official Selection, 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Udine Far East Film Festival West Coast Premiere Fleur’s got too much energy and dancing dreams too big for the confines of her family’s tofu shop. To chase those dreams, she joins the coolest dance troupe on campus and gets enlisted into a dance battle against their rough-and-rugged rivals at an annual competition. Life seems all good until her signature style is mocked by her own crew, leaving Fleur without a creative outlet. Her last resort is to join the muchavoided Tai Chi Club, headed by a mysterious guy only known as “Dickhead Alan.” As Fleur learns to cope with the ever-changing pace of life – filled with triumphs, disappointments, and heartbreak – she learns how far she is willing to go for her passion. Combining hip-hop and breaking talents with traditional Chinese moves, this infectiously entertaining film highlights the junction of new cosmopolitan stylings and Chinese culture, all to the beat of modern youth. In other words, this ain’t like watching your mom’s electric slide. Director Adam Wong perfects the dance movie formula and manages to inject genuine humor, love, and charm, thanks in huge part to newcomer Cherry Ngan as Fleur. This film is for anyone who eats, sleeps, and breathes their dreams and knows that, when inspired, would never take no for an answer. – Maryanne Bilbao 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 97 ASIA POP! Nov. 10 (Sunday), 6:30pm, UCSD Price Center Theater Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 8:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? TAIWAN | MANDARIN, TAIWANESE, KOREAN | 104 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Arvin Chen CAST Richie Jen, Mavis Fan, Kimi Hsia Official Selection, 2013 Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Tribeca International Film Festival Sponsored by UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series, Oh my! Weichung, once a regular on the gay circuit, now runs an optometry shop and has a loving wife and adorable six-year-old son. His vision gets recalibrated when Thomas, a sexy flight attendant from Hong Kong, strolls into his shop with slicked-back hair and a boyish smile. Ooh-wee! Meanwhile, Weichung’s former compadre Stephen reintroduces the “happy” husband to his old gay haunts. And then there’s Weichung’s sister Mandy, who starts putting ideas into his head about why marriage might not be the best route for the restless. What’s a gay man to do? subtle comedy and smiling color. As in Chen’s previous Au Revoir Taipei (SDAFF ’10), WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? envisions a Taiwan where walls, costumes, and props are joyously arranged to create a colorful candyland in which dilemmas like infidelity or identity are just a magical realist touch away from transcendence. But even more than Chen’s last romance, this one coalesces that wistful energy into a way of seeing, even improving, the world with a kind of just-impossible bliss. In this universe, pop stars (like Richie Jen, Mavis Fan, and Stone of Mayday) are big dorks and everyday Janes are a karaoke song away from superstardom. From the MGM musical opening credits to the slow-motion finale, Chen makes us all happy suckers for love. Whoo-hoo! – Brian Hu Co-Presented by Long Yang Club of San Diego, UCSD International House These are all ingredients for a repressed-love tragedy, but in Taiwanese American director Arvin Chen’s hands, they’re a swirly delight of 98 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI Nov. 9 (Saturday), 4:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 11 (Monday), 2:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley ASIA POP! A charismatic, good-looking, and thoroughly juvenile man asks a bookish young woman to join him in his train car and embark on an international adventure. Sounds like Bollywood to us! It’s a riff off the classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, but with a 21st century update. In YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI, Deepika Padukone (Om Shanti Om, SDAFF ’09) is Naina, a med student trying to maintain control of her intended career path, while Ranbir Kapoor plays Bunny, carefree and of course, uninterested in marriage. And while one should never fall in love with a man named Bunny, Naina inevitably does. This music- and confetti-infused romance, already the fourth-highest grossing Bollywood film of all time, is the sort of epic where lovers can’t say the words their bodies, their songs, the village’s flamboyant colors, and the universe’s fateful coincidences say ever so loudly. The special touch is that sexy young stars Padukone and Kapoor are ex-lovers in real life, adding to the magnetism and the sense that some ties can’t ever really be broken. – Brian Hu INDIA | HINDI, ENGLISH, FRENCH | 159 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Ayan Mukerji CAST Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Poorna Jagannathan Official Selection, 2013 Hawaii International Film Festival Sponsored by 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 99 ASIA POP! ZONE PRO SITE: THE MOVEABLE FEAST Nov. 11 (Monday), 5:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 5:40pm, Digiplex Mission Valey TAIWAN | TAIWANESE, MANDARIN | 145 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Chen Yu-hsun CAST Kimi Hsia, Yo Yang, Lin Mei-hsiu Official Selection, 2013 Hawaii International Film Festival Sponsored by There was once a great cook dubbed Master Fly Chef. But this is not his story. It’s the story of his plucky daughter Wan, an aspiring actressmodel who inadvertently gets on the wrong side of some loan sharks. And so she goes on the run to her late father’s restaurant, now the stomping grounds of Puffy, her stepmother with the heart of a showgirl, a body fitting her name, resurrect her father’s long-lost art of traditional Taiwanese cooking, she can cure her career blues, and she can bring closure to a decades-old love story. And she can make plates and plates of food! Deep fried lotus cakes, chrysanthemum with bamboo and scallop, rump roast marinated in 2500-year-old soy sauce, and regular momand-pop staples like scrambled tomato and eggs. So much food bursts from the screen you’ll need a bib. The laughs and antics do too, and they’re sautéed with love and family fun by Chen Yuhsun (Tropical Fish). Add a heartthrob (Yo Yang of Formula 17) and sprinkle some choice cameos by Taiwan’s old guard and you’ve got a feast that moves straight from the stomach and toward the heart. – Brian Hu Co-Presented by The Taiwanese American Community Center and a mouth that knows not when to stop. But Wan needs more than maternal tenderness. She needs dough. But this is not just a story of fast cash. It’s a story of food! Mouth-watering, mind-blowing, Louvregrade food! Because just as Wan arrives, she learns about a catering competition where she can not only win a cash prize, but she can also 100 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival blind detective Masters 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 101 masters BLIND DETECTIVE Nov. 9 (Saturday), 9:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley HONG KONG | CANTONESE, MANDARIN, TEOCHEW | 129 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Johnnie To CAST Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, Guo Tao Official Selection, 2013 Cannes Film Festival Yesterday once more, indeed! Nine years after their last outing, the heroic trio of Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, and director Johnnie To reteam for another high-energy, genre-busting classic to go along with favorites like Needing You… and Love on a Diet. Andy Lau plays a private eye who can’t see, while Sammi Cheng is a cop tormented by a death from her childhood. She enlists the blind detective to treat her trauma, but he takes her on a ride around town solving other cases so he can collect the bounties he relies on to survive. And what a ride it is. BLIND DETECTIVE is a dark tale with comic surfaces arranged with To’s signature clarity and playfulness. There’s cannibalism and suicide, but also a colorful grandma, tango lessons, and some casino antics. 102 Above all, there are two stars of Hong Kong cinema giving it their sweaty all. Lau’s detective is no Sherlock. He’s a little paranoid and there’s nothing subtle about him; he slaps his walking stick on the ground like he’s shooing away the neighborhood kids. But he has his own way, feeling out new spaces and employing the most eccentric, uncompromising methods of deduction. And then there’s Sammi Cheng, still the queen of Hong Kong cinema. If last year’s Cheng/To collaboration Romancing in Thin Air reminded us of her dramatic chops, her role in BLIND DETECTIVE is throwback zany Sammi, always a little out of breath because unhinged is hard work. And of course, through it all, Johnnie To doesn’t break a sweat. – Brian Hu 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival CLOSED CURTAIN MASTERS Nov. 11 (Monday), 6:30pm, Digital Gym Cinema Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 8:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley IRAN | FARSI | 106 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Jafar Panahi, Kambozia Partovi CAST Kambozia Partovi, Maryam Moghadam, Jafar Panahi Dissident. Banned from making films. Still under house arrest. Jafar Panahi remains one of Iran’s most influential auteurs, a sociopolitical voice whose urgency and compulsion produce thrilling works even behind the shuttered doors of his home. Two years ago, Panahi smuggled his iPhone work, This is Not a Film, to Cannes via flash drive… in a cake. With CLOSED CURTAIN, Panahi and co-director/actor  Kambuzia Partovi  dare to produce a psychological feature with an astonishing trajectory, filmed entirely inside his home by the Caspian Sea. The conditions of Panahi’s covert filmmaking are subject and metaphor for CLOSED CURTAIN. His real-world involuntary place of exile is inverted into a place his main character never wants to leave. A screenwriter flees to a villa to safeguard his dog Boy, who under Iranian law has become illegal.  Heavy curtains throughout the house block prying eyes. A mysterious man and suicidal woman abruptly intrude and refuse to leave. Midway, Panahi appears as himself wandering the house. There’s a protracted scene where Panahi leaves his home. It’s an impossible fantasy and we all know it – as is the exterior world communicated entirely through audio, heard but never seen. CLOSED CURTAIN turns audience awareness into a destabilizing force, an unsettling of the ground which makes for a fascinatingly uncomfortable viewing experience as multiple drives and undertones shift beneath our feet. CLOSED CURTAIN is a deeply reflective film from a filmmaker struggling emotionally with his captivity, and a ferocious social allegory, as it arrives brutally at an endpoint we never see coming. – Christina Ree Best Script, 2013 Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Toronto International Film Festival 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 103 masters Nov. 9 (Saturday), 3:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 11 (Monday), 9pm, Digiplex Mission Valley CHINA, HONG KONG | MANDARIN, CANTONESE | 107 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Johnnie To CAST Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, Huang Yi Official Selection, 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam DRUG WAR Johnnie To has directed 50 films. DRUG WAR is easily one of the best. It’s a signature ransacking of moral boundaries: cops infiltrate an amphetamine racket by getting their hands and nose hairs dirty. It’s To at his most blistering cool: the slick pace leaves no room for error, grandstanding, or sentiment. There are no side plots in DRUG WAR, just a juggernaut of interconnection galloping to its ruthless inevitability. Johnnie To makes every moment count, planting a cell phone here, a seemingly throwaway line of dialogue there, to capture a kind of procedural precision that pays off our own detective work while celebrating the intelligence of the players, regardless of which side of the law they’re tip-toeing. DRUG WAR is the Hong Kong director’s first film set completely in mainland China. The result is not diluted; if anything, it has revolutionized Chinese action. Sun Honglei as the lead officer shifts identities with cold-blooded concentration. Johnnie To regular Louis Koo is a desperate dynamo, playing a drug manufacturer turned police informant to save himself from the death penalty. The China depicted is a dusty frontier of manufacturing and ad hoc teamwork, the people mere ants crawling from point A to point B. But the star here is To and his workman-like storytelling, handcuffing us to his tailpipe as he rips forward. Thrillers don’t get better than this. – Brian Hu 104 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY MASTERS Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 8:50pm, Digital Gym Cinema PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG | 79 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Raya Martin CAST Shamaine Buencamino, Nonie Buencamino, Ness Roque In Raya Martin’s thuggish fable of disengagement, a teenage girl grows distant from her parents before possibly vanishing altogether. But this is no angst drama. It’s defiance against a kind of ordered existence, treating death like a game, living life in a soft-focus daze, ready to evaporate if pushed far enough. The girl and all the other faceless kids wander numbly in slow motion through the brush, through the parental jabber, only the electronic drone keeping them from losing their bearings. Watching HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY is a bit like that too. With the year’s most hard-hitting soundtrack by Eyedress, the film hypnotizes us with its soft surfaces and its revolutions of crunching and whirring and booty bass drum machine asphyxia. Raya Martin (The Great Cinema Party, SDAFF ’12) produces the cinematic equivalent of taking Vicodin, starting an 80s horror film from the middle, and then melting the VHS tape over a fire. There’s a lethargic sensual beauty too, from a shot of hands caressing blood-sausage intestines to a girl fingering herself in bed. At some point we awaken from the hypnosis and the sky is falling, a violent apocalyptic fantasy raging against fucked-up dads and fucked-up colonial legacies. We gasp for air but Martin is too good at his craft, too locked into the ravenous grotesquerie, too much in love with the fact that movies can be like this, that we can’t help but hold his hand and wander off into the unknown. – Brian Hu Official Selection, 2013 Locarno International Film Festival West Coast Premiere 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 105 masters NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY Nov. 11 (Monday), 1:30pm, Digiplex Misson Valley Nov. 14 (Thursday), 6:15pm, Digital Gym Cinema PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG | 250 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Lav Diaz CAST Sid Lucero, Archie Alemania, Angeli Bayani Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, 2013 Cannes Film Festival West Coast Premiere Lav Diaz, “the godfather” of the Philippine New Wave – an unfettered and vibrant movement that rejects the commercial impulses of Philippine cinema for a more self-aware and socially critical one – has made a masterpiece with  NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY.  A study of morality, justice, religion, and family,  NORTE  reinvents Crime and Punishment, alludes to works by Jose Rizal, and is an allegory for Ferdinand Marcos, who grew up in Ilocos Norte and at 21 years old was prosecuted for murder. It’s a bold film with a sprawl of unforgettable characters. There’s a law school dropout who impresses his friends with his polemics against nationalism and capitalism. There’s a DVD peddler and his family. And then there’s the town loan shark who connects many of the characters, especially when she is violently killed. NORTE is a masterpiece for its breadth and grace, encompassing the ideas of Diaz’s previous work and to some an extent the ideas of the movement. This is his most accessible film yet, with color photography and a relatively short running time for the notorious marathon filmmaker. Yet, this is filmmaking at its most uncompromising, infusing emotional intensity, humanism, and narrative zest to Diaz’s usual intellectual and political rigor, making this without doubt one of the cinematic events of the year. – Joseph Mangat 106 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival THE SANDWICH MAN Nov. 9 (Saturday), 4:05pm, UCSD Price Center Theater TAIWAN | TAIWANESE, MANDARIN, ENGLISH | 108 MINS | HD | 1983 DIRECTOR Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tseng Chuang-hsiang, Wan Jen CAST Chen Po-cheng, Yang Li-ying, Tsui Fu-sheng MASTERS In the short list of watershed moments in Taiwanese film history, the release of THE SANDWICH MAN has to be near the top. It prompted the so-called “apple-peeling incident” that snowballed into a public outcry against censorship, and it marked the maturation of director Hou Hsiao-hsien, soon to become one of the greatest filmmakers ever. THE SANDWICH MAN is comprised of three shorts adapted by the great screenwriter Wu Nien-jen from the short stories of Huang Chunming, a central figure in the nation’s nativist literary movement. Hou’s short, “The Son’s Big Doll,” found a cinematic correlate to nativist preoccupations: long takes that make visible the plight of common people, a colorful soundtrack of competing dialects. As critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has noted, it’s a perfect film of Chekhovian proportions, and it showed that Hou, who had until then directed only romantic comedies, could be the serious voice of an entire generation. Tseng Chuang-hsiang’s short, “Vicky’s Hat” lightens things up, but shoehorns enough satire to segue into Wan Jen’s controversial “The Taste of Apples,” a black comedy about a common man who gets hit by an American’s car, triggering a mad political scramble. With expressionist absurdity, it holds the KMT government’s feet to the fire and mocks Taiwan’s fantasy of American exceptionalism. The short not only kick-started Wan Jen’s career as Taiwanese cinema’s boldest satirist, it also chipped away at state censorship by initiating a stand against the government’s proposed cuts. Today, on its 30th anniversary, THE SANDWICH MAN remains whole, immortalized in an excellent new restored version. – Brian Hu 30th anniversary digital restoration Sponsored by UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series, 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 107 masters A TIME IN QUCHI Nov. 11 (Monday), 7:55pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 14 (Thursday), 6:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley TAIWAN | MANDARIN, TAIWANESE | 109 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Chang Tso-chi CAST Yang Liang-yu, Kuan Yun-loong, Lin Ya-ruo Official Selection, 2013 Locarno Film Festival Sponsored by There’s a stream that flows through the town of Quchi, and a forest with a chorus of crickets. Not too far is an elementary school where kids with names like Bear and Steamed Bun pester each other and play in trees. Such is the Quchi discovered by stubborn city kid Bao, deposited in his grandfather’s home by parents who seem to want a vacation from parenting. Grandpa won’t let him watch TV during dinner, and worst of all, Bao’s “most detested little sister” soon shows up and becomes the most popular new kid in school. Bao thinks it’s going to be a long summer. Little does he know that, between the basketball and the video games, the beatboxing and the Chopin, are bonds previously unimaginable. With its light, comedic touch and affection for everyday rhythms, A TIME IN QUCHI is a throwback to Taiwanese cinema’s renaissance 1980s, when directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Liao Ching-sung projected a nation’s coming-ofage by giving voice to kids at play. While A TIME IN QUCHI lacks the darker elements of director Chang Tso-chi’s previous films, it is enlivened by Chang’s proven ability to shuffle time with flashbacks and a musical montage that leaves unsuspecting hearts racing. Old flames intersect with new crushes. There are times for living and dying, and wind through the green, green grass in this most unforgettable summer at grandpa’s. – Brian Hu 108 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival A TOUCH OF SIN MASTERS Nov. 9 (Saturday), 5:55pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 11 (Monday), 8:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley CHINA | MANDARIN, CANTONESE, SHANXI, HUNAN | 133 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Jia Zhang-ke CAST Jiang Wu, Zhao Tao, Wang Baoqiang Like a blunt dagger slash to the chest, Jia Zhang-ke’s A TOUCH OF SIN is a piercing critique with little care for tact or bloodstains. Made up of four interconnected vignettes, Jia’s latest is another tale of chapped drifters nearing the end of their weary lines. But this time, his protagonists – from miners to service workers – aren’t accepting their fates without first lashing violently against corruption and the odious faces of new economic power. This is Chinese cinema at its most disgusted and damning; there’s even a scene of a woman getting slapped repeatedly by a stack of dollar bills. As in the films of Takeshi Kitano, long stretches of bubbling unrest explode in violence when you least expect it, often from off-frame. Needless to say, this isn’t your usual Jia Zhangke film. Present still is Jia’s muse Zhao Tao, as well as cinematographer Yu Lik-wai’s gorgeous horizontal glides over the faces of ordinary people. But Jia proves his adeptness with genre, in particular the wuxia actioner, interpreting his wanderers as anti-heroic drifters of the proverbial jianghu. Much of the brilliance of A TOUCH OF SIN comes from the way Jia uses myth and old martial arts motifs (especially Shaw-era swordplay) to project a movie-world fantasy that blurs with reality. (The episodes are based on real incidents in contemporary China.) The film coldly presents an unromanticized vigilantism that both sickens and invigorates, not merely through the images of violence, but also through the terrifying possibility that shotguns and butterfly knives may actually be a reprieve from the suffocation of the new China. – Brian Hu Best Screenplay, 2013 Cannes Film Festival 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 109 masters UNBEATABLE Nov. 8 (Friday), 8:50pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 10 (Sunday), 4:15pm, Digiplex Mission Valley HONG KONG | CANTONESE, MANDARIN | 116 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Dante Lam CAST Nick Cheung, Eddie Peng, Crystal Lee Official Selection, 2013 Toronto International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Nick Cheung and Eddie Peng thrust, kick, pound, and grasp their way to glory in the sweaty, soaring UNBEATABLE. The former plays a 48-year-old washed-up ex-fighter who befriends a girl and her troubled single mom in Macau. The latter plays a pretty-boy MMA aspirant with daddy issues but a heart big enough to crush adversity and common sense. Their uphill battles only get steeper when the two meet and fist-pound each other into achieving the impossible. Director Dante Lam (The Stool Pigeon, SDAFF ’11) is a maestro of the heavyweight male melodrama, the sort of film where empathy is measured in the number of neck arteries pulsating and muscles glistening during the most turbulent training sequences. So much of that empathy is carried through the bodies of Cheung and Pang, neither of whom have ever proven to be as physically dedicated to a role as in UNBEATABLE, scrunching their abs and pumping their biceps for the greater dramatic good. Lam has proven yet again how adept he is at melding Hong Kong action cinema’s strand for sentimentality with his own gritty physicality. The mixture makes for great characters, especially Cheung’s, who manage to exude crocodile tears and sacrifice for those they love through the raw romanticism of sport. – Brian Hu 110 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival homesick Discoveries 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 111 DISCOVERIES Nov. 8 (Friday), 6:10pm, Digiplex Mission Valley THAILAND | THAI | 68 MINS | DCP | 2012 DIRECTOR Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit CAST Koramit Vajrasthira, Wanlop Rungkumjad, Nottapon Boonprakob New Currents Award, FIPRESCI Award, 2012 Busan International Film Festival New Talent Award, 2012 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam Sponsored by 36 Sai, a movie location scout, juggles multiple hard drives to catalog the thousands of photographs she shoots every year. Alongside her co-worker Oom, Sai explores abandoned environments rich with texture and feeling. The two lose touch after several years, but her lingering feelings for Oom suddenly put her in a panic when a malfunctioning hard drive loses the only photographs she had of their time together. Her struggle to remember Oom and their unresolved relationship sends her on small gestures. Characters weave in and out of the frame, unconstrained, creating the kind of intimacy one might find in candid photographs. It should come as no surprise that director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit has a background in photography, and that the film, his debut feature, is a meditation on images, preservation, and the heart behind every image. – Rizzhel Javier Preceded by: NIGHT FALLS ON GLASS USA, CANADA | 11 MINS | 2012 DIRECTOR Norbert Shieh Lives illuminated on both sides of steel and glass. Pantone 137 Pantone 446 a mission to retrieve her lost photographs and fading memories. Minimalist but full of life, 36 is made up of 36 carefully-composed static shots that slowly reveal the story through architecture and McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 112 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival BENDS DISCOVERIES Nov. 11 (Monday), 5:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 4:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley HONG KONG | CANTONESE, MANDARIN, ENGLISH | 97 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Flora Lau CAST Carina Lau, Chen Kun, Tian Yuan Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, 2013 Cannes Film Festival Sponsored by Is there no better actress than Carina Lau to play Anna, a beautiful middle-aged Hong Kong socialite whose lifeline snaps when her businessman husband suddenly disappears? Who better to personify poise when pushed to the brink, to sport those designer shades as the sun imminently sets? Lau is known for playing gorgeous, but throughout her career she’s excelled at balancing effortless grace with desperate frenzy, best evidenced in Infernal Affairs II. In Flora Lau’s impressive debut BENDS, the best independent Hong Kong drama in years, Anna represents a sort of fading glory, not unlike the former British colony itself. As her finances start to dry up, she trades her luxury goods for China knock-offs. Meanwhile, she maintains a mainland chauffeur (played by Chen Kun of Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, SDAFF ’12) who has worries of his own: his wife in Shenzhen is pregnant, but since they already have a child, they risk paying fines for having a second. Both the socialite and the chauffer quietly invent solutions to their financial predicaments, not knowing that their fates will inevitably collide. Pantone 137 Pantone 446 BENDS takes on class and border-crossing with a nice sense of the impending drama that burrows just under the surface of good graces and social decorum, delicately shot by Christopher Doyle. With a smart detachment, it carefully unweaves the strange economic and demographic ties between China and Hong Kong, and how people on both sides bend the borderline to make ends meet. – Brian Hu McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 113 DISCOVERIES Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 6:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley PHILIPPINES | TAGALOG | 89 MINS | DCP | 2012 DIRECTOR Shireen Seno CAST Ian Lomongo, Pam Miras, John Lloyd Evangelista Official Selection, 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam Official Selection, 2013 Edinburgh International Film Festival Sponsored by BIG BOY “I am a boy,” the English teacher reads from her son’s exercise book. “When I grow up I want to be a blank. Present, past, future.” And as in so much of BIG BOY, everyday moments take on a surreal poetic quality. Set in a 1950s village in the Philippines, the movie follows a gangly boy living in a world of simple pleasures: a family feast of crabs, drawing pictures in the dirt, riding home asleep on his dad’s back – and at the same Seno, BIG BOY is largely inspired by stories her father told her about his childhood in Mindoro. And so it is less a period piece than a dream of fragmented memories. Seno’s background is as a still photographer, and she approaches filmmaking with an adventurous no-rules attitude – like she is inventing the first movie. Shooting with not-so-dead 8mm film, Seno mines the “flaws” of the medium for potent effects: the way the picture teems with grain, dirt, and hair; how the whir of the camera reminds us someone’s here; and the comic book color blocks that divide up the world. – Lev Kalman Pantone 137 Pantone 446 time stoically bearing his father’s attempts to literally stretch him into an advertisement for his miracle “growth oil.” The first feature written and directed by Shireen McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 114 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival A BREATH FROM THE BOTTOM Nov. 10 (Sunday), 1:00pm, UCSD Price Center Theater TAIWAN | TAIWANESE, MANDARIN | 42 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Chan Ching-lin CAST Tsai Ming Xiu, Kao Ying Hsuan, Lin Li-shu DISCOVERIES We open on the wrinkled faces of the old. What follows might be a tribute to ordinary Taiwanese, or to the weathered laboring heroes, or to those that need to be protected by the young. What follows instead is what they’re about to do: storm the capitol with picket signs and assert their rights in a democratic country. It’s a bold way to set up the drama. But as it turns out, it’s just the beginning. The film condenses the conflict and complexity of protest into the story of a young cop who is in line for a promotion, and his father who is sick of do-gooders like his son, who follows orders instead of protecting the people. They’re about to come face-to-face in the public square and test the extent to which one’s feeling for family can exceed one’s commitment to a cause. At a time in which Taiwanese narrative cinema has veered in heavily mainstream and conservative directions, Chan Ching-lin’s short feature is a gut-punch of reality, told with the urgency of its quick takes and stylish cinematography. Less an advocate for any specific political position than the cinematic rendering of political fire itself, A BREATH FROM THE BOTTOM is a time capsule for one of the more politically-charged years in recent Taiwanese history. – Brian Hu Preceded by: KONG PEH TSHAT OR: HOW I LEARNED TO TELL A LIE TAIWAN | 30 MINS | 2012 DIRECTOR Shang-Sing Guo A wrongly-accused rural boy loses his innocence when the world refuses to believe him. Official Selection, 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam Best Director, 2013 Taipei Film Festival Sponsored by UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair for Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 115 DISCOVERIES Nov. 11 (Monday), 6:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 4:55pm, Digiplex Mission Valley INDIA | ENGLISH, HINDI, MANIPURI, XHOSA | 84 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Dylan Mohan Gray Official Selection, 2013 Sundance Film Festival Best Feature Documentary, 2013 DOXA Documentary Film Festival FIRE IN THE BLOOD The HIV/AIDS epidemic had once seemed determined to kill off millions of people around the globe with no plausible end in sight. Since the mid-90s, however, antiretroviral medications (ARVs) have offered reprieve from these former death sentences – but only to those with deep pockets living in Western industrialized nations. Unaffordable to many in resource-poor countries, these drugs could not save the 10 million more who continue to die painful deaths. thriller, exposes the greed of pharmaceutical companies keen on keeping these vital medications from the hands of millions living with HIV/AIDS – all in the name of patent law. Through intensive lobbying and threats of legal action, they have effectively blocked access to low-cost generic drugs manufactured in India and elsewhere. The documentary, shot on four continents, brings together AIDS activists like  Desmond Tutu,  Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, Zackie Achmat, Bill Clinton, and the rest of the coalition which came together to overcome the blockade, and to fight what the filmmakers call “the Crime of the Century.” – Wilda Wong Sponsored by Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 Inspired by Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side, Punjabi-Irish filmmaker David Mohan Gray wrote and directed his first feature FIRE IN THE BLOOD, which, with the pulse of a suspense 116 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN PICTURE SHOW Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 5:45pm, Digital Gym Cinema Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 4:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley* SINGAPORE | KOREAN | 94 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Lynn Lee, James Leong *FREE SCREENING! Official Selection, 2013 Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival US Premiere Sponsored by DISCOVERIES It’s one of the freakiest facts of recent history that the late despot Kim Jong-il was also a hardcore movie buff, running North Korea’s national film industry like a classic Hollywood mogul. He’d approve scripts line-by-line, oversee shooting, and according to legend, could spot edits down to the very frame. With THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN PICTURE SHOW, directors Lynn Lee and James Leong take us deep into the alternate reality that was film production under the Supreme Leader. We watch rehearsals where eager young actors giggle their way through propagandistic scripts and patriotic dance routines, and tag along with Kim Jong-il’s favorite director as he bullies his cast of extras (all real People’s Army soldiers) into overacting their hearts out. The documentary often feels like  Waiting For Guffman, but with a serious political edge. In order to gain access to the nation’s film schools and sets,  the directors had to agree to total censorship approval of their footage. And yet, small, seemingly unassuming details speak volumes: the self-effacing hero worship of the acting students, the petty dictatorial management style of their teachers, the mix of spartan austerity and gee-whiz hopefulness that is evident everywhere. Even in scenes where Kim Jong-il is not mentioned, his totalitarian presence is felt. The result is a portrait of North Korean film culture that is absorbing, hilarious, and subtly frightening. –Lev Kalman and the Hom Family Foundation Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 117 DISCOVERIES Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 6:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 16 (Saturday), 3:45pm, Encinitas Public Library HAFU: THE MIXED-RACE EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN JAPAN | JAPANESE, ENGLISH, SPANISH | 87 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Megumi Nishikura, Lara Perez Takagi Official Selection, 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Co-Presented by The Buddhist Temple of San Diego, The Japanese Historical Society of San Diego (JAHSSD) Sponsored by Do we need to be defined? HAFU seeks to answer this question, and many important ones like it, as it proudly displays the new wave of multi-cultural families living in Japan. As we learn, the term “hafu” – literally meaning “half” – has both positive and negative connotations, and in the film we see how mixed-race people living in Japan not only long to be acknowledged, but accepted and understood. Directors Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Tagaki, hafus themselves, present five intimate stories featuring people whose ethnic and national identity are called into question every day of their lives. Whether it’s 28-year-old David, who’s lived in Japan nearly his entire life and is now looking to give back to his mother’s village in Ghana, or 9-year-old Alex, who leaves Japan to live with his mother’s family in Mexico after traumatically being bullied in school for being different. Or maybe you identify with Sophia, who’s lived in Australia her whole life, but comes to Japan to learn about a culture and language she barely knows. HAFU opens a dialogue about what it means to live in an increasingly global world and, inspired by David and the other hafu leaders in the film, is here to support the next generation. – James Paguyo Preceded by: TAIWANFAMOUS TAIWAN | 13 MINS | 2012 DIRECTOR Sarah Tadayon, David Frazier A Chinese-Iranian American actress finds reoccurring work on Taiwanese television, but can’t escape exotic typecasting and the scrutiny of an industry with stringent ideals of beauty. Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 118 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival HOMESICK DISCOVERIES Nov. 10 (Sunday), 12:10pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 6:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley JAPAN | JAPANESE | 98 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Satoru Hirohara CAST Tomohiro Kaku, Erika Okuda, Yuuki Kaneda Official Selection, 2013 Busan International Film Festival North American Premiere Sponsored by Kenji’s sister is off exploring the world while his dad is selling off the old family home. Freshly unemployed, the 30-year-old has no place to go so he just squats in his own house, waiting out the real estate developers listlessly. But it’s not his home anymore. In fact, the neighborhood kids have taken it over too, using it as a fortress for water gun fights and a canvas for their chalk masterpieces. In a world of mobility and moving on, what real use is a home? Without resorting to simple nostalgia, HOMESICK conjures that fleeting sensation of a childhood made up of dinosaurs, candy, and staying out after the sun sets. With his old home scheduled for demolition, these are the waning days of Kenji’s own childhood, the neighborhood boys reminding him of his own youth, but also the fact that he’s actually an adult who can only take so much horseplay before a sense of responsibility kicks in. Young director Satoru Hirohara (of the awardwinning Good Morning to the World!!) takes a decidedly naturalistic approach to Kenji’s selfdiscovery. Music is limited to a joyous middle section when color and effervescence take over. Not unlike the lead character, the camera is static but anxious, looking to move, play, and leap, before settling in on a show-stopping final shot that preserves childhood as it recedes into the horizon. – Brian Hu Co-Presented by The Buddhist Temple of San Diego Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 119 DISCOVERIES Nov. 8 (Friday), 7:55pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 9:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley SINGAPORE | ENGLISH, MANDARIN, HOKKIEN, TAGALOG | 99 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Anthony Chen CAST Yeo Yan Yann, Chen Tian Wen, Angeli Bayani Camera d’Or, 2013 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Toronto International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Busan International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Sponsored by ILO ILO The story could take place in many countries, but ILO ILO is fundamentally Singapore. The ethnicChinese Lim family hires Teresa, a maid from the Philippines, to take care of their son Jiale, who is prone to disobedience. Like many Filipino women, Teresa has moved abroad to take care of others in order to send money home to take care of her own son. Her presence though puts a strain on the Lim family. Jiale in particular doesn’t make the transition easily, and takes it out on Teresa. But as they feel each other out with equal parts caution and belligerence, his hate turns into a surprising affection. ILO ILO is a semi-autobiographical film by 29-year-old director Anthony Chen in his feature debut. The film won him the best first film award at Cannes this year, though he’s no stranger to the festival, having previously presented his acclaimed shorts at the prestigious event. ILO ILO has been claimed with much pride by Singapore: it’s the first local feature to win an award at Cannes and is the nation’s submission to next year’s Oscars. That said, it’s a film that expands the Singaporean narrative beyond the three ethnicities that typically get acknowledged in the country, and gives that narrative legs, touching audiences in festivals all over the world. – Rizzhel Javier Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 120 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival KARAOKE GIRL DISCOVERIES Nov. 13 (Wednesday), 8:05pm, Digiplex Mission Valley THAILAND | THAI | 77 MINS | DCP | 2013 DIRECTOR Visra Vichit-Vadakan CAST Sa Sittijun, Supavitch Mepremwattana, Nang Sittijun Official Selection, 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam Festivals are designed for films like KARAOKE GIRL. Formally inquisitive, poetically assured, and socially grounded, it delivers that rare sensory experience in which the visual can evoke a tactile space – melody, fragrance, velvet softness. That this happens to also be Thai American filmmaker Visra Vichit-Vadakan’s first feature makes it a real discovery. Sa Sittijun, the touchpoint of KARAOKE GIRL, plays both herself and Sa, a character loosely based on a scenario in her life as a 19-yearold escort in Bangkok. Combining fiction and documentary, the film weaves between hostess work, imperfect romance, and the aging family Sa supports in the Thai countryside. Inside a maze of karaoke rooms and streetwalks are playful moments with kitchen aunties, and ebullient freshness during trips home. Vichit-Vadakan developed a three-week collaboration with Sittijun that avoids dishing tragedy or sensationalism so common with sex work stories. Instead, we get a chromatic flood of beauty, a personal landscape that is palpable and deep, moments that are transcendent grace notes, and glimpses of care between two women at the foundation of the film. “Hybrid” films blending documentary and fiction are now heavily-treaded waters. What makes KARAOKE GIRL so exciting are the effortless transitions between the two as if they breathe within the same space. A puff of air to move the dust around, and watch, as documentary Official Selection, 2013 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival US Premiere Filmmaker scheduled to attend Sponsored by Pantone 137 Pantone 446 and fiction create a fuller thing altogether.  – Christina Ree McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 121 DISCOVERIES A ROLLING STONE Nov. 9 (Saturday), 12:25pm, UCSD Price Center Theater TAIWAN | MANDARIN, TAIWANESE | 54 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Shen Ko-shang Grand Prize, 2013 Taipei Film Festival International Premiere Sponsored by Caring for an autistic adult can be seen as an act of faith. It is unpredictable. A regular interaction can lead to a violent lashing-out. The awardwinning A ROLLING STONE documents such moments. However, due to its lack of exposition and its pure form of observation, the film captures something even more profound: life as a collection of failure, pain, and tragedy as felt by its protagonist, Chen Hung-tung, a father who cares with extraordinary patience for his autistic son Li-fu. Director Shen Ko-shang (who had a short in 10+10, SDAFF ’12) masterfully puts together the most ordinary – yet most important – moments of a man’s life in this effective, powerful, and ultimately heartbreaking documentary. Some will see the film as a testament to patience, while others will see it as a tragedy of lives lost to fate. A ROLLING STONE is without exception one of the most evocative documentaries ever filmed about the direct effects of autism on the family unit. – Phillip Lorenzo Preceded by: PLAYING THE PIANO TAIWAN | 3 MINS | 2013 DIRECTOR Yi-Chien Chen A little girl’s piano-playing transports her on a journey full of music and small animals. UCSD Chuan Lyu Endowed Chair for Taiwan Studies, UCSD Taiwan Studies Lecture Series Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 122 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival A STORY OF YONOSUKE DISCOVERIES Nov. 14 (Thursday), 6:40pm, Digiplex Mission Valley JAPAN | JAPANESE | 160 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Shuichi Okita CAST Kengo Kora, Yuriko Yoshitaka, Ayumi Ito Official Selection, 2012 Tokyo International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Sponsored by Tokyo, 1987. Yonosuke is a moppy-haired, dopey bumpkin in his first year of college in the big city, where he manages to get himself invited to situations where someone like him surely doesn’t belong: samba dancing, high-end seducing, gay cruising, double-dating. On one such date, Yonosuke meets Shoko, probably the only person in town as adorably naive, offbeat, and full of twitchy positivity as he. The immediate chemistry as they take down burgers and unwittingly make each other laugh is a thing of beauty, though for the next year, neither Yonosuke nor Shoko seem to know how to proceed as lovers. The film though, knows brilliantly how to lay the story out. Through a flashback structure that reminisces on college in the late 80s, the film finds such whirlwind humanity in a hare-brained buffoon that, years later, he flares into his peers’ memories like a ray of light. The ways director Shuichi Okita (The Woodsman and the Rain) and actor Kengo Kora make Yonosuke both eccentric and perfectly ordinary – everyone knows a Yonosuke – makes the 160 minutes zip by like the first date with a first love. Meanwhile, Shoko (Yuriko Yoshitaka) is cute-overload, but is the perfect counterbalance to the titular kid. Other little details like the perfectly-placed stuffed tiger or the mysterious neighbor reveal a sympathy for eccentricity that matches the audience’s own as we melt for Yonosuke, reminiscing on the people we too are lucky to have known. – Brian Hu Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 123 TRAPPED DISCOVERIES Nov. 9 (Saturday), 2:30pm, Digiplex Mission Valley Nov. 10 (Sunday), 12:35pm, Digiplex Mission Valley IRAN | FARSI | 92 MINS | DCP | 2012 DIRECTOR Parviz Shahbazi CAST Nazanin Bayati, Pegah Ahangarani, Behrang Alavi Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, 2013 Fajr International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Sponsored by Nazanin is a freshman med student doing everything right. When not in class, she’s tutoring the neighborhood kids or cooking the food her mother provides her. To save money, she also finds a roommate, the spunky go-getter Sahar, who charms Nazanin as she’s charmed just about everyone else, including a group of male friends who hang out at the apartment at night, telling jokes and smoking hookah. Maybe Nazanin’s too much of a do-gooder, or maybe Sahar’s too volatile of a party animal, but the two start butting heads until life starts to fall apart for Sahar. Nazanin must then decide whether to help her struggling friend. The result is as compelling a moral drama as Asghar Farhadi’s hit A Separation, which, like TRAPPED, is a domestic play with the intensity of a thriller. Watching Nazanin decide on her fate is compelling not just because of the possible outcomes, but because of what it represents for a young woman trying to make it in Iran. But this is no mere inspirational tale about education as uplift. It’s about how bound educational opportunity is to street economics. Stylized but naturalistic, and with an unforgettable use of Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” TRAPPED is another urgent, riveting film that maintains Iranian cinema’s status as amongst the world’s best. – Brian Hu Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 125 DISCOVERIES Nov. 12 (Tuesday), 7:30pm, Digital Gym Cinema CHINA, USA | MANDARIN | 65 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR J.P. Sniadecki, Huang Xiang, Xu Ruotao CAST Chen Qi, Zhou Qian, Chen Xuehua Official Selection, 2013 Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection, 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival West Coast Premiere Sponsored by YUMEN One of the first people seen in YUMEN emerges from a hole in the ground. One of the first voices heard tells a ghost story. This is the Gansu ghost town of Yumen, where oil drills from another era keep chugging away as if oblivious to the apocalypse that has passed. Its ghosts don’t haunt so much as play. The same could be said of the filmmakers – J.P. Sniadecki, Huang Xiang, Xu Ruotao – who share Chinese avant-garde filmmaking’s alienating tactics, but have more in common with graffiti artists and cut-and-mixers around the ruins like ghosts too stoned to haunt. Any semblance of narrative or empathy is ritualistically crushed with terrorizing glee. “Ruin porn” is an excuse for the reconstruction of something else: sofas and stuffed animals in the rubblescape, dancers in the fields and nudists hanging out atop a solitary column. As in the work of Li Hongqi, the debris of postsocialist China is an absurdist heaven. The sound is off. The dilapidated shells of buildings seem to smile for the camera. Pop songs – Pao Mei-sheng, Wonder Girls, Bruce Springsteen – are anachronous, meaning they’re perfectly China. The recent breakthroughs of Chinese documentary are the ones that seem to have broken documentary altogether. YUMEN looks at the rubble and dances in it. – Brian Hu Pantone 137 Pantone 446 McGregor & Associates, Inc. Logomark 2-color: Orange PMS 137 and Grey PMS 446 Contact: Chris Josh 619-398-2828 who would rather paint strange faces than expel gravitas. We follow an assortment of drifters, the sort we’ve already seen countless times in the Chinese cinema of the past 20 years. But it’s a performance of drifting, as if doing laps 126 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival abductee Late Night 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 127 LATE NIGHT Nov. 9 (Saturday), 10:05pm, Digiplex Mission Valley JAPAN | JAPANESE | 95 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Yudai Yamaguchi CAST Yoichi Nukumizu, Maari, Sawa Masaki Silver Raven (Special Jury Prize), 2013 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival North American Premiere ABDUCTEE Atsushi Chiba (Yôichi Nukumizu) is trapped in what appears to be a cargo compartment. He is tied up. He only has a cell phone at his side, except he can’t reach anyone who values him. He is, in essence, a man who is alone and in peril. Then he sees a stone, mysterious and glowing. In ABDUCTEE, the pieces of the puzzle only realize themselves at the absolute point of necessity. Chiba appears to be in a steel island of isolation, when in fact, as more is divulged, that island reveals entanglements that make Chiba’s imprisonment all the more sensible. With these revelations, the story evolves into a human trafficking tale where the essence of life is illustrated with great feeling amid a backdrop of some remarkable happenings. This small and ambitious gem is exactly what has been needed in Japanese genre cinema. The newest and perhaps most ambitious film from Yûdai Yamaguchi (Yakuza Weapon, Deadball, Meatball Machine) is a true departure. Whereas the “extreme” filmmaker used to rely on gore to establish titillation and tension (and in many cases humor), ABDUCTEE is dark, intense, claustrophobic, and feverish, taking the viewer to a spiraling conclusion that won’t be soon forgotten. – Phillip Lorenzo 128 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival MARUYAMA, THE MIDDLE SCHOOLER LATE NIGHT Nov. 14 (Thursday), 9:45pm, Digiplex Mission Valley JAPAN | JAPANESE, KOREAN | 119 MINS | HD | 2013 DIRECTOR Kankuro Kudo CAST Hiraoka Takuma, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Maki Sakai Official Selection, 2013 Fantastic Fest Official Selection, 2013 Udine Far East Film Festival West Coast Premiere Katsuya Maruyama is a boy with a dream. A dream, that if realized, would change his world. This dream? To lick his own wiener. And so he stretches, puts in extra time in PE class, and when the moment is right, makes the attempt, sparking off amazing fantasies of naked young girls fawning over their puberty-in-process hero. Maruyama has to avoid at all costs his boring family, so enter neighbor Tatsuo Shimoi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of J-pop group SMAP), who may hold the key to success. MARUYAMA, THE MIDDLE SCHOOLER shows us that sometimes, lustful, obscene thoughts can be a beautiful thing. A young boy’s hormonal changes, and the adventures that result from his personal “growth,” are what adolescence is all about. The film brings a level-headed sense of reality to the teenage experience – one full of irreverence and colorful characters – that is at once beautiful, perverse, hilarious, innocent, adulterous, and all-together brilliant. With a cast that includes even J-pop and K-drama stars (think Nice Guy), MARUYAMA raises self-copulation to Olympian levels and, in the process, makes us all dreamers and winners. – Phillip Lorenzo 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 129 LATE NIGHT Nov. 8 (Friday), 10:00pm, Digiplex Mission Valley JAPAN | JAPANESE | 94 MINS | HD | 2012 DIRECTOR Ryohei Watanabe CAST Izumi Okamura, mimpi*β, Gota Ishida Entertainment Award, 2012 Pia Film Festival Best Picture, 2012 Fukuoka Independent Film Festival North American Premiere SHADY In SHADY, Japanese school girls have definitely gone bad. 25-year-old Ryohei Watanabe’s award-winning debut is about friendship until it takes a sharp turn into a treatise on bullying of a most surprising sort. Teased by her peers and with no friends of her own, Misa can’t believe her luck when the pretty and popular Izumi takes her under her wing. The unlikely pair develops a strong bond that soon fades and Misa becomes more and more frightened by her new friend’s extracurricular behaviors. Balancing suspense and drama, SHADY is a coming-of-age story of growing up, bullying, stress, and sexuality. But what sets it apart from other tales of youth is the careful way it creates sympathy out of insecurity and the hope for emancipation through love, be it romantic or otherwise. The film has caught fire since its Pia Film Festival debut, and has even secured distribution in the UK, where audiences will soon be introduced to Watanabe’s complex of murder, suspense, and lesbian action. – Rizzhel Javier 130 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival I fought for my country. Now I fight medication errors . I defend the frontlines of healthcare every day battling infections, combating medication errors and crusading for safety. 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HR2290 Three Tr e a s u r e s Kung Fu and Lion Dance Authentic traditional Training massage therapy Non-profit cultural center We are proud community partners of pacific arts movement E X P E R I E N C E O U R D I F F E R E N C E B e g i n f e e l i n g b e t t e r t o d ay w i t h o u r f r e e t w o w e e k t r i a l 20% CREDIT TOWARDS YOUR TRAINING Expires dec 31, 2013 ttcas.org 9537 CANDIDA St. SD, CA 92126 (858) 848-5598 [email protected] 2013 San Diego Asian Film Festival 1 THURS DAY Proud sponsor of the B • Local C • Busin ess D • Spo rts Nig ht& Day THUR S DAY SECT I INSID ONS E NI BEST OF THE N+D • • SEP TEM mix of legenSan Diego Blue ds and risin s Festival will feature a g young talents. BER 5 , 2013 • T H E WO RL BLUES celebrates Bayside festival art form the American hunger while fighting • SEPTE MBER | Night + Day SAN DIEGO 5, 2013 | U-T TOD AY’ S DEA L Today’s deal is brou to you by ght our paid advertisin g India. 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The ider SEE SYR ing a RUCKER THE WAS & WILL ENGLUN HINGTON D POST Obama’s req new resista uest faces nce from Putin PHILIP SENATE PANEL IN DE PT H D ’S G R E AT ES T COU N T RY & AMER A3 OKs SYR IA I CA’ S FINES T CIT Y • UTSan STRIKE D i e go . com IA • A3 3 A M ERI QUE STIO CA N T RIV IA "THE MOST BUZZED San Diego Magazine Kimmel Adapted by Michael Conceived and by Jeff Buckley Music and Lyrics Music Direction Orchestrations, nts by Kris Kukul and Arrangeme by Sonya Tayeh Choreography Timbers Directed by Alex ABOUT SHOW !" OF THE SEASON OF LOVE STORY CAL THE GREATEST MUSI NOW A NEW ALL TIME IS 22 Starts Septe mber at $29 Tickets start 1861, Gen N: In August McClella . George Presiden n wrote to construc t Lincoln: “The roads hastion of railnew and introduced a element very important so? See into war.” How answer, A2. JULIET Talisa Friedman. Photos by Matthew Murphy. THE C ONV E R S AT ROMEO Jay Armstrong Johnson. 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Join the Players Club and your first lobster buffet is free! Congratulations to the 2013 Asian Business Association Award Recipients We are proud to recognize these outstanding individuals for their passion, leadership and achievements in driving San Diego’s economy forward, and their continued commitment to the community. Thank you. Hall of Fame Business Leadership Award Dr. Lilly Cheng San Diego State University Ed Lee ELT Insurance Services Community Service Award Lifetime Achievement Allan Camaisa Risen Media Ron Roberts County Supervisor Member of the Year Award Emerging Business John Lee BluFi Lending Dan Hom Focuscom Trailblazer Award Bryan Min Epsilon Systems Solutions www.abasd.org | 858.277.2822 Holland America Line is proud to support the Pacific Arts Movement STAFF LIST THE TEAM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Lee Ann Kim MANAGING DIRECTOR Phillip Lorenzo ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Brian Hu MARKETING DIRECTOR Amy Ward MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR James Paguyo CHIEF LIAISON Megan Lam PROGRAMMERS Malou Amparo Maryanne Bilbao Taylor Chan Michael Chen Sam Chen Melody Cheng Gene Huh Rizzhel Javier Lev Kalman Otto Lai Eric Lallana Phillip Lorenzo Joseph Mangat Erwin Mendoza James Paguyo Christina Ree Wilda Wong Tracie Yang COMMUNITY OUTREACH Cynthia Kashiwagi VOLUNTEER COORDINATORS Kao Vang Mea Lath GRAPHIC DESIGN TEAM Yen Tan, Lead Designer Darlene Portades Cathy Nguyen Chris Ebue Steve Lyew Julia Terwyn MARKETING ASSOCIATES Christine Alabastro Melody Cheng Daryl Chu Michelle Liu Annie Nguyen Vincent Pham STREET TEAM COORDINATOR Massoud Shirazi PUBLIC RELATIONS Nikki Jimenez SPECIAL EVENTS Sheila Kanoya Megan Lam Richie Equid PROJECTION COORDINATOR Chris Paffendorf FACILITIES COORDINATOR Mario Guerrero OPERATIONS Mark Gadia Anthony Noceda Ahreum Lee Ivan Li Tiffany Lee Moore GUEST SERVICES Lisa Yadao Bryce Griffin 162 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival WILL CALL/TICKETING Don Tolentino Gigi Vo PROJECTIONISTS Christian Acuna Brook Falkenstein Staci Gaines Roland Lazarte Jon Miller Chris Paffendorf Sophia Verbiscar REEL VOICES Jini Shim, Coordinator Pat Clark, Instructor Joseph Mangat, Assistant YOUTH DAY Crissy Pascual BOARD OF DIRECTORS Stephen Chin, Chairman Harlen Bayha, Co-Vice Chair Stephen Lew, Co-Vice Chair Amethyst Griffith, Secretary Steven Hong, Treasurer Dan Hom, Chairman Emeritus Paul Bergman Kathryn Hammelman Andy Hoang Varsha Israni Sheila Kanoya Dr. Jeff Krebs Benjamin Lee Shirley Park Dr. Mitchell Reff Janis Takahashi Gary Wong Wendy Wong Leon Wu ADVISORY BOARD Jonathan Cheng Dr. Leeva Chung Jonathan Fohrman Robert Ito Grant Lewis Lani Lutar Joseph Mendoza Ed Nesfield Louis Song Dominic Tong Eddie Wang Rodriguez PHOTOGRAPHERS Jose Bucud John Pascasio Reggie Regala Allan Regala Edward Sebastian Jr VIDEO PRODUCTION TEAM Daniel “Deejay” Viloria, Coordinator Ronald Acosta (Animator) Genevieve Calpito Kristian Castro Austin Chen Amy Fan Kathy Fan Chloe Kishel Averill Labrador Ramil Lagman Darlene Magpantay Steve Suarez ACCOUNTING Lee Forrester LEGAL REPRESENTATION Mintz Levin FESTIVAL TRAILER Yasu Inoue 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 163 THANK YOU Markus Achord, CareFusion Steven Adler, Provost Earl Warren College Armin Afsahi, UCSD Alumni Tim Bacino, Gen 7 Wines Theresa Battle, Price Charities Jem Betancourt Brian Blake, SDSU School of Hospitality Blake Boyer, BluFi Eunice Bragais, US Bank Dennis-Michael Broussard Rhonda Brown, Bloomingdale’s Adriana Bruner, Point Loma Credit Union Jacklyn Burgo, Macy’s Dee Dee Castro, Viejas Wesley Chan, Wong Fu Productions Arvin Chen Emma Chen, Golden Horse Film Festival Dr. Lilly Cheng, SDSU Confucius Institute Marc Chery, New Central Library Judy Chung Dr. Leeva Chung, USD Renee Chin, SDCWA Clarissa De Los Reyes Ben Dimagmaliw Carolyn Dumas, Macy’s Stephen Dypiangco, National Film Society Patrick Epino, National Film Society Leanne Ferrer, PIC Anna Fleming, CSUSM Lois Fong-Sakai, Jade Coast Photography Ted Fu, Wong Fu Productions Cori Garcia, UCSD Alumni Wendy Gillespie Richard Go, Repromagic Lawrence Henry, Union Bank Gayle Hom, Price Charities Tom & Loretta Hom Vinny Huynh, Valley View Casino Deepak & Varsha Israni Nikki Jimenez Ken & Connie Kalb Bob Kelly, The SD Foundation Chol Kim, Coke Bottling Gene Kim Lindsay Kirkman, Downtown SD Partnership Tony Kraft, Cafe Merlot Elvin Lai, Ocean Park Inn Anderson Le Ed Lee, ELT Insurance Helie Lee Kent Lee Sandra Lee, ES Marketing 164 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival Dr. Seth Lerer, UCSD Arts & Humanities George Lin, RIP Frank Lin Grant Lewis, Morgan Stanley Dr. Ping-hui Liao, UCSD MyMy Lu, Cox Communications Kathryn Martin, ACG Jerri Malana, Littler Mendelson Dan Matthews Wayne Meyer, Sunroad Automotive Kris Michell, Downtown SD Partnership Carla Miller, Harrah’s Rincon George McGregor, McGregor & Associates Timothy Moon, Zion Market Mark Nakakihara, NORCO Cathy Nguyen Judy Patacsil, Miramar College Vincent Pham, CSUSM Todd Quartararo, Quartararo & Associates (Q&A) Mitchell & Miyo Reff Drs. Craig & Silvia Reid Frank Robinson, Union Bank Jeff Roberto, Sushi on a Roll Alejandro Saenz, Cinepolis Cinemas USA Shirley Sanz, AT&T Dana Sass, Barona David Seid, House of China Marivi Shivers, US Bank Massoud Shirazi Yen Simpson, Chef Louis Song, PROVEN Samuel Song Weston Song Suzi Sterner, UCSD Alumni Affairs Seema Sueko, Mo’olelo Ruth Tang Joyce Teague Don Tolentino, Quidel Goran Topalovic, Subway Cinema Jimmy Tsai Dr. Charles Tu, UCSD Michael Tu, Phuong Trang Wendy Urushima-Conn, ABA Phillip Wang, Wong Fu Productions James Wicks, Point Loma Nazarene University Lee Wills, Qualcomm Chi-hui Yang 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 165 PRINT SOURCE/film index 36 (pg. 112) [email protected] ABDUCTEE (pg. 128) [email protected] ALL THE SPLENDOUR OF THE YEARS (pg. 70) [email protected] AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS (pg. 54) [email protected] BENDS (pg. 113) [email protected] BIG BOY (pg. 114) [email protected] THE BIT PLAYER (pg. 84) [email protected] BLIND DETECTIVE (pg. 102) [email protected] BORN TO DANCE THIS WAY (pg. 78) [email protected] BOX OF HEARTS (pg. 77) [email protected] BRAIN DIVIDED (pg. 72) [email protected] A BREATH FROM THE BOTTOM (pg. 115) [email protected] THE BRIDGE CHRONICLES (pg. 73) [email protected] CHICKEN OR THE EGG (pg. 73) [email protected] CHOONGSHIM, SOSO (pg. 69) [email protected] CLEANER (pg. 78) [email protected] CLOSED CURTAIN (pg. 103) [email protected] COLD COMES THE NIGHT (pg. 55) [email protected] CONFESSION OF MURDER (pg. 85) [email protected] THE CURIOUS CASE OF TOMMY DO (pg. 68) [email protected] CURIOUS CAT’S CHRISTMAS (pg. 77) [email protected] CYCLOID (pg. 72) [email protected] DOCUMENTED (pg. 44) [email protected] DORONCORON (pg. 77) [email protected] DRAFT DAY (pg. 75) [email protected] DRUG WAR (pg. 104) [email protected] DUCKHAMMER AND BEAVKID GET BUCKETS (pg. 72) [email protected] ENTWINE (pg. 78) [email protected] FINDING MR. RIGHT (pg.40) [email protected] FIRE IN THE BLOOD (pg. 116) [email protected] FOREVER LOVE (pg. 86) [email protected] THE FUTURE IS NOW! (pg. 74) [email protected] GOLDEN GATE GIRLS (pg. 56) [email protected] GRAVE GOODS (pg. 76) [email protected] THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN PICTURE SHOW (pg. 117) [email protected] HAFU: THE MIXED-RACE EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN (pg. 118) [email protected] THE HAUMĀNA (pg. 57) [email protected] HOMESICK (pg. 119) [email protected] HONEYMOON SUITE (pg. 75) [email protected] HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY (pg. 105) [email protected] HOW TO USE GUYS WITH SECRET TIPS (pg. 87) [email protected] HOWARD (pg. 78) [email protected] 166 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival HU’S GAME (pg. 77) [email protected] IF ONLY (pg. 88) [email protected] ILO ILO (pg. 120) [email protected] IN BETWEEN MY HANDMADE MOMENTS (pg. 74) [email protected] INHERITANCE (pg. 76) [email protected] IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT (pg. 89) [email protected] IT’S ONLY US (pg. 78) [email protected] KARAOKE GIRL (pg. 121) [email protected] KATACHI (pg. 72) [email protected] A KNOCK ON MY DOOR (pg. 73) [email protected] KONG PEH TSHAT OR: HOW I LEARNED TO TELL A LIE (pg. 74) [email protected] KOTOBUKI / TO US (pg. 76) [email protected] KUNG FU DATE (pg. 89) [email protected] THE LINE (pg. 69) [email protected] LITTLE MAO (pg. 77) [email protected] LONESOME TOWN (pg. 60) [email protected] LOOTERA (pg. 90) [email protected] LOUD BOY (pg. 72) [email protected] MADE IN CHINATOWN (pg. 75) [email protected] MAKOTO: OR, HONESTY (pg. 79) [email protected] THE MAN IN THE FISH POOL (pg. 70) [email protected] MARUYAMA, THE MIDDLE SCHOOLER (pg. 129) [email protected] MEMORY BLOCKS (pg. 75) [email protected] MEMORY OF A BUTTERFLY (pg. 77) [email protected] MEMORY OF FORGOTTEN WAR (pg. 58) [email protected] MORAL SLEAZE (pg. 59) [email protected] MORE THAN TWO HOURS (pg. 75) [email protected] MY MOTHER’S JADE (pg. 76) [email protected] MY NAME IS ASIROH (pg. 77) [email protected] NEW YEARS EVE (pg. 75) [email protected] NIGHT FALLS ON GLASS (pg. 112) [email protected] NO LONGER THERE (pg. 70) [email protected] NORTE: THE END OF HISTORY (pg. 106) [email protected] OBAMA IS/AND ME (pg. 78) [email protected] ON THE JOB (pg. 92) [email protected] PAGPAG (pg. 76) [email protected] THE PERILS OF GROWING UP FLAT-CHESTED (pg. 74) [email protected] A PICTURE OF YOU (pg. 60) [email protected] PLAN B (pg. 70) [email protected] PLASTIC PARADISE: THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH (pg. 61) [email protected] PLAYING THE PIANO (pg. 77) [email protected] THE PRESENT (pg. 73) [email protected] PSYCHEDELIC FAMILY (pg. 75) [email protected] PYRO & KLEPTO (pg. 74) [email protected] Q&X (pg. 77) [email protected] A RAINY DAY FOR EARTHWORMS (pg. 74) [email protected] RASKAL LOVE (pg. 62) [email protected] 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival 167 PRINT SOURCE/film index (cont.) REEL VOICES (pg. 56, 57) [email protected] REQUIEM FOR ROMANCE (pg. 73) [email protected] RESCUE (pg.72) [email protected] A ROLLING STONE (pg. 122) [email protected] SAKE-BOMB (pg. 68) [email protected] THE SAME OLD SONG (pg. 69) [email protected] SAMNANG (pg.70) [email protected] THE SANDWICH MAN (pg. 107) [email protected] SHADY (pg. 130) [email protected] SOUL (pg. 93) [email protected] SPEAKING OUT (pg. 54) [email protected] STILL I BREATHE (pg. 73) [email protected] A STORY OF YONOSUKE (pg. 123) [email protected] SUMO ROLL (pg. 72) [email protected] SUPERIOR LIFE CLASSROOM (pg. 76) [email protected] SWEET CORN (pg. 69) [email protected] TAIWANFAMOUS (pg. 118) [email protected] THAT GUY...WITH GREAT HAIR (pg. 76) [email protected] THE TERROR LIVE (pg. 94) [email protected] A TIME IN QUCHI (pg. 108) [email protected] TO MY DEAR GRANNY (pg. 95) [email protected] TO WEAVE A NAME (pg. 79) [email protected] A TOUCH OF SIN (pg. 109) [email protected] TRACES OF JOY (pg. 77) [email protected] TRAPPED (pg. 125) [email protected] UNBEATABLE (pg. 110) [email protected] UNIDENTIFIED (pg. 80) [email protected] VERY ORDINARY COUPLE (pg. 96) [email protected] THE WAY WE DANCE (pg. 97) [email protected] WHEN I WALK (pg.42) [email protected] WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? (pg. 98) [email protected] WITHIN WITHIN (pg. 72) [email protected] YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI (pg. 99) [email protected] YELLOW STICKY NOTES: CANADIAN ANIJAM (pg. 73) [email protected] YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT (pg.81) [email protected] YUMEN (pg. 126) [email protected] ZONE PRO SITE: THE MOVEABLE FEAST (pg. 100) [email protected] 168 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival COMMERCIAL OFFSET & DIGITAL PRINTING The Best Printshop In San Diego…Period. 8585 Miramar Place, San Diego | 858.277.2488 | www.repromagic.com presented by www.pac-arts.org/sdaff printed by reproMagic