Japan 2006 | 120 mins | Narrative | Japanese w/E.S Director: Kensaku Kakimoto Writers: Kensaku Kakimoto, Kenji Utsuki Cinematographer: Ryousuke Kariya Cast: Shoichi Honda, Sae Isshiki, Akiko Monou, Mame Yamada, Hiroshi Yamamoto
Kensaku Kakimoto's third feature is an ambitious and touching tale of alienation, missed connections, epiphany and love. With nods to major American films such as THE MATRIX, FORREST GUMP and GET SHORTY, Kakimoto's wild adventure—part black comedy, part love story, part camp—engages the heart, the mind and the senses.
Baumkuchen—literally, "tree cake"—is a German layer cake crafted meticulously by brushing each layer of batter, one at a time, onto a rotisserie over a spit fire and, as a result, creating the effect of tree rings. In the film, multiple narratives intertwine and spawn one another like Matryoshka dolls. While looking after his orphaned niece, the novelist Masatoshi spins the tale of Yumi, a shy and remote clothing-store clerk who buries herself in a book, Baumkuchen Love. The story spawns another story about two men and a reticent bartender, who wax philosophically about the power of baumkuchen seeds to sprout happiness.
The two men tell yet another story, of the Kawanobe brothers—Taro, Jiro, and Hiroto—who live together, eat baumkuchen daily and muddle through the ups and downs of romance and self-discovery. The youngest, Hiroto, lives reclusively, rejecting the world and himself until one day, with the help of Taro's lover Saki, he realizes: "Maybe we're just characters in an imaginary world... If this is fiction, then you've got nothing to fear. Do what you want."
Is happiness an illusion? A dessert? A game-show prize? Philosophy, love, humor and visual play—BAUMKUCHEN has it all.
Malaysia 2007 | 98 mins | Narrative | English, Malay, Mandarin, & Tamil w/E.S. Director/Editor: Deepak Kumaran Menon Producer: Vimala Perumal Writers: Deepak Kumaran Menon, Vimala Perumal Cinematographer: Albert Hue, Mohd Abdul Halim Cast: Ramesh Kumar, Dhaarshini Sankran, Kalpana Sundraju
Malaysia is home to one of the most exciting independent film scenes in the world today—especially in the digital form—as evidenced by the buzz and awards Malaysian films have been garnering from film festivals around the globe. DANCING BELLS is Deepak Kumaran Menon's follow-up to his impressive debut, THE GRAVEL ROAD. Menon's films concern the socio-economic and cultural challenges that minority Indian communities constantly face in Malaysia.
Uma lives with her single mother and elder teen brother in Brickfields, the derelict Indian district of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. The 11-year-old schoolgirl aspires to be a classical Indian dancer. But can her dreams prevail against the threat of the impending demolition of her neighborhood, as well as the heartbreak over her brother going astray, and an estranged father?
This beautifully realized film showcases authentic performances from a cast of mostly amateur actors. The pressures that bear down upon this marginalized community are daunting, but as this film shows, their resilience pulls them through the darkest moment. (Winner of NETPAC Special Mention, International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2007) www.chalanggai.com
USA 2007 | 87 mins | Narrative Director/Writer: Joy Dietrich Producers: Joy Dietrich, Thomas Yong Cinematographer: Lars Bonde Editor: Rasmus Høgdall Mølgaard, Stephen Maing Cast: Kim Jiang, Jane Kim, Patrick Heusinger, Ian Wen, Theresa Ngo and Gregory Waller
Jenny Mason says she was "born at the airport," adopted from Korea by a white, Midwestern family from Korea. Estranged from her adopted family, due to a forbidden attraction between her and her adopted brother Joe, Jenny lives an alienated, fragmented existence in New York City. She is emotionally remote, guarded, and haunted by an inner detachment from society. When her roommate asks her to move out, Jenny's seclusion grows even more acute.
Outlooks seem meek until Jenny finds a new roommate, Bea, who seems to have it all: loving parents and a dashing, gallerist/art dealer boyfriend Phillip. Through Bea, Jenny meets Sandy and Simon, Chinese American siblings who have the kind of natural family closeness Jenny longs for. While trying to help Sandy with her "Asian timidness," Jenny develops a budding connection with Simon. As Jenny and Bea grow closer, she sees that Bea is fragile, terrified of her parents, jealous and insecure with men and unable to speak up for her own desires and needs.
When Joe shows up on Jenny's doorstep, she has no choice but to confront the past. But her new life presses on her as well, as she begins to forge connections, which feel more real than anything she's known. A painful look at the emotional toll of cultural and familial displacement, TIE A YELLOW RIBBON challenges the one-dimensional exotic Asian female myths prevalent in the media today and explores the complex inner lives of Asian American women. (Special Jury Prize, Best Directing, CineVegas Film Festival, 2007/Best Narrative Feature, Urbanworld Vibe Film Festival, New York 2007 ) Official Website
USA 2006 | 82 mins | Narrative Director/Writer: Chris Chan Lee Producers: Karin Chien, George Huey, Sung Kang, Eric Yu-jin Kim, Catherine Park Cinematographer: John DeFazio Editors: Greg Louie, Howard Leder Cast: Kelly Hu, Sung Kang, Leonardo Nam, Russell Wong
After his friend Joon (Leonardo Nam, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT) is murdered during a botched drug deal, the small time 'hood Sam King (Sung Kang, FINISHING THE GAME) returns to Los Angeles' Koreatown to settle the score. A mere dabbler in the underworld, Sam seeks out advice from an older, reluctant mentor, Don, a chess-playing buddy who's been trying to get out of the life. However, too much time may have passed for Sam to clear his conscience and get back the life that he wants.
He tries to reconnect with his old girlfriend Vera (Kelly Hu, X2), but things are complicated since she owes a debt to her boss, Randall. Sam and Vera decide they might get another chance at happiness together by escaping LA for an idyllic life up north. But things on this other side of the law may have spun too far out of Sam's control for him and Vera to come away clean. Employing the visual language of film noir, dripping in shadows and moody hues, director Chris Chan Lee impresses with this stylish drama in his sophomore outing. Official Website
MADE IN KOREA: A ONE-WAY TICKET SEOUL-AMSTERDAM
73 mins/DVD/$250
The Netherlands 2006 | 73 mins | Documentary | English, Dutch, Korean w/E.S. Director/Writer: In-Soo Radstake Producer: San Fu Maltha Cinematographer: Martijn Van Broekhuizen Editors: Remi Van der Heiden, Johnny Zuidof
"The helmer's
wryly understated approach results in a disarming, eventually touching effort that stands out from the pack." -- Variety
On March 27, 1980, a passenger flight from Seoul, South Korea, touched down in Holland. In-Soo, three months old, along with other Korean infants and children, began their lives as adoptees and Dutch citizens.
Now 26 years old, In-Soo Radstake feels completely (and happily) Dutch—by parentage, language, mind, and soul. But a small part of him, a seed of curiosity about his birth family and culture, begins to germinate. As In-Soo contacts and interviews others who were on that flight in 1980, what started off as a casual interest grows into a full-blown emotional journey.
Accompanied by his girlfriend Ungila, also a Korean adoptee, In-Soo visits Korea in search of his own birth mother. Revealed to us in suspenseful real-time, the difficulty of tracing his mother, due to the shame attached to pregnancy out-of- wedlock and adoption in Korean culture, incites in In-Soo an anger and deep ambivalence about his origins.
In this intimate self-portrait about finding meaning in our identities, In-Soo skillfully traces each step of this unexpected inner and outer journey with his own thoughts, raw moments, conversations with friends and adversaries, and the disorienting visual and emotional perspective of a talented young man uncertain of his identity. MADE IN KOREA is unsentimental in its portrayal of personal discovery and reconciliation, and understanding of the particularities of love.
MOTHERLAND CUBA KOREA USA
41 mins/DVD, Beta SP/$200
USA 2006 | 41 mins | Documentary | English, Korean, Spanish w/E.S. Director/Producer/Writer: Dai Sil Kim-Gibson Editor: Andrea Chignoli
How do we decide where is home? For millions of immigrants, loyalties are divided between the land of their birth and the country in which in they choose to live. Feeling increasingly isolated in her adopted homeland of the United States, pioneering documentarian Dai Sil Kim-Gibson (SA-I-GU) travels to Cuba to discover stories from a relatively unknown group in the Asian diaspora. There, she meets Martha, a woman of Korean descent, who after the Revolution began identifying herself as Cuban, not Korean. Are we the product of our environment or do we heed our ancestors—call in our cultural memory?
Told through close interviews and photographs from the personal archives of her subjects, Kim-Gibson explores the complex ways in which we determine our ethnic, national, and cultural loyalties. The stories of both women and their families weave a complex web that searches an understanding of "motherland" in a globalized society.
Winner of 2007 AAIFF Emerging Director, Documentary Feature Award! USA 2006 | 57 mins | Documentary Director: Lisette Marie Flanary Producers: Lisette Marie Flanary, Keo Woolford Cinematographer: Vincent Keala Lucero Editor: Tali Weissman
Due to the ban on men dancing during colonial rule in Hawaii, female dancers have long dominated hula. This engrossing and lively documentary explores how Hawaii's colonial and imperialist history gendered hula as a solely female performance, and how renegade Robert Cazimero's mission of reclaiming the lost masculinity in hula led him to Halau Na Kamalei, one of Hawaii's oldest and most prestigious male hula groups, since its inception.
Experience the camaraderie among the members of Halau as they prepare for the world-renown hula competition, the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival—the Superbowl of Hula. With all the fun of a sports underdog movie and the insight of a thoughtful documentary, NA KAMALEI: THE MEN OF HULA offers a compelling view into historical pushes and pulls that manifest themselves in how we view ourselves in relation to our respective cultures and the places that open to us. However, despite where we find ourselves placed, there are opportunities to create our own waves and (re)invent spaces for ourselves. (Audience Award - Best Documentary/Hawaii Film and Videomakers Award, Hawaii International Film Festival, 2006/Comcast Audience Award (Documentary), San Francisco International Film Festival, 2007/Special Jury Prize, VC FilmFest - Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, 2007) Read interview with director Lisette Marie Flanary in CineVue
Official website NA KAMALEI: THE MEN OF HULA trailer
