AsianConnections' team was in full force at the red carpet premiere in Hollywood for '300' - Check out AsianConnections' video features and photos!

Check out AsianConnections' photos by Michael Nguyen! CLICK HERE FOR PHOTO EXCLUSIVES from AsianConnections' Michael Nguyen at the 300 Premiere.

Click on the video boxes below for the three video features on 300 with AsianConnections' Marissa Becker and Haman Movafagh as they catch up with Director Zack Synder on the red carpet and introduce UP CLOSE interviews by Jim Ferguson with stars Gerard Butler and Director Zack Snyder.

AT '300' RED CARPET PREMIERE - ASIANCONNECTIONS' MARISSA BECKER AND HAMAN MOVAFAGH TALK WITH DIRECTOR ZACK SNYDER ABOUT WORKING WITH '300' GRAPHIC NOVELIST FRANK MILLER, AND RAVES ABOUT '300' CINEMATOGRAPHER LARRY FONG

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY JIM FERGUSON WITH '300' STAR GERARD BUTLER!

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY JIM FERGUSON WITH '300' DIRECTOR ZACK SNYDER!

Festival to Showcase Asian American and Asian International Films from 26 Countries Opening with Sundance Hit CHILDREN OF INVENTION from Tze Chun; Toronto Film Festival Fave TREELESS MOUNTAIN from So Yong Kim as the Fest Centerpiece; and Academy Award Winner DEPARTURES (OKURIBITO) from Yojiro Takita as the Closing Night Presentation of the 8-Day Fete

Visual Communications (VC), the nations premier Asian Pacific American media arts center, announced its program of 181 outstanding films for the upcoming 25th Anniversary Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) beginning April 30 - May 7, 2009 at the Directors Guild of America (DGA), Laemmles Sunset 5 Theatres, Downtown Independent Theatre, The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, and the Aratani/Japan America Theatre.

As Southern Californias largest and most prestigious film festival of its kind, the LAAPFF launches the celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month through this years slate of over 181 films and videos from both Asian Pacific American and Asian international directors from 26 countries. Celebrating 25 years, the Fest has presented over 3000 films and videos by Asian American and Asian international artists since 1983. This year, 35 feature films and 146 shorts and videos will be showcased throughout the 8-day fest.

Sundance hit film CHILDREN OF INVENTION from director Tze Chun will open the festival on Thursday, April 30, 2009 at the DGA at 7PM with director/screenwriter Chun, actors Michael...

Updated March 28, 2012

Congratulations to documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong. Arthur has also been awarded in March, 2012 a grant from the California Council for the Humanities for his documentary project on the late Cambodian actor Haing Ngor. On December 1, 2011 The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) also awarded him a research and development grant for the same documentary project. Congratulations!

Arthur shared insights into his art of documentary filmmaking with AsianConnections, and details on his latest projects. 

Suzanne: Arthur, thank you for sharing with our audience updates on your current projects. 

Arthur: I’ve got a few projects working their way up to the front burners.

First, I’ve just been granted exclusive documentary rights to the life story of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the first-time actor in The Killing Fields who drew upon his four-year interment in Khmer Rouge prison camps to create an Oscar-winning performance. Dr. Ngor is mostly known for his film work, but what I find compelling is his quest to bring worldwide attention to the devastation of Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime.

In Cambodia, he is a folk hero; in America, he’s a role model. Unfortunately, Dr. Ngor was murdered in 1996 in L.A.’s Chinatown. Although the case was officially solved and convicted as a botched robbery, it’s still a mystery to many in the Cambodian community. In fact, in 2009, at the Cambodian tribunals to bring...

China National Opera House Presents First Western-Style Production of the Classic Chinese Love Story "Farewell, My Concubine"

"Farewell, My Concubine" Opera kicks off a five-city tour in January in San Francisco, followed by Pasadena, New York and Houston. The tour will culminate in Dallas at the Eisemann Center Feb. 5 and 6th. Presented by the Chinese American Inter-Cultural Exchange Foundation (CAICE Foundation), this production is the first performance of the newly-scored opera, one of the rare times that an original Chinese opera will be performed in the U.S. by a Chinese cast and sung in Mandarin.

The well-known Chinese love story is also the inspiration for a play, a novel and a 1993 Oscar-nominated movie. Based on real events and characters from over 2,200 years ago in China, "Farewell, My Concubine, is set at the end of the Qin dynasty, with the love story revolving around the heroic warrior, Xiang Yu, and his beloved concubine, Yu Ji.

The heart and soul behind this Western-style production of "Farewell My Concubine" is internationally-renowned Chinese composer and conductor Xiao Bai. For the past 18 years, Xiao Bai labored to score a Western version of the traditional Chinese story, with the dream of one day presenting his opera to an international audience.

With the support of Emily Kuo Vong and CAICE Foundation, a Dallas-based non-profit organization promoting cultural exchange and understanding between China and the U.S. through the arts, Xiao Bai and the...

 (L-R) Douglas Carter Beane, Lewis Flinn, Liz Mikel, Dan Knechtges, Leslie Blake, David Ives, Kenny Leon, Samuel L. Jackson, Randy Gener, David Henry Hwang, Leigh Silverman and Jennifer Lim attend the 2011 Drama Desk and Fordham University Theatre Program Panel Discussion: Anatomy of a Breakout at Fordham Law School on November 13, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Lia Chang)

The Drama Desk & Fordham University Theatre Program co-sponsored a lively panel discussion on November 13, 2011, in the Pope Auditorium at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in New York. The discussion, titled “Anatomy of a Breakout,” addressed the remarkable trend of breakthrough productions and breakout performances on the New York stage in 2011, was moderated by theater critic Randy Gener and Leslie (Hoban) Blake, the Drama Desk’s Vice President.

Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Drama Desk’s Vice President, Jennifer Lim, actor, Chinglish, Samuel L. Jackson, actor, The Mountaintop, Leigh Silverman, director, Chinglish, David Henry Hwang, playwright, Chinglish, Kenny Leon, director, The Mountaintop and Stick Fly and Randy Gener, George Jean Nathan Award winning editor/critic Photo by Lia Chang

Gener assembled an all-star lineup of panelists including actor Jennifer Lim, playwright David Henry Hwang and director Leigh Silverman fromChinglish; Douglas Carter Beane, book writer, Lewis Flinn, composer/lyricist, Liz Mikel, actor, Dan Knechtges, director/choreographer from Lysistrata...