PROGRAM GUIDE:
FILMS & Events @ WING LUKE MUSEUM
Friday January 25, 2013
Saturday January 26, 2013
Sunday January 27, 2013
Friday 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM
A LOT LIKE YOU
Director: Eliaichi Kimaro
82 minutes (2011)
Eliaichi Kimaro is a mixed-race, first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When her retired father moves back to Tanzania, Eliaichi begins a project that evocatively examines the intricate fabric of multiracial identity, and grapples with the complex ties that children have to the cultures of their parents.
A LOT LIKE YOU won Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Top 10 Audience Choice Award at SIFF. Discussion panel with Kimaro, LeiLani Nishime (Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Washington) and Wes Kim (Director of the Northwest Asian American Film Festival 2003–2007) will follow.
CINEMETROPOLIS
Directors: Martin Tran & Daniel Strothman
4 minutes (2012)
Even after the popcorn is finished and the lights come back on, do we ever really leave the cinema? A finalist in the Blue Scholars Short Film Competition, CINEMETROPOLIS is a love letter to the movies, hip hop, Seattle, and our childhood imagination.
OUT
Director: Blaine Ludy
Writer/Producer: Yuji Okumoto
10 minutes (2011)
After a fifteen-year stretch in prison, JC Lee realizes that there are no joyful reunions awaiting him. While trying to reconnect with his estranged gay son, Troy, JC discovers that life doesn’t get any easier when he is out.
OUT was an official selection of SIFF, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Las Vegas Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival.
DOL (FIRST BIRTHDAY)
Director: Andrew Ahn
12 minutes (2011)
Nick is a gay Korean-American man living in Koreatown, Los Angeles with his partner Brian and their dog, Chloe. When Nick attends his baby nephew’s “dol,” a traditional Korean first birthday party, he finds himself yearning for a life just out of reach.
DOL was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival.
Friday 9:30 PM – 11:30 PM
Opening night party at Wing Luke reception room.
Food and beverages catered by Thai Curry Simple and Georgetown Brewing Company.
Saturday 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
MANILATOWN IS IN THE HEART
Directors: Emiko Omori & Curtis Choy
58 minutes (2008)
Al Robles is the link to the disappearing manong generation, the bachelor society that came from the Philippines in the 1920s and ‘30s as workers. We accompany Al in his wanderings in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Manilatown while he tells the manong’s tales of isolation, struggle and Merriment.
MANILATOWN IS IN THE HEART was a finalist for the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
HOW WAR ENDS
Directors:
Rock Chang & Scott Eriksson
12 minutes (2012)
Eighteen years after Khmer Rouge, two Cambodian brothers, one strong enough to be able to now live with his traumatic memories (Rithy) and the other unable to function in life because of the trauma (Bunthon), each argue their very different ideas about how to deal with Bunthon’s empty, painful life.
HOW WAR ENDS was an official selection of the Boston Asian American Film Festival, International Film Festival Manhattan, Oceanside International Film Festival, NewFilmmakers L.A. Sunset-Gower Studios, Poppy Jasper Film Festival and Laughlin International Film Festival.
MOTHER & CHILD
Director: Jocelyn Saddi-Lenhardt
5 minutes (2012)
Ligaya, a once vibrant and young Filipina woman, struggles through an identity crisis when her estranged husband announces his imminent return to the States. Torn between her traditional mindset and her self-reliance, she becomes angry and resentful at her son, who may be the only logical piece in her fractured world.
MOTHER & CHILD won best short film at the Chicago Filipino American Film Festival.
THE APPRENTICE
Directors:
Mahen Bala & John W. J. Cho
5 minutes (2011)
Since the 1940s, Low Kok Kee and his print shop have been faithfully serving the photography and printing needs of the local community in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With the advent of the digital age and a fluctuating appetite of the young and hip,
Low is philosophical about his business in decline.
Saturday 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
HIBAKUSHA
Directors: Steve Nguyen & Choz Belen
40 minutes (2012)
HIBAKUSHA is an animated drama featuring Kaz Suyeishi, an 84-year-old woman, who recalls her most vivid and horrific experiences as a 17-year-old student in the morning of August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown in Hiroshima, Japan.
A Q&A with Directors Steve Nguyen and Choz Belen will follow.
A FLICKER IN ETERNITY
Directors:
Sharon Yamato & Ann Kaneko
25 minutes (2012)
Stanley Hayami was a talented young teenager caught between his dream of becoming a writer/artist and duty to his country. Based on Hayami’s own diary and letters, this documentary chronicles his life behind barbed wire and as a soldier in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.
A FLICKER IN ETERNITY was an official selection of the United Nations Association Film Festival and New York Asian American International Film Festival.
PEOPLE AREN’T ALL BAD
Director: Matthew Hashiguchi
4 minutes (2012)
Born in San Francisco in 1924, Yutaka Kobayashi was labeled stupid for refusing to learn Japanese. At the start of WWII, his attempts to enlist in the U.S. Army were refused because of his Japanese heritage. He was later sent to the Topaz Internment Camp, but it was during this dark period that he experienced compassion and kindness from where he least expected it.
CLASS ‘58
Director: Dan Matsushita
5 minutes (2012)
A class of post-WWII, first-generation Japanese-American students journey through the trials, discoveries and promise of a burgeoning nation on the move.
Co-presented by: The Seattle Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Minidoka Pilgrimage and The Nisei Veterans Committee.
Saturday 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
THE CHINESE GARDENS
Director: Valerie Soe
17 minutes (2012)
Through text, brief interviews and images of the empty spaces of Port Townsend, Washington’s former Chinatown, the film examines anti-Chinese violence and the lost Chinese community in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s. The film documents Chinese American resistance and draws connections between past and present race relations in this country.
THE CHINESE GARDENS was an official selection of the Dallas VideoFest 25 and Claremont Colleges Asian Americans in Media Film Festival.
Discussion panel with Valerie Soe, director of THE CHINESE GARDENS and Bettie Luke, Chinese Expulsion Remembrance Project 2011 Chair, will follow.
This is a free event.
Saturday 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
THE CRUMBLES
Director: Akira Boch
73 minutes (2012)
THE CRUMBLES is an indie rock slice-of-life tragicomedy about Darla, an overly serious musician whose stagnant life is shaken up when her long lost best friend Elisa shows up and crashes on her couch… indefinitely. While they both share dreams of rocking the globe, it becomes a monumental struggle just getting out of the garage.
THE CRUMBLES won the Audience Award at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Q&A with Director Akira Boch will follow.
Co-presented by: KOLLABORATION Seattle
CHOP SOCKY BOOM
Directors:
Darlene Sellers & Heath Ward
8 minutes (2012)
CHOP SOCKY BOOM is a misfortunate web comedy that follows the adventures of five misfit Seattle actors cast in an action kung fu show. Portraying the signs of Rat, Pig, Rabbit, Rooster and Dragon, the five traverse the challenges of the low-budget filmmaking process, all the while doing battle with their own individual demons.
Saturday 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
THE HOUSE OF SUH
Director: Iris Shim
90 minutes (2010)
Yoon Myung and Tai Sook Suh immigrated to America for a better life for their children, but their pursuit of happiness became riddled with misfortune in 1993, when their son Andrew shot and killed his older sister’s fiancé. How could a man with a promising future be convinced to commit murder?
THE HOUSE OF SUH was the winner of the 2010 Hamptons International Film Festival Investigation Discovery Award for Excellence in Journalism, 2010 San Diego Asian American Film Festival Grand Jury Award, and 2010 Philadelphia Asian Film Festival Best Documentary & Audience Award.
Co-presented by: Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Seattle.
Sunday 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
MRS. JUDO: BE STRONG, BE GENTLE, BE BEAUTIFUL
Director: Yuriko Gamo Romer
66 minutes (2012)
MRS. JUDO: BE STRONG, BE GENTLE, BE BEAUTIFUL documents the lifelong journey of Keiko Fukuda’s decision to defy thousands of years of tradition, choose her own path, and become the only woman in history to attain judo’s pinnacle of 10th degree black belt. MRS. JUDO: BE STRONG, BE GENTLE, BE BEAUTIFUL was an official selection of the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, the United Nations Association Film Festival, DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival and Guam International Film Festival.
Co-presented by: The Seattle Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Seattle Dojo and the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington.
BASKETBALL, MERI JAAN
Director: Veena Hampapur
5 minutes (2012)
The short film centers on the life of Yeshodhara, a vibrant woman who immigrated to the United States from India 30 years ago. The film illustrates how her lifelong love of professional sports has served as a vehicle to create a community and sense of belonging for herself.
MORE THAN 1,000 WORDS
Director: Steve Nagano
9 minutes (2012)
This film explores the work of Mario Reyes, a Mexican-American photographer for the Japanese-American newspaper Rafu Shimpo, and how he became an integral part of the community.
THAT PARTICULAR TIME
Director: Jeff Man
5 minutes (2012)
Following his sudden death in 2005, Eddie Oshiro’s legacy is discovered inside his tiny studio apartment — a collection of decades’ worth of photographs taken by Oshiro himself documenting his Little Tokyo community in Los Angeles.
THAT PARTICULAR TIME is a portrait of Oshiro and those he impacted in his life.
MAGELLAN DOESN’T LIVE HERE
Director: Micki Davis
5 minutes (2012)
Mario Borja, a craftsman and amateur historian, reconstructs a lost history of his people from the British Naval archives to a Pacific crossing. He brings his crew back to Guam in a hand built outrigger called a Sakman.
MAGELLAN DOESN’T LIVE HERE was an official selection of the Guam International Film Festival and Claremont Colleges Asian Americans in Media Film Festival.
Sunday 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
JAKE SHIMABUKURO: LIFE ON FOUR STRINGS
Director: Tadashi Nakamura
52 minutes (2012)
JAKE SHIMABUKURO: LIFE ON FOUR STRINGS is a compelling portrait of an inspiring and inventive musician whose virtuoso skills on the ukulele transformed the instrument’s understood potential. Through intimate conversations with Shimabukuro, JAKE SHIMABUKURO: LIFE ON FOUR STRINGS reveals the cultural and personal influences that have shaped the man and the musician.
JAKE SHIMABUKURO: LIFE ON FOUR STRINGS was an official selection of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival and Napa Valley Film Festival.
A Q&A with Director Tadashi Nakamura will follow.
Co-presented by: The Seattle Ukulele Players Association (SUPA)
Sunday 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
MR. CAO GOES TO WASHINGTON
Director: S. Leo Chiang
71 minutes (2012)
MR. CAO GOES TO WASHINGTON follows the unexpected journey of Rep. Joseph Cao — the first Vietnamese American elected to U.S. Congress, the only non-white House Republican of the 111th Congress, and the only Republican to vote for President Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill. Will Cao keep his integrity and idealism intact?
MR. CAO GOES TO WASHINGTON was named a “must see” documentary by Indiewire and won Best Documentary at the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival and the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the New Orleans Film Festival.
Co-presented by: The Vietnamese Friendship Association (VFA) and Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment (APACE).
Sunday 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE
Director: Porter Erisman
75 minutes (2012)
An inspiring look at China’s first Internet entrepreneur as he grew his company, Alibaba Group, from a small apartment into a global company, challenging — and beating — eBay in China along the way. CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE explores the era when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West.
Called a “gripping … real-life version of ‘The Social Network’” by Inc. Magazine,
CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE was an official selection of the Vancouver International Film Festival and Sonoma International Film Festival.
Co-presented by: The Seattle Chapter of the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP).
Sunday 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
KEYE LUKE
Director: Timothy Tau
15 minutes (2012)
KEYE LUKE tells the story of the actor Keye Luke, who played 200+ roles over 50 years, including the original Kato of “The Green Hornet” and Charlie Chan’s son, Lee Chan. Luke was the first Asian-American actor to play secret agents, doctors and lawyers instead of villains or servants.
A discussion panel with KEYE LUKE director Timothy Tau, and Bettie Luke, relative of Keye Luke and sister of Wing Luke will follow. This is a free event.
Sunday 9:30 PM – 11:00 PM
Closing night party at Wing Luke reception room.
Food and beverages catered by Phnom Penh Noodle House and Georgetown Brewing Company.
FAQS & STEPS FOR SUCCESS
1. Pick a film you’d like to see.
2. Purchase tickets (see below for online and box office options).
3. Arrive at Wing Luke Museum 30 minutes prior to the screening to allow time for parking.
4. Sit back, relax and enjoy the movie.
FIRST THING’S FIRST
Q: Do I have to be a member to attend SAAFF?
A: Nope! Anyone can attend the festival
Q: What’s the easiest way to purchase tickets?
A1: Online at www.seattleaaff.org (recommended)
A2: At the door shortly before the start of the film. Note:
There will be no advance tickets at the box office.
Q: How much are tickets?
A: Tickets for most films are $10 for general admission,
$8 for seniors, students and kids. The opening night gala is $12 for general admission and $10 for seniors, students (with valid ID), and kids. We are also offering free admission for two films: “The Chinese Gardens” and “Keye Luke.”
DAY OF SHOW
Q: How early should I arrive at the theater?
A: Try to get in line 30 minutes before the show. If advance
tickets are no longer available, a limited number of standby tickets will be released ten minutes before show time in most instances. All screenings will take place at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle’s International District.
Q: Are all films in English?
A: Films will be presented in their original language. If
it’s a language other than English, there will be subtitles.
Q: The festival is about more than just watching mov
ies, right? How do I interact with SAAFF and filmmakers more?
A: Good question! We will have several panel discussions
and Q&A with filmmakers after most screenings. There will also be an opening night party ($12) and a closing night party (free) that will allow the audience to interact with the filmmakers and the SAAFF team. We also have lots of social media spaces for you to interact with us:
Facebook.com/seattleaaff
Twitter.com/seattleaaff
YouTube/seattleaaff
Q: I still have questions. How can I reach you?
A: You can email questions to [email protected],
message us on Facebook or @reply us on Twitter.
A thank you to sponsors & organizers!
Asian Adult Adoptees of Washington
Seattle Nisei Veterans Committee
International Examiner
University of Washington Department of Communication
Kona Kitchen
Thai Curry Simple
Phnom Penh
Georgetown Brewing Company
Shunpike
Partial Funding Provided By:
Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs
Humanities Washington
Pride Foundation
Organizing Members:
Vanessa Au
Kevin Bang
Victoria Ju
Wes Kim
Denzil Kriekenbeek
Peter Ong Lim
Gina McDonald
Marites Mendoza
LeiLani Nishime
Christopher Patterson
Martin Tran
Su-ching Wang
