Location | San Diego, California, United States |
---|---|
Founded | 2000 |
Language | International |
Website | pacarts |
The San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) is an annual event organized by Pacific Arts Movement (formerly the San Diego Asian Film Foundation) that takes place every November in San Diego, California.
SDAFF is the flagship event for the non-profit organization Pacific Arts Movement (Pac-Arts, formerly the San Diego Asian Film Foundation [1] ), which also puts on several other arts and culture events throughout the year. The mission of Pacific Arts Movement is to present Pan Asian media arts to San Diego residents and visitors in order to inspire, entertain and support a more compassionate society. [2] Throughout the year, Pacific Arts Movement offers student internships, cultural literacy programs with local high schools and colleges, and a high school filmmaker project entitled “Reel Voices.” Pacific Arts Movement also teams up with several movie production and marketing companies to promote both independent and mainstream films that are inline with the mission of the organization.
SDAFF found its inception in August 2000 when it was first organized as a fundraiser by the Asian American Journalists Association. After receiving numerous film entries, both domestically and internationally, and seeing sold out crowds at its inaugural festival, Lee Ann Kim, the founding director, saw the potential of making SDAFF an organizational entity of its own. Kim teamed up with several journalists, writers, filmmakers, and community leaders to turn the film festival into the larger non-profit organization that Pacific Arts Movement is today. Since then, the org and SDAFF have consistently grown in size and recognition with each passing year.
This high honor has been given to Joan Chen, Kieu Chin, George Takei, Soon-Tek Oh, Nancy Kwan, Chung Chang-wha, Tyrus Wong and Wayne Wang.
Named for a founding member of the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival who became Program Director of SDAFF in 2003 until his untimely death after a long battle with cancer in 2008. The award is given to first time, new or otherwise emerging directors. [3]
Past recipients of the award have included Andrew Ahn, Takeshi Fukunaga, Patrick Wang and Nadine Truong among others. [4]
Recipients have included Phil Yu, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures and Anna Akana.
Recipients have included Island Soldier, Tyrus, Limited Partnership, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and White on Rice , among others.
The Annual Spring Showcase, introduced in 2011 is a smaller festival than SDAFF, featuring around a dozen films each year. Notable films [5]
Each year since 2005, Pacific Arts Movement offers students from local San Diego schools the chance to join this 12-week film internship program. The program accepts around 10 students per year. Students are paired with a mentor and helped to compose a nonfiction documentary film by the Reel Voices staff and volunteers. The final product is screened at SDAFF where the students participate in a Q&A session after the showing. [6]
In 2014, Reel Voices expanded programs to launch a media arts elective class at the Monarch School in San Diego's Barrio Logan for high school students interested in film production and digital storytelling. [7]
Most of SDAFF's film screenings occur at the Hazard Center UltraStar Cinemas in Mission Valley, but some events have taken place at other locations such as UC San Diego, the Digital Gym Cinema and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. [8]
Wayne Wang is a Hong Kong-American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Considered a pioneer of Asian-American cinema, he was one of the first Chinese-American filmmakers to gain a major foothold in Hollywood. His films, often independently produced, deal with issues of contemporary Asian-American culture and domestic life.
The Hawai'i International Film Festival (HIFF) is an annual film festival held in the United States state of Hawaii.
Lee Ann Kim is a first-generation Korean American who was an anchor and general assignment reporter for KGTV Channel 10, the San Diego, California ABC television affiliate. She worked at KGTV from 1996 to 2008. She was also the executive director of Pacific Arts Movement until 2016. Pac-Arts presents the annual San Diego Asian Film Festival, an event she founded in 2000 with the Asian American Journalists Association of San Diego. She has been married to Louis Song since 1997, with whom she has two sons.
The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) – formerly known as VC FilmFest – is an annual film festival presented by Visual Communications (VC). It was established in 1983 by Linda Mabalot as a vehicle to promote Asian Pacific American and Asian international cinema. The festival fulfills a unique mission in illuminating the visions and voices of Asian Pacific peoples and heritage. The festival is held in Los Angeles in May, which is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Owl and the Sparrow is a 2007 film by Stephane Gauger that follows the fictional story of three Vietnamese individuals over a period of five days as they meet in Saigon.
The GI Film Group was founded in 2007 by Army veteran Laura Law-Millett and Brandon Millett and established the GI Film Festival (GIFF) with the goal of preserving the stories of American veterans past and present through film, television and live special events. GIFF's flagship festival is held each May during Armed Forces Month in Washington, D.C. from 2007 to 2018.
The DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival is an annual film festival that screens feature films and short films. It is produced by Asian Pacific American Film, Inc., a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code in the capital of the United States, Washington, DC. It takes place during the beginning of October each year and includes venues in the downtown Washington, DC area that includes: Landmark's E Street Cinema, Goethe-Institut, and the Meyer Auditorium at the Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
Littlerock is a 2010 film directed by Mike Ott. It debuted at the 2010 San Francisco International Film Festival, and played at over 40 film festivals including AFI Fest, Viennale, Cairo International Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Reykjavik International Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and Hong Kong International Film Festival before its U.S. theatrical release on August 12, 2011.
The World Before Her is a 2012 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Nisha Pahuja and produced by Toronto's Emmy Award winning Storyline Entertainment. The film explores the complex and conflicting environment for young girls in India by profiling two young women participating in two very different types of training camp — Ruhi Singh, who aspires to become Miss India, and Prachi Trivedi, a Hindu nationalist with the Durga Vahini.
Takeshi Fukunaga is a Japanese filmmaker based in New York.
To Be Takei is a 2014 American documentary film produced and directed by Jennifer M. Kroot. The film had its world premiere at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014.
"Barrier Device" is a 2002 short film written and directed by Grace Lee. It stars Sandra Oh as a sex researcher and Suzy Nakamura as a subject. It won four awards, including the silver medal at the 29th Student Academy Awards.
Sake-Bomb is a 2013 film directed by Junya Sakino, written by Jeff Mizushima, and starring Gaku Hamada and Eugene Kim as cousins who embark on a road trip in California. It is a shared Japanese and American production. It premiered at the 2013 SXSW film festival.
When I Walk is a 2013 autobiographical documentary film directed by Jason DaSilva. The film follows DaSilva during the seven years following his diagnosis of primary progressive multiple sclerosis. When I Walk premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, won Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the 2013 HotDocs Film Festival, and won an Emmy for the News & Documentary Emmy Award.
Bad Rap is a 2016 documentary directed by Salima Koroma, and produced by Jaeki Cho. The documentary follows the lives of Korean-American hip-hop artists Dumbfounddead, Awkwafina, Rekstizzy, and Lyricks, and their struggle to garner credibility in the American hip-hop industry. Bad Rap premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 13, 2016, and has since been screened at twelve other film festivals around the world. As of September 7, 2017, the film has been made available on the iTunes Store, Amazon, VUDU, Google Play, and Netflix.
Tyrus is a 2015 feature-length documentary directed by Pamela Tom about the renowned Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong, whose paintings became the inspiration for the classic animated feature Bambi.
Wexford Plaza is a 2016 Canadian comedy-drama film directed by Joyce Wong and starring Reid Asselstine and Darrel Gamotin.
Kenneth Eng is an American documentary film director and editor. He is best known for his work on the documentary films My Life in China, Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball and Take Me to the River.
Kimberlee Bassford is an independent documentary filmmaker from Honolulu, Hawai‘i. In 2005, she founded Making Waves Films LLC, which is a documentary production company. She advocates for gender equity and diversity in films and television. Most of her work focuses on Asian American women and young girls, and her films actively seek to correct underrepresentation of those groups in the media.