Two Film Festivals: Interviews

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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.