IT'S AFI FEST TIME AGAIN!

AFI FEST PRESENTED BY AUDI runs October 30 - November 9, 2008 in Los Angeles and APA FIRST WEEKEND is proud to be a community sponsor once again for this outstanding festival.

We are pleased to present the following Asian films at this year's AFI FEST PRESENTED BY AUDI in Los Angeles:

DIM SUM FUNERAL - a film by ANNA CHI (we will be doing an interview with her shortly)

An Irish funeral has what’s called a wake; a Jewish funeral has what’s called sitting shiva; and a traditional Chinese funeral is something else entirely---which is what the estranged siblings of a Westernized Chinese-American family discover as they try to fulfill their mother’s last wish.
Cast: Steph Song, Kelly Hu, Bai Ling, Talia Shire, Russell Wong, Julia Nickson, Chang Tseng, Lisa Lu

November 5 - Noon - Mann Chinese 6 - US PREMIERE!!!! One time only!

TOKYO! - a film by MICHEL GONDRY, LEOS CARAX and BONG JOON - HO
This triptych of shorts hover in a state of surrealism that might feel natural only in Tokyo, as auteurs Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho transform elements of the mundane to tantalizing visual aphorisms. Gondry's INTERIOR DESIGN begins when a young man and woman move to Tokyo to pursue (his) dreams of filmmaking. Soon, they are lost in endless grids of towed cars and buildings that “refuse all contact with each other.” Feeling smothered by her boyfriend’s self-proclaimed genius, the heroine’s anxiety escalates until she undergoes an uncanny metamorphosis. In Carax’s MERDE, the delicately woven surface of consumer utopia is ruptured abruptly with the appearance of an otherworldly being from the sewers. His name is Merde. He does not speak our language. The jostling crowds and pervasive media are frenzied as the enfant terrible assaults everything in his path: eating cigarettes, flowers, tipping baby strollers and licking schoolgirls. His acts invoke furor, repulsion and hilarious religious ardor in the masses. Finally, he is incarcerated, but is this the end, or just the beginning? Bong Joon-ho's SHAKING TOKYO treats us to a look into the nest of a hokikomori- a man socially crippled by a spatial ailment that keeps him from leaving the stale security of his home. Then, when an earthquake strikes, Bong asks sadistically, what might happen if a hokikomori fell in love? These stories of individuals whose isolation is exacerbated by their fantastic debilitating urban spaces offer hallucinatory portraits of a city that are fleeting, terrifying and sublime.

November 1 - 3:00 PM Arclight Cinemas
November 8 - 9:30 PM Arclight Cinemas

THE JUCHE IDEA - a film by JIM FINN

The third in a troika of hilariously serious looks at communism, Jim Finn’s newest triumph firmly establishes the director as the funniest simp/dupe since Zero Mostel. This time Finn takes dead aim at the official North Korean ideology Juche, reveling in the absurd results of the regime’s attempts to turn directors into doctrinaires. (Juche’s main architect, Kim Jong Il, is accurately credited as a co-writer, leading to all sorts of idle musings about the distribution of residuals.) The plot follows the travails of an aspiring auteur, Yoon (Lee Jung Yoon), who has chosen North Korea as her base of operations. As Yoon attempts to create a sci-fi thriller that still adheres to the tenets of Juche, Finn provides us with an introduction to the unmatched silliness of North Korea’s state-sponsored “art” apparatus. We are also treated to a series of rhetorical lessons, featuring appropriately obtuse titles like “English as a Socialist Language,” that, at their best moments, make Borat sound like freaking Cicero. JUCHE IDEA ignores the boundaries that have been erected between experimental film and its more mainstream relations by simply being good enough to defy classification. Outmoded despots be warned—Jim Finn is coming for you!

November 6 - 9:40 PM Mann Chinese 6
November 8 - 4:30 PM Arclight Cinemas

In addition - we encourage you to check out a great new film also at the festival
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE - from Danny Boyle! It's sooooo good!
It will be coming out at Thanksgiving from Fox Searchlight - watch here for more info.

Other Asian films at AFI FEST
http://filmguide.afifest.com/tixSYS/2008/filmguide/title.php/?Genre=A\\

For more info - log on to:
www.afi.com/AFIFEST
Most Screenings are at the ArcLight Hollywood
6360 Sunset Boulevard at Ivar
Tickets and Passes On Sale Now!
Regular screenings $11
For passes, tickets and full Festival details, please call
1.866.AFIFEST or visit AFI.com/AFIFEST

AFI FEST is proud to present one of the world's most anticipated showcases of international film, as part of the longest-running film festival in Los Angeles.
The 2008 program is one of the most ground-breaking programs to date in our 30 year history.

SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES THIS WEEK IN LOS ANGELES...

APA FIRST WEEKEND FILM CLUB
APAFIRSTWEEKEND@AOL.COM

The SDAFF is looking for the best in Asian American cinema for the 9th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. Join award-winning filmmakers like Justin Lin, Michael Kang, Eric Byler, Grace Lee, and Ham Tran, who have screened their work at our festival.

Final Entry Deadline: June 13 ($35*)
Festival: October 9-16, 2008

Submit your film online. (* Withoutabox members receive a $5 discount on entry fees.)

Please note that we've updated AsianAmericanFilm.com to provide a cleaner, easier to read and navigate.

View the new site at "http://www.asianamericanfilm.com">AsianAmericanFilm.com.

Use the links at this old legacy site to find old articles that haven't yet migrated to the new site.

"Passing Poston," a documentary directed by Joe Fox and James Nubile about Japanese Americans interned in the Poston Relocation Center, screens this week in New York City at the Pioneer and Anthology Film Archives.

Pioneer Theater, 7 pm Feb. 23 and 7 pm Feb. 24.

Anthology Film Archives, 7:30 pm Feb. 25 and 7:30 pm Feb. 26.

Here's the blurb from the Pioneer website:

For the over 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly interned during War War II � the scars have not yet fully healed.

PASSING POSTON tells the moving and haunting story of four former internees of the Poston Relocation Center � each person shadowed by a tragic past, each struggling in their own painful way to reconcile the trauma of their youth. Each individual still searching and yearning during their last chapter of their lives, to find their rightful place in this country.

It is a story that takes Ruth Okimoto back to the desert of Arizona where she spent her childhood years behind barbed wire. Back to the Colorado River Indian Reservation, where Poston was built. It is a journey Ruth takes, to find meaning in the inexplicable as she searches to discover the true story of how the Poston camp came into being.

Ruth's answers startle and disturb but eventually leads to resolution as she learns about the role that the Japanese Internees played in developing this reservation.

From the message boards:

The Best of Slant Vol 1 features a collection of short films culled from seven years of Aurora Picture Show�s annual Slant: Bold Asian American Images festival. The Slant festival annually showcases the best in emerging Asian American cinema. Since its start in 2000, Slant has screened an eclectic mix of films that explore a wide range of topics and genres such as the smashing of stereotypes, off-beat comedies, family stories, explorations of culture and identity, and universal themes like love, loss, the human condition. Slant curator Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen, a magazine about Asian American culture. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of Asian American media and independent media. She lives in Oakland, California and works for the San Francisco WritersCorps, a creative writing program for urban youth.

Films in the Compilation include:

1. How to do the Asian Squat by Daniel Hsia
2. Lilo and Me by Kip Fulbeck
3. Maritess vs the Superfriends by Dino Ignacio
4. A Little Bit Different by Lynn Okimura
5. Profiles in Science by Wes Kim
6. I Pie (A Love Store) by Nobu Adilman
7. How to Make Kimchi According to My Kun-Uma by Samuel Kiehoon Lee
8. Slip of the Tongue by Karen Lum

The San Francisco Bay Guardian loves Eric Byler's Tre, which opens at the Four Star Cinemas in San Francisco today. Here's an excerpt from the review:

A semisequel to writer-director Eric Byler's 2002 debut feature, Charlotte Sometimes, this low-key but quietly devastating relationship meltdown in the mode of Harold Pinter and Neil LaBute is his best work to date.

"Tre" screens Friday, February 15 through Thursday, February 21 at the 4-Star Theater (2200 Clement Street @ 23rd Avenue).

Byler will be present for Q&A after the 7:20 showing on Friday and Saturday and the 1:40 showing on Sunday.

Jon Chu, whose short musical "When the Kids Are Away" won a slew of awards are few years back, has directed "Step Up 2," which is playing everywhere this weekend. Angry Asian Man notes a few Asian Americans in the cast.

For an article about Chu from 2003, visit AsianWeek.

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, unspooling March 13 to 23, has unveiled its program. The festival opens with Wayne Wang's "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" and gives its Centerpiece slot to Michael Kang's "West 32nd." Special events include a sing-along screening of "Colma: The Musical." Awesome.

Click here for the details.

Filmmaker turned comic book writer Greg Pak has a new side project -- AsianAmericanComics.com, bringing you the latest scoop about Asian American comic books and creators (heeey... that sounds familiar...).

Check it out at AsianAmericanComics.com.

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East Coast alert: The Korean American Film Festival takes place February 9 in New York City with a 4 pm shorts program and a 7 pm feature presentation of Juwan Chung's "Baby." Click here for the official website and here for the program.

West Coast alert: Gene Rhee's "Trouble With Romance" screens TONIGHT at 7 pm in Berkeley, with Rhee in attendance! Click here for the deets, courtesy of Angry Asian Man.