SDAFF at Asian CineVision in NYC

08.15 - Posted by The San Diego Asian Film Foundation

Arnold Marquez
SDAFF Director of Programs

In the years since becoming involved with promoting and exhibiting Asian and Asian American film, I’d never attended Asian CineVision (www.asiancinevision.org), the second-oldest of the Asian American film festivals.  But when a festival programmers meeting was called for at this year’s 27th annual edition, I jumped at the chance to experience ACV between July 16 and 18, 2004.

Staging ACV in New York is both a blessing and a curse, facts substantiated by ACV executive director Risa Morimoto at our Sunday programmers meeting.  A blessing due to the city’s grandly cinematic environment, and its filmmaking heritage and community; a curse in that as an epicenter of Western culture, there’s SO much to see, do, and distract.  But Risa and festival director Diana Lee do a tremendous job, working like mad, without sleep, and motivating their board and the rest of ACV’s troops to stage one of our leading festivals.

ACV primarily takes place at one terrific venue: the Asia Society’s headquarters and museum (www.asiasociety.org) located at 725 Park Avenue, two blocks east of Central Park.  It’s just off “Museum Mile”: the Frick Collection is two blocks directly due west, the gargantuan Metropolitan Museum of Art ten blocks north of that.  When you’re not watching film, the Society’s exhibits and galleries offer exquisite displays of Asian art and artifacts.

One level below the street is the Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium, one wonderful theater for watching film and video.  The opening night feature was Ann Hui’s GODDESS OF MERCY.  I arrived early to meet folks, familiarize myself with the venue, and watch everyone come in.  As a fellow programmer, it was gratifying to hear Risa’s teary opening remarks, thanking board, volunteers, attendees and staff and proclaiming everyone’s lack of sleep; no one’s got this jazz locked down!

ACV Opening Night (L-R): film fan Robert Colorina; Risa Morimoto, ACV Executive Director; NY filmmakers Eric McGinty and Anna Sang Park; the author.

The opening night gala took place several floors up at the Society.  What a tremendous filmmaking community!  That’s where I first met Risa, but also caught up with, among others, filmmaker-actor Ron Domingo (his CHOCOLATE played at SDAFF 2003, and he stars in ACV 2004’s Emerging Director Co-Award-winner Steve Mallorca’s SLOW JAM KING), Nora Chau, a 2002 ABC Scholarship Grant Winner; and Michael Kang, now in post-production with his feature-length directorial debut, THE MOTEL, winner of the 2003 Sundance/NGK International Filmmakers Award (for the script), starring Sung Kang.

SLEEPING TIGERS director Jari Osborne and author at ACV Industry Networking Mixer.

One of my favorite ACV film fest events took place Saturday afternoon: the Industry Networking Mixer.  A monthly event at ACV, members of New York’s Asian American filmmaking community gather to introduce themselves and pitch their ideas for all to hear and network into.  I dropped most of the business cards I had left here, meeting among others Maria Esteves of FILM FESTIVAL TODAY magazine (who took my picture with  Jari Osborne, director of SDAFF 2003 Best Documentary Feature SLEEPING TIGERS); Ben Matsunaga from Ride On Films (thanks for the Japanese film insights!), Hesh Sarmalkar, co-star of film fest fave SANGAM; actress-photographer-journalist Lia Chang; aspiring screenwriter Michael Agres; and, attending his first festival, film fan Robert Colorina, whom I’d met at the opening night party.  Watch out for San Diego’s own version!

Saturday night I went to check out an ACV satellite venue, the new Imaginasian Theater (www.theimaginasian.com).  Located at 239 East 59th Street, the “ImaginAsian is New York City's only Asian American theater,...  solely dedicated to showcasing the exciting world of Asian and Asian American cinema and culture.” I attended the screening of AFTER THE APOCALYPSE, which was preceded by SDAFF animation/artistic programmer Sam Chen’s ETERNAL GAZE.  How awesome is that, to have a theater dedicated to Asian American content?

The primary reason for my attendance at ACV took place Sunday morning: a national meeting of Asian American film festival programmers.

L-R: Gene Huh and Benjamin Lee, APA Film; Mya Huong, Asian Film Festival of Dallas and Magnolia Pictures; 

David Magdael, Visual Communication and TDM; Tad Doyle, APA Film; Jennifer Fang, 

Edward Thai, Anthony Lim, Kerry Cheung, Theresa Ngo, and Jacquelyn Chou from SILKSCREENS in Boston; 

Jerome Vielman from SLANT in Houston; Risa Morimoto and Diana Lee from ACV.

Risa and Diane laid the donuts, coffee, and orange juice out for the group, and for over two hours we substantively discussed the issues related to the exhibition of Asian and Asian American film and video.

My last night at ACV I was privileged to see the North American premiere of Steve Mallorca’s SLOW JAM KING (www.slowjamking.com), starring our friend Ron Domingo.  While SDAFF 2005 won’t be able to screen Steve’s movie (after CineManila and ACV, Sundance consideration restricts any further exhibition), I let him know how much I enjoyed it and congratulated him on a job well done.  He’s working on getting it printed to 35mm film (DV originated), so by the time San Diego gets to see it, it’ll be via film projection.

I thank Risa and Diane, their dedicated staff, and the filmmaking community of New York City for a great festival experience at ACV.