Two Film Festivals: Interviews

Updated: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

We're covering two film festivals this week -- the Newport Beach Film Festival, which began last Thursday highlighted by an after screening bash with Cirque du Soleil plus a Fashion Island fashion show -- and this Thursday's opening of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

On KUCI's Subversity radio program, we talk with two film directors 26 April 2010 (today): Miao Wang of Beijing Taxi, Quentin Lee of The People I've Slept With and with UCI graduate Ben Jarvis, active in Affirmation, which is profiled in 8: The Mormon Proposition.

Miao Wang directs Beijing Taxi, which profiles several cab drivers in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. She brings you the realities behind the glitz, glamor and hype for the Olympics as we visit with her cab drivers in their daily lives, on and off their jobs. Her film screens at the Asian Pacific Film Festival at the Directors Guild of America (DGA), 7920 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood this Sunday May 2 at 6:30 p.m.

Quentin Lee, a regular guest on this show, is a quirky and subversive independent filmmaker (such as his 0506HK, Ethan Mao, Drift, Shopping for Fangs [co-director]). In The People I've Slept With, Quentin Lee manages to poke fun at hetero and homosexual ONS (one night stands) while exploring the quest for LTR (long-term relationships), as well as marriage (gay and str8). The film features Karin Anna Cheung (Better Luck Tomorrow) as the polyamorous Angela (who wonders who is the father after she becomes pregnant) as well as Gabriel (the talented Wilson Cruz) as her gay best friend who is also sexually active. Screen legend James Shigeta (Flower Drum Song) also plays a role, as does model, director and actor Edward Gunawan, as Cruz's onscreen lover. Gunawan was interviewed on Subversity back on 31 March 2008. The film screens at the Asian Pacific Film Festival at DGA, 7920 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood this Saturday May 1 at 7 p.m.

Ben Jarvis, a 1994 graduate of UCI, has left the Latter Day Saints Church, and unlike those portrayed in the documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition, has had wonderful, supportive parents who welcomed him as their gay son and his partner as their son in law. His parents were NOT [corrected] among those Mormon families who contributed to California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages. 8: The Mormon Proposition screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Wednesday April 28, at 8:30 p.m. at Edwards Islands 3, Fashion Island.

Subversity airs 26 April 2010 at 5-6 p.m.on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is webcast simultaneously via kuci.org.

Among other upcoming films at the Newport Beach Film Festival is Woman Rebel, about a Maoist rebel's journey from revolution to the halls of Parliament in Nepal. That film screens at Edwards Island 2 in Fashion Island this Wednesday, April 28 at 3:30 p.m.

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival opens Thursday April 29 at the DGA in West Hollywood, screening Au Revoir Taipei. There are two screenings: Opening night April 29 at 7 p.m. at the DGA; and Sunday May 2 at 10 a.m. at DGA.

Other films screening at Asian Pacific Film Festival this week include Lt. Watada by Freida Lee Mock, covering Lt. Ehren Watada's principled refusal to be sent to Iraq. That film screens with another Freida Lee Mock film at DGA on Saturday May 1 at 2 p.m.

My Lai: The Tragedy, The Coverup, The Aftermath

Updated: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .


The My Lai massacre was the iconic event that brought world attention to the moral failure of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. PBS's American Experience will air Monday, April 26, 2010 a new documentary, "My Lai" that documents the horrific reality of the U.S. military massacre of 507 unarmed Vietnamese women, men and children in the village located in Quang Ngai Province in central Vietnam in 1968. The documentary features the first in-depth interview with Aubrey Daniel, the prosecutor in the case against the convicted perpetrator, Lt. William Calley, as well as searing recollections by Vietnamese survivors of the massacre.

On its edition airing today (19 April 2010), Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, show host Daniel C. Tsang interviews Barak Goodman, a seasoned director (The Boy in the Bubble, The Lobotomist, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, etc) who wrote, produced and directed "My Lai".

Subversity airs 19 April 2010 from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

To see a trailer clip of My Lai, click here: http://video.pbs.org/video/1451980822/.

Today's broadcast kicks off two weeks of on-air KUCI fund drive for garner support for the UCI independent public radio station. For online donations, please click on the Fund Drive banner on the top of the kuci.org web site. We urge your support for shows like Subversity that for decades have brought you interviews and talks not likely to air on commercial radio.

Remembering People's Historian Him Mark Lai

To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Fresh from the Association for Asian American Studies conference in Austin, Texas that ended Saturday 10 April, 2010, we bring Subversity listeners portions of the tribute to Him Mark Lai, the "Dean" of Chinese American History, who died in May 2009. Bilingual in English and Chinese, Him Mark Lai forged a pathway to today's Chinese American -- and Asian American -- studies by researching and documenting life in Chinese America over the decades. The panel discussion at AAAS included colleagues and friends of Him Mark Lai as well as those mentored by him. Chairing the April 8, 2010 session was Prof. Madeline Hsu (University of Texas, Austin), who has edited a collection of Him Mark Lai's publications, many never widely distributed before. The new work, out later this month, is Chinese American Transnational Politics from University of Illinois Press.

Speakers at the session whom we aired included Emeritus Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang (UC Berkeley), Poet and Amerasia Journal editor Prof. Russell Leong (UCLA) and Prof. Jack Tchen (New York University).

The show airs from 5-6 p.m. 12 April 2010 on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcast will be posted later on.

We dedicate this show to radical actor Corin Redgrave, who died a week ago, and whom we interviewed back in 1999 at the Toronto Film Festival, where he was appearing in a movie that screened there. Redgrave played a white gay communist who helped smuggle Nelson Mandela back into South Africa at the start of the underground struggle against the then-Apartheid regime, in "The Man Who Drove with Mandala." In our 1 June 1999 interview then, he discussed his father's bisexuality, the ruling class, socialism, and his own (and sister Vanessa's) involvement in the Marxist Party in Britain. The segment introducing his interview begins at 10:10 minutes of the audio: .

Police Misconduct and Community Strategies for Justice

UCI law students Denisha McKensie, David Rodwin and Vivian Lee interviewed on KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Why is it that police misconduct cases keep showing up in the news? And what can we do about it? On the edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airing 5 April 2010 at 5 p.m., we talk with several UCI law students as well as a community activist about this important issue.

Joining us in the discussion are three UCI first-year law students, Vivian Lee, Denisha McKensie, and David Rodwin. Denisha and David cofounded the Orange County Human Rights Association, and Vivian is a member of its Advisory Board. Community activist Keith Muhammad from the Bay Area also joins the discussion.

The UCI students are part of Orange County Human Rights Association, which is presenting a forum on the same topic this Thursday at UC Irvine. The Association "strives to engage with the community – Orange County and beyond – to learn about and take action on local human rights issues, focusing on the interaction between people and institutions and the interaction between different institutions and between institutions themselves."

Subversity airs today from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcasts available after the broadcast and will be posted here.

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“Police Misconduct and Community Strategies for Justice”
Panel Discussion and Q & A

Thursday, April 8, 2010
5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
UC Irvine Cross-Cultural Center
Dr. Joseph L. White Conference Room

Panelists will address the issue of police misconduct and community response, highlighting the case of Oscar Grant III, the young black man who was shot and killed, while handcuffed, by a Bay Area Rapid Transit Officer on January 1, 2009. Video footage of the shooting was captured by onlookers and posted on YouTube, drawing international attention to an issue that impacts the lives of families and communities across the United States.

Representatives of the Grant Family will speak about the grassroots movement for justice that is growing in the Bay Area and gaining momentum in Los Angeles. Joining us will be Oscar Grant's uncle Cephus Johnson, Bay Area activist Keith Muhammad, and police misconduct attorney Jamon Hicks.

Informal reception with light refreshments to follow.

For more information: ochra.uci@gmail.com.


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This April 8 event is co-sponsored by: UCI Black Law Society, Black Student Union, Flying Sams, Public Health Law Brigades, Radical Student Union, and SAGE Scholars for Scholars.