Ann Marie Fleming's feature film, "The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam," won rave reviews at film festivals and nabbed awards like the Grand Jury Award of the 2004 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. And now it's a graphic novel that the American Library Association has named one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens. AsianAmericanFilm.com editor Greg Pak spoke with Fleming about her new adventures in comics. Read on for the interview -- and click on the images below to see preview pages from the book!

AsianAmericanFilm.com: Please describe the book in three sentences or less.

Ann Marie Fleming: "The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam" is a graphic novel based on the animated documentary of the same name, which traces my search to find the life of my great grandfather, Long Tack Sam, who was a world-famous, globe-hopping Chinese acrobat and magician that my family had really not know very much about at all. It takes us on a trip of the events of the 20th century through the prism of this one particular man's life, and, stylistically, it riffs off from the collage-like, multi-media quality of the film itself.

AAF: How did the plan to make the film into a graphic novel come together?

AMF: This was very serendipitous. Megan Lynch, an editor at Riverhead Books in New York City, saw the film on the Sundance Channel and got in touch with me, asking me if i'd be interested in adapting it into a graphic novel. She thought it would be particularly relevent for teaching inner city kids about valuing themselves in the world through the stories of their own families.

AAF: How did working in comics allow you to tell the story differently than working in film?

AMF: 2D is VERY DIFFERENT from 3D... from time-based media. I had to completely rethink the film. I didn't have the sound and music element, and my voice-over, which is such a large part of the film and gives it so much of its colour.

I tried to shift the layout on every pages, so you can explore the information differently, and change it up... I guess it was my way of visually pacing... I added other elements (like Stickgirl, my avatar, the narrator) and I also got to go on more tangential lines which I had to cut down or out in the film. I play with lists and timelines, which is very much how I began to structure my search in the first place.

Joy Dietrich's feature film "Tie a Yellow Ribbon," which she describes as "a rare view into the emotionally complex interior of young Asian-American women," recently won the Best Director nod at CineVegas and the Best Feature award at Urbanworld. The film screens next weekend at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York City. Read on for a quick update about how the festival experience has been treating Dietrich and what's next for her.

AsianAmericanFilm: Congrats on the two awards! Tell us a bit about the experience of nabbing the prizes at each festival.

Joy Dietrich: Both were quite a surprise. CineVegas is a great film festival with high profile films and A-list stars attending. So, I thought my tiny film was going to be sidelined. Much to my surprise, TIE A YELLOW RIBBON actually stood out because it was one of very few films about minorities in the festival. TYR was incredibly well-received there and the press loved it. When I won the Special Jury Prize for the Best Director, it was the icing on the cake. [Programmers] Trevor Groth and Mike Plante, both from Sundance, really put on a good show there.

Screenwriter Koji Steven Sakai has posted an interview with "Better Luck Tomorrow" actress Karin Anna Cheung, who's working with Sakai and filmmaker Quentin Lee on a new project called "The People I've Slept With." Here's an excerpt:

Tell us about the story and your character.

Karin: Angela is a character created kind of close to me even though she's obviously a fictional character. She is a strong-willed and modern woman… also very much a woman from the "Sex and the City" world. A part of her tells her that she has a schedule to follow-go to school, graduate, meet her husband, have kids by 25/26… But life tosses her a curveball when her long term boyfriend dumps her and she get pregnant during a binge of "Sex and the City" fun. "The People I Slept With" is probably the first Asian American female driven romantic comedy that is sexy and empowering to women.

What do you mean by sexy?

Karin: Guys are studs if they sleep around. Women are sluts if they do. Encouraged by her gay best friend, Angela takes on the role of the stud. She is a modern woman to the extreme. She is not afraid to flaunt the fact that she dates around and keeps a pack of cards with all her lovers' photos. Again, the script is unique because it empowers Asian American female sexuality. Women should be able do whatever they want in this postmodern society, and she does. She's a stud.