April 27, Saturday, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
NYU’s Department of Cinema Studies
Tisch School of the Arts
721 Broadway, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10003
FREE Event open to public, followed by discussion and reception
Asian CineVision is a nonprofit media arts organization devoted to the development, exhibition, promotion, and preservation of Asian and Asian American film and video. Since 1978, ACV has presented the Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF), the first and longest running festival in the U.S. to showcase for the best in independent Asian and Asian American cinema. AAIFF has been the first to provide the U.S. premieres of acclaimed film directors including Wayne Wang, Mira Nair, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, and Ang Lee. After the Festival each year, select feature and short films go on with the National Festival Tour available for rent by institutions and organizations around the nation.
Learn more about the National Festival Tour at the Asian CineVision website: www.asiancinevision.org
This special program consists of five narrative, documentary and experimental short films from AAIFF’12, made by or about Asians or Asian Americans. It takes the viewer from rural Vietnam to cosmopolitan Shanghai, to Southern India mountains, and back to the land of the U.S., with stories of coming of age, urban bromance, fight for educational rights and immigrant experiences.
Introduction by John C. Woo, Executive Director of Asian CineVision and the Asian American International Film Festival.
Screenings followed by a Q&A with Andy DeJohn (director, MOTHER’S MILK), Holly Carter (founder and Executive Director of BYkids, which produced FIRE IN OUR HEARTS), and Takahiro Morooka (actor, MY SPIRITUAL MEDICINE).
Moderated by Zhen Zhang (NYU Cinema Studies), and Yiping Qin (Program Associate at Asian CineVision).
ABOUT THE FILMS
Mother’s Milk (Sua Me)
2011 | USA | 18 min | Vietnamese w/ES
Dir. by Andy DeJohn
Anh is a young girl living in the Vietnamese countryside with her mother and little sister. When Anh’s mother falls ill, she must learn to cope with her new found duties and take care of her ailing family. Andy DeJohn is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. MOTHER’S MILK (Sua Me) was his thesis film.
My Spiritual Medicine
2011｜China | 35 min | English, Mandarin, Japanese w/ES
Dir. by Liang Cheng
Two white-collar clerks set up a private radio program in the buzzing Shanghai. An Otaku lady lives in isolation. As the random fates of individuals are linked and changed by the radiowave, love, in all possible forms, burgeons. The film was a hit on the Chinese streaming websites in 2011, a landmark of the thriving trend of the internet-based “micro-films” in China. Critic Eric Nakamura remarks that it is a “joy of seeing something that can be compared to the mystery of a Wong Kar Wei film”.
Two Seconds After Laughter
2011 | Indonesia/USA | 16 min | English, Indonesian w/ES
Dir. by David Rousseve
Weaving stunning cinematography, traditional Indonesian dance, Sundanese music, and an emotionally potent narrative, TWO SECONDS AFTER LAUGHTER is a conversation on the nature of memory, and the joys and emotional dislocation experienced by immigrants. David Roussève is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University (Politics, Theater and Dance, and Africa Studies) and a 2004 Guggenheim Fellow. He is currently Professor of Choreography at UCLA.
Bleached
2011 | USA | 14 min | English, Tagalog w/ES
Dir. by Jessica dela Merced
Swayed by the prospect of attention from both her image-obsessed mother and a cute boy, Lenny, a Filipino-American girl, concedes to using a skin lightening cream at the price of her identity. Writer/director/actor Jessica dela Merced is a Filipino filmmaker born and raised in San Francisco. She is completing an MFA from the New York University Film Program.
Fire in Our Hearts
2011 | India | 27 min | English, Marathi w/ES
Dir. by Jayshree Janu Kharpade
Jayshree was born to an indigenous family who have been disenfranchised at the very bottom of India’s social and economic ladder. With courage and conviction, Jayshree illuminates the tenacious efforts of the tribal union for equal rights to education and dignity. FIRE IN OUR HEARTS is produced by BYkids, a non-profit organization that gives kids from diverse cultures the tools and mentoring to make documentary films on globally relevant issues.