“Before the Asian American International Film Festival screened its first feature in 1978 in what is now New York’s Chinatown, US audiences had no dedicated showcase for independent Asian or Asian-American cinema. The closest one could get was the occasional martial-arts film at the local movie house.
The 35th edition of the annual festival is a 12-day affair that opened Wednesday and runs through August 5. The US-Chinese production Shanghai Calling, set for release in China later this summer, was the first film screened at this year’s festival, which offers 50 narrative and documentary films, including a series of shorts, with writers and directors from ….” Continue the article here.