Reel Voices 2011 - A Blog by Marissa

Hi, this is Marissa.

Summer came and went so quickly!

Reel Voices 2011 - A Video Blog by Tony

Here's Tony- one of the Reel Voices students for this summer. (By the way, today is his birthday; Happy Birthday!)

Tony came across a bit of troublesome situation last week during his shoot for his documentary film. He confesses that it has been stressful, but he acknowledges it as a learning opportunity for himself, and now has advice to share with others. Listen to his tip on what to do and what NOT to do when preparing for a shoot.

Reel Voices 2011 - A Video Blog by Kaylor

Meet Kaylor! She is one of our ten Reel Voices students this summer. Reel Voices has wrapped up its 8 weeks of classes, and now students are busy either finishing up with filming or editing their footages at SDAFF's Final Cut Pro edit room (small, but fully equipped with the proper technology and creative energy!).

In this video, Kaylor shares with us how her documentary filmmaking journey has been so far, and even gives an insight on what to do when you feel your creatives juices suddenly not flowing all too well... I'm sure we have experienced those moments...

For Asian American Stars, Many Web Fans

Yesterday's New York Times includes an article about Asian American entertainers bypassing traditional paths to fame and achieving popularity through YouTube. The article mentions Uploaded: The Asian American Movement, an upcoming documentary from current and former SDAFF staff. Learn more about Uploaded and help fund the production of this documentary exploring the rising visibility of Asian Americans in pop culture.

Vincent Chin's Death - 29 Years and Counting

On June 23, 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin died from injuries he suffered from a beating just outside a Detroit strip club four days before. The atmosphere of anger stemmed in part by the rising success of the Japanese auto industry in symphony with the decline of U.S. fortunes many believe contributed to the motive behind the beating by laid off White auto workers. I can never ever imagine Vincent's thoughts to see the angry mob approaching ready to commit a heinous assault just because of his race. Unfortunately, the scales of justice did not work for various reasons especially with nobody serving a significant amount of time in jail. On the positive end, Chin's death opened the floodgates to a social movement that will last for generations to come .

APAHM Filmmaker Spotlight: Rea Tajiri

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! To celebrate, members of our staff are going to spotlight one of their favorite directors throughout the month. This week's spotlight comes courtesy of associate artistic director, Brian Hu about filmmaker Rea Tajiri.

How do you remember a memory that you never experienced? A memory of your mother, which your mother herself does not remember? And yet you’re haunted by its spectral presence anyway, a haunting not simply by ghostly figures but by the entire weight of an oppressive period of history?

Rea Tajiri had such a memory. It was of her mother by a faucet, filling up a canteen in the Poston Japanese incarceration camp. Her mother never told her that memory, and yet she knew it anyway, just like she could look at a map of the camp and point exactly to the location of her mother’s barrack, even though she was never told which number it was. The ghosts of incarceration and the pain in a family’s bloodline are inherited in the most unusual ways.

SDAFF 2010: Award Winning Movies On The Way...

Hello 2010 SDAFF Fans, my name is Eric Lallana and I am one of the festival programmers this year. What a great opening four days to open up the festival. Some of you may think the festival slows down and goes into cruise mode. Actually, that's not the case at all because we still have some "Award Winning" films that have yet to be shown at this year's festival. Here are three films I recommend that are showing this week.

The first is a personal favorite of mine titled The Red Chapel. A documentary by filmmaker Mads Brugger. He embarks on an experiment by enlisting the help of two Korean born Danish comedians for a cultural exchange with North Korea under the pretext as a performing comedy troupe. As the camera chronicles Mads experiment results in a wide range of emotions that even for me are sometimes hard to explain to fellow moviegoers. My best advice is to just see it. The Red Chapel was awarded the prize for "Best Documetary" in the World Cinema category at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. A movie experience you will never forget.

The Red Chapel plays on Monday (10/25) at 8:00pm and again on Thursday (10/28) at 7:45pm.

Next up is Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the winnner of the Palm d'Or, the top prize at this year's Cannes Festival. This great cinematic accomplishment from Thailand is by the country's best known filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The central story centers around Boonmee's last days spent at his sister's remote country home. Thanks to Apichatpong's deliberate pacing and attention to detail, we experience the cultural beliefs from the Thai perspective surrounding death.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives plays once on Tuesday (10/26) at 9:20pm.

Finally, also arriving from the Sundance Film Festival is The Taqwacores. The first feature length film by Eyad Zahra inspired by Michael Muhammad Knight's book of the same name. Taqwacores refers to the Islamic concept to love and fear for Allah and Hardcore, the punk rock subgenre. Eyad's movie centers around Yusef, a Pakistani-American engineering student who lives off campus with a diverse group of Muslims in their house in Buffalo all the while experiencing their world of the punk rock scene and comfort level on performing Friday prayer.

The Taqwacores plays once on Tuesday (10/26) at 7:40pm.