A Fine Film Fest, and a Top Ten List: Why I Love (Hate) American Idol
MOVING PICTURES: Asian American films are rocking. That was evident at the 24th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, which screened 126 films and videos over eleven days and nights in three Bay Area cities last month.
Shawn Wongs Americanese, directed by Eric Byler (Charlotte Sometimes) and based on Wongs novel, American Knees, opened the festival at the grand old Castro Theater, where an organist still performs before the curtains rise. The film stars Joan Chen and Chris Tashima (Visas and Virtue), along with Allison Sie (whos also the films exec producer), Kelly Hu, Sab Shimono, and Michael Paul Chan. After the screening, what appeared to be the entire cast and crew went on stage to field audience questions.
Although I cant report that the crowd went wild over this romantic drama, about a Hapa college professor caught in a fragile love triangle, Americanese did come into the festival fresh from SXSW in Austin, where it won both an audience award for best narrative film and a special jury award for best ensemble cast. (For an excellent overview of the film, go to IMDiversity.com and look for a review by Stewart David Ikeda.)
The closing night feature was Journey From the Fall, a feature focusing on the aftermath of the Vietnam warfrom a Vietnamese perspective, from director Ham Tran, with gorgeous cinematography by Guillermo Rosas (in Southeast Asia) and Julie Kirkwood (in...