Los Angeles
October 30, 2022
By Taylor Yukiko Sato and Suzanne Joe Kai
The 2022 U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit was a historic event that brought leaders from Hollywood and the Asian entertainment industry to Los Angeles.
Janet Yang, Chair of U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit, was honored with the 2022 Career Achievement Award.
Janet made history as the first Asian American, and fourth woman to become the President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Actress and emcee of the evening’s gala, Kara Wang said “I am particularly honored to be here as we honor Janet with the Career Achievement Award."
"We call her the Asian godmother of the industry because she has had a hand in so many of our careers. And I am just very very happy that I get to be here with this moment as we shower her with love… She has done so much for us.”
CEO and Co-Founder of Gold House and AU Holdings, Bing Chen led a Fireside Chat with Janet Yang as she reflected on her career.
This was the 13th U.S.-Asia Entertainent Summit with panels spotlighting top talent in the Asian and Asian American entertainment industry.
How Asia Markets Have Changed and What It means for Hollywood panel moderated by Patrick Frater, Asia Editor, Variety
Apoorva Bakshi, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Golden Karavan, Awedacious Originals Lindsay Conner, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP Erika North, Head of Asia-Pacific Originals, Amazon Studios Bennett Pozil, Executive Vice President,...Better Luck Tomorrow set records at Paramount Classics for the highest gross per theater on its opening weekend. People are already comparing the genre-busting film to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and Arts & Entertainment Edtior Lia Chang brings you an in-depth interview with director Justin Lin.
AsianConnections Arts and Entertainment editor Lia Chang caught up with Justin Lin right after the critical make or break opening weekend of his movie Better Luck Tomorrow, the first Asian American independent film to be acquired and distributed by a studio, with the potential for a shot at true box office success. The movie, distributed by MTV Films in conjunction with Paramount Classics opened last weekend in a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco to enthusiastic audiences. This Friday, the film opens in 10 more cities including Seattle, Houston, Washington D.C., Boston, and Florida. Further screening locations of this film will depend on this weekends box office receipts.
If this past weekends sold-out screenings continue, Lins movie will become not only the first Asian American independent film to reach box office success, but also the first hit since the release of Wayne Wangs The Joy Luck Club in 1993.Its been a rollercoaster ride for the avid Laker fan since the day before Thanksgiving when he got the call that every filmmaker dreams of changing the course of his life. From thousands of entries, Better Luck Tomorrow, his...
Arts and Entertainment Editor Lia Chang chats with Robot Stories Filmmaker Greg Pak
Award-winning filmmaker Greg Pak has been entertaining film festival audiences around the world for ten years with his quirky short films like All Amateur Ecstasy, Asian Pride Porn, Cat Fight Tonight, Fighting Grandpa, Mouse, Mr. Lee, The Penny Marshall Project, Po Mo Knock Knock.
Inspired by the short stories of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, Greg is a brilliant storyteller whose enthusiasm for the medium of film and love of science fiction is evident in his body of work, which span several genres. Engaging, intelligent and perceptive, his path to movie making has been an unusual one.
After graduating from Yale with a degree in political science, the writer/director was on his way to becoming a politician when a stint in film directing while studying history at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship focused his vision on his true passion-filmmaking. Back in the States, he enrolled in the graduate film program at New York University and combining his diverse interests in photography, writing, drawing, and acting---all talents hed pursued since childhood--- he set about honing his skills in the craft of filmmaking. During his first year at NYU, his first short film Visiting Aunt Sue was accepted at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York. Hes never looked back.
In 1998, I saw Mouse, Gregs hilarious 11-minute short film about a guy trying to escape a conversation about...
More About Gregs Filmmaking Journey
Family, favorite movies, social justice and why he started AsianAmericanFilm.com
Lia: What was your first film Visiting Aunt Sue about?
Greg: Visiting Aunt Sue was almost like a training film. The first film that I made at NYU, it was a silent black and white movie about a kid who had been eating all day. Hes supposed to go visit his aunt. When he gets to his aunts shes cooked this huge spread for him. Its quirky and funny but at the same time it is about this generation gap. Youve seen him eating all day. Hanging out with his friends eating all day. In the meantime, you see his aunt, this woman with a stroke who struggling to cook this big meal. When he gets there, shes waving him towards the table, exhausted, lying on the couch; its practically killed her to make the meal. He walks in the door, sees the spread, just sits down and eats it.
All of the Asian American film festivals across the country have been so supportive. Here I was a film student at NYU, just finishing my first year. The Asian American International Film Festival in New York not only showed my film but they put me on a panel too. It was amazing to be treated like that. When I was first making these films, I didnt really know what the process was going to be like. I made films because I wanted to. I was very cocky, of course I made these films because I felt they were going to been seen by everyone. But there was no guarantee. Knowing these festivals were out there...
Lia chats with Prolific Documentary Filmmaker Arthur Dong
At a time when Asian directors are the flavor of the month on the international and Hollywood film circuits, Arthur Dong can look back over a career that spans more than three decades and over 100 film awards and fellowships.
2002 has been a remarkable year for this prolific documentary filmmaker. Dong was elected to the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, representing the Documentary branch this year. His critically acclaimed Family Fundamentals is in selected theaters nationwide, and his Forbidden City U.S.A. documentary, originally produced in 1989, has just been released as a collector's edition DVD.
Both documentaries focus on very different topics, but share a common theme. They are subjects that Dong is passionate about.
Dong's Family Fundamentals, examines America's cultural wars over homosexuality as experienced by three fundamentalist families with gay adult children.
In Forbidden City, U.S.A. Dong explores the history of the notorious and groundbreaking Chinese-American San Francisco nightclub and its performers, which had an international reputation in the 1930s-40s.
In his bittersweet valentine to a generation of Asian American pioneers who fought cultural barriers to pursue their love for American song and dance, Dong captures the glamour and significance of the period. Dong has woven together interviews with Forbidden City alumni, rare color footage of the club,...