2008 dc apa film festival selections announced

It's official: the films for the Ninth Annual DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival have been announced! The 2008 festival press release follows, with links to the films added for easy browsing.

August 21, 2008 - Washington, D.C. APA Film Presents the 9th Annual DC Asian Pacific American (APA) Film Festival Sept. 25 through Oct. 4, 2008 at locations throughout the Washington, D.C., area including Landmark's E Street Cinema, Navy Memorial Theater, Goethe-Institut, and Freer Gallery of Art. The festival will showcase 14 features and over 45 short films. A complete schedule of films and descriptions is available at http://www.apafilm.org.

The Opening Night Presentation on Sept. 25th is Amal, a complex drama involving a family’s dispute over their father’s will and his connection to a humble auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi, India. Director Richie Mehta and lead actor Rupinder Nagra are scheduled to attend.

On Sept. 27th, the festival presents a day of programs at the Freer Gallery of Art, including the documentary The Siamese Connection about Chang and Eng, the famous conjoined twins of the 19th Century from Thailand; and Long Story Short, profiling Larry and Trudie Long, a popular Chinese American husband-and-wife nightclub act of the '40s and '50s.

Several other documentaries will make their DC premieres. Maui Boyz follows ten local men from Maui as they live, work and play according the "Aloha Spirit" of Hawaii. Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, a Nobel Prize nominee and wheelchair-bound doctor, is the tenacious star of Flying on One Engine (SXSW 2008), traveling to India every year to perform hundreds of free operations for children with facial deformities. A pair of documentaries investigate the human rights struggle of Korean comfort women who were forced into military sexual slavery during World War II (Behind Forgotten Eyes, The House of Sharing.).

A number of films feature ensemble casts of new and veteran Asian and American actors, including the romantic comedy Kissing Cousins (starring Samrat Chakrabarti, Gerry Bednob (40 Year Old Virgin), Jaleel White, and David Alan Grier); and Filipino drama Santa Mesa (starring Jaime Tirelli (Bella, Girlfight), Melissa Leo, and introducing Jacob Shalov).

Two programs will be presented in partnership with the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Anne Kaneko's Against the Grain explores the lives of working artists amidst political and economic unrest in Peru; and Sita Sings the Blues is a modern retelling of the Ramayana through spirited animation and blues music.

The Closing Night Presentation is Killing of a Chinese Cookie, Derek Shimoda's offbeat documentary that ponders the life and meaning of the fortune cookie in American pop culture.

The 2008 DC APA Film Festival and is supported by Scion Motors, Prudential, and a number of private corporations and nonprofit organizations. The DC APA Film Festival is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. For more information, visit http://www.apafilm.org, or email apafilm [at] apafilm.org. For press and media inquires, contact Anna Petrillo, anna [at] apafilm.org, (202) 330-5496.

2007 dc shorts film festival

The 2007 DC Shorts Film Festival continues and wraps up this week at the Landmark E Street Cinema, downtown in Penn Quarter. The themes for the primetime (7:00 pm) shows include Politics as Usual, Films of OurStage.com, Foreign Beauties, and LunaFest. The 1:00 pm, 4:00 pm, and 10:00 pm shows feature the Best Of DC Shorts, as voted by filmmakers, directors and audience members.

My favorites from the Best Of screening:

• The Wine Bar, Christian Remde
• The Job, Jonathan Browning
• 2 in the AM PM, JG Quintel
• The Little Gorilla, Harry Kellerman
• signage, Rick Hammerly

It was particularly interesting to see the films shot in HD and how different they looked than the ones shot using digital video or film. Showing multiple films in a row really allowed for one to compare films produced in different technical formats. It was also interesting seeing what creative-types notice in a film: one of my friends was really good at noticing issues with sound and color, another was good at paying careful attention to the story development, and I seemed to be looking at the details of the cinematography. Of course, this was all in addition to just enjoying the films themselves :)

2007 dc apa film festival

The schedule for the 8th Annual DC Asian Pacific American (APA) Film Festival has been released. It will be taking place between September 27 and October 6, 2007. A full schedule with descriptions for each film should be coming soon.

I'll be volunteering as one of the event photographers so I will definitely be at some of the social events as well as some of the films. If you decide to check any of the films out, let me know—maybe we can meet up.

Two films I found previews for on youtube...

Bolinao 52
Saturday, September 29 at 1:30 pm, Rosslyn Spectrum Theater


The Owl and the Sparrow
Saturday, October 6 at 7:00 pm, Navy Memorial Theater