Hey this is Brandon, Programming Intern for SDAFF and I’m here to tell about my first ever film festival experience, and it was this weekend at the LA Festival. I only went to the screenings at the Director’s Guild of America theatre, so I can’t really speak for the other venues, but everything about the DGA is really nice. I saw Sung Kang (of Better Luck Tomorrow and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift fame) in the lobby and I saw one of the ‘Ajummas’ from Ajumma! Are You Crazy? I immediately recognized her but I didn’t remember so I wasn’t going to yell out “Hey Ajumma!” because I didn’t think that would go over very well. Especially from a skinny white boy. Anyways, the main theatre is way bigger than I expected and it’s a really cool layout.
I saw some of the shorts programming and then stuck around for the big Sunday night event, Clash. The shorts I saw were under the title “Of Flesh and Spirit,” and they were all centered around human interest-type stories. The two that really stood out were Borgy Torre’s Bonsai and Actually, I Am a Superman from Song Kwong-ho. Bonsai was probably my favorite because it has a really compassionate portrayal for a very lovable main character whose trying to get his neighbor to fall in love with him. Actually, I Am a Superman also had a really compassionate and human streak in it about a teenager who befriends a girl who gets bullied, and it also has (slight spoiler alert) totally unexpected ending.
Later that night I saw Clash, a Vietnamese action film about a group of strangers attempting to steal a laptop with government information on it. It had this real edgy vibe to it and a couple of genuinely funny moments. There is a character named “Ox” in it that definitely became a crowd favorite as the goofy oaf who is the oddball in a group of professional criminals.
Anyways, all this happened in one day, and I can only imagine how much better/crazier/more exciting it’s going to be when we put on SDAFF.
(And I know it says that Phil posted this, but that's a lie. It was all Brandon)
No comments:
Post a Comment