Asian Pacific Film Fest Expands to OC

Buena Park -  The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival tonight expands to Orange County, with a lineup of winning films as well as a special series on films from Vietnam, in association with the Viet Film Festival.

Opening the OC portion of the Asian Pacific Film Festival is OC-raised Ham Tran, who directs a comedic look at a workplace affair.  "She's the Boss" (2017) features two co-workers (Miu Le and Anh Do) whose secret relationship risks compromising their jobs.  The film screens tonight at the new Buena Park CGV, at 8 pm.

Other Vietnam films are on Saturday, May 6, 2017: "Father and Son" (Luong Dinh Hung, Dir., 2016) about a young boy and his father living in a mountainous area (4:30 pm); and "Jackpot" (Dustin Nguyen, Dir., 2015), about a middle-age con artist who meets a lottery-ticket hawker (7 p.m.).

On May 11, at 7 pm is "Fantatic" (Charlie Nguyen, Dir., 2016), about at rocker who sells records in Saigon and goes back to the golden age of rock music via time machine.

Other International Films 

On Sunday at 5:30 pm is "Lipstick Under My Burkha (Alankrita Shrivastava, Dir. 2016) a film from India that has faced censorship problems in its native India.

On is a film that has been apparently banned in China: "Plastic China, Jiuliang Wang, Dir., 2016). This festival winning Asian international feature shows a destitute family eking out a living processing plastic that comes from your recycling in western countries like the U.S.

For details on these and other films and on ticketing, see: OC Festival.

-- Daniel C. Tsang

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Award Winners Announced

Shooting scene from Bang Bang

First-time Director Byron Q has won the Best First Feature award for Bang Bang among the other juried awards announced by the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Byron Q was interviewed last Monday on KUCI's Subversity program.

Another Subversity guest, Mun Chee Yong (interviewed recently for an online edition of Subversity) directed another film, Where the Road Meets the Sun, which won two festival awards: Special Jury Award for Narrative: Best Ensemble Acting by actors Eric Mabius, Fernando Noriega, Will Yun Lee and Luke Brandon Field. The film also garnered for cinematographer Gavin Wills the Special Jury Award for Narrative: Outstanding Cinematography.

Actor Will Yun Lee as Takashi in Where the Road Meets the Sun.

COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS:

2011 LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL AWARD WINNERS

Documentary Feature:

Grand Jury Award, Documentary

THE HOUSE OF SUH

Directed by IRIS K. SHIM and Produced by GERRY KIM

Special Jury Award, Documentary: Outstanding Director

IRIS K. SHIM

THE HOUSE OF SUH

Special Jury Award, Documentary: Outstanding Cinematography

JASON WOODFORD

ONE BIG HAPA FAMILY

Special Jury Award, Documentary: Outstanding Editing

JEFF CHIBA STEARNS

ONE BIG HAPA FAMILY

Special Jury Prize for Human Rights

FINDING FACE

Directed by Skye Fitzgerald and Patti Duncan

Narrative Feature:

Grand Jury Award, Narrative Feature

LIVING IN SEDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES

Directed by Ian Gamazon and Produced by Quynn Ton

Special Jury Award, Narrative: Outstanding Director

IAN GAMAZON

LIVING IN SEDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES

Special Jury Award, Narrative: Outstanding Screenplay

STEPHANE GAUGER

SAIGON ELECTRIC

Special Jury Award, Narrative: Outstanding Cinematography

GAVIN KELLY

WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN

Special Jury Award, Narrative: Best Ensemble Acting

ERIC MABIUS, FERNANDO NORIEGA, WILL YUN LEE and LUKE BRANDON FIELD

WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN

Special Jury Award, Narrative: Best First Feature

BANG BANG

Directed by BYRON Q

Special Jury Award – Breakout Performance for New Actor

RYAN GREENE

ONE KINE DAY – Directed by Chuck Mitsui

Short Film:

Festival Golden Reel Award

TEAMWORK

Directed by HONG SEO YUN

Linda Mabalot New Directors/New Visions Award

FIRECRACKER

Directed by SOHAM MEHTA

AUDIENCE AWARDS:

NARRATIVE FILM

RAKENROL

Directed by QUARK HENARES

DOCUMENTARY FILM

AMONG B-BOYS

Directed by Christopher Woon

Byron Q's Bang Bang; Billie Rain's Heart Breaks Open

To listen to the show, click on: .

UPDATE 6 May 2011: Bang Bang has won the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Festival's Special Jury Award for Narrative: Best First Feature!

Visual Communications' Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival continues this week with a path-breaking lineup of independent films. On KUCI's Subversity program, we talk with two indie directors.



First we talk with Byron Q, the director of Bang Bang, a film about gang life. Bryon Q studied under renowned French New Wave director Jean-Pierre Gorin at UCSD and this is his debut film. It features Justin (Thai Ngo), trapped in the gang lifestyle, and his rich Taiwanese best friend Charlie (David Huynh), in the film's strongest role. The multi-ethnic cast brings additional realism to the film. The ever youthful looking Huynh (actually a Vietnamese from Canada) was the focus of a Subversity interview back in 2007.

Bang Bang screens tomorrow at 9 p.m. at CGV Cinemas 3 in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Ticket information



We also talk with Act Up and Riot Grrl activist turned director Billie Rain about his new film, Heart Breaks Open, featuring queer activist and poet Jesus (Maximillan Davis) whose life implodes when he finds out he is HIV-positive. Set in Seattle, the film shows how Jesus comes to rely on his friends as he struggles to make sense of his predicament.

Hear Breaks Open screens tonight at 9:15 p.m. in CGV Cinemas 3 in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Ticket information.

Subversity airs this evening from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. A podcast will be posted later.

Singapore Woman Director Mun Chee Yong's Take on Surviving in Los Angeles

To listen to the podcast of this program, which is an Internet-only edition for the first part of the April 25, 2011 show because of a jazz program pre-empting the live show -- click
on: .

UPDATED 6 May 2011: Where the Road Meets the Sun has won two festival special jury awards: Gavin Kelly has won the festival's Special Jury Award, Narrative: Outstanding Cinematography. And the actors Eric Mabius, Fernando Noriega, Will Yun Lee and Luke Brandon Field have won the festival's Special Jury Award, Narrative: Best Ensemble Acting.

Takashi (Will Yun Lee) reflects on his memory loss in Where the Road Meets the Sun.

If ever there is a list of the top films that address the underside of Los Angeles, Mun Chee Yong's Where the Road Meets the Sun will surely be on that chart. A multicultural cast interact in various languages (mainly English) as they seek to survive on the rough streets of urbanized Los Angeles.

Not a documentary by any means, Mun Chee Yong's script casts four men whose lives intersect at a decrepit hotel as they live from day to day, job to job, interspersed with Guy's hetero liaisons mostly with sex workers.

Takashi, whose memory loss from a car accident enables him to experience a rebirth away from his gangster life back in Japan, is played by the dashingly convincing, Korean American actor Will Yun Lee who sometimes lapses into Japanese. He develops a friendship with Blake (Eric Mabius) the hotel manager. At the same hotel, Julio (Fernando Noriega), a Spanish-speaking undocumented worker from Mexico who works at an Indian restaurant, befriends fellow kitchen Brit packpacker/fellow worker Guy (Luke Brandon Field), who sports an authentic British accent. Blake struggles to make ends meet when both are unceremoniously fired from the restaurant (without collecting their pay)while Blake manages to hit his dad in England up for more dough.

It's a (male) buddy film with some of the hetero and tough guy jinks -- and one gets to see scenes of Silver Lake and other Los Angeles locales.

A Singapore/Indonesia/US co-production, the 93-minute film has just been released this year. The director is a LSE (London School of Economics) graduate in monetary economics, with an MFA degree in Film Production from USC.

UNFORTUNATELY THE SHOW IS PRE-EMPTED BY JAZZ so I'll post the interview online asap.
On KUCI Subversity program this evening, we talk in the first half-hour withdirector Mun Chee Yong about his latest film. A podcast will be posted later.

The film screens at Saturday night (10 p.m.) at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival at Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd (at Crescent Heights) West Hollywood, CA 90046. PARKING: Free for 3 hours with validation. See film schedule for more information: http://laapff.festpro.com/schedule/