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SFIAAFF 2006
Contributed by Sara Schieron
Friday, 17 March 2006
San
Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival opened March 16th
at the Castro Theatre and is currently presenting screenings and events
at the Castro, the Roxie and the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. Put on by
The Center for Asian -American Media (previously known as NAATA), this
annual festival screens the latest marvels from Asian countries, as
well as films made nationally by Asian Americans.
A major theme in the programming is what they're calling "Asian American Male". This, the subject of a panel to be held on March 19th, follows a screening of Jeff Adachi's SLANTED SCREEN. SLANTED SCREEN is an hour long documentary about the representation of the Asian male in Cinema and Television. Featuring interviews with a small body of recognized Asian actors, directors and writers, the film explores the issues of identity, perceived sexuality, and potency in regards to the representation and stereotyping of Asian males. Darrell Hamamoto, professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis will moderate the discussion and the panel will consist of the film's director, Jeff Adachi and actor Jason Scott Lee, who starred in THE JUNGLE BOOK and most recognizably played Bruce Lee in DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY.
Though the festival's panels offer a great deal, the most notable attractions of the festival this year are the attending guests. A strong percentage of the film screenings this year include the attendance of the director. Of course, a number of films from Japan (LINDA, LINDA, LINDA) and Thailand (CITIZEN DOG) couldn't make it but some high profile films are joined by their makers.
LINDA, LINDA, LINDA, is a Japanese film about a group of small town high school students who decide to form a band and compete in the school battle of the bands. Nabuhiro Yamashita directs this beguiling and subtle film in which four girls learn to play their instruments clandestine while the boys at school fall for them - but from a distance. With shockingly few close ups, the film is a model for the study of Japanese film language: preciousness communicated through the size of objects and characters on the screen. The band's lead singer is a Korean exchange student who, in the midst of practice is called upon to meet in an empty classroom. When she arrives, there is a quiet and beautifully awkward stand off with the boy who admires her. Each standing on opposite sides of the room, they're dwarfed in screen. He says "I love you" and she says, "I have to be getting back to practice". Fearing a language barrier, he says "do you understand what I said?" and she says, "I have practice." The camera holds steady while the two are as close to each other as snowmen and campfires.
Described by its distributor as the "Thai AMELIE", CITIZEN DOG is a lovable and absurd look at love in modern Bankok. Directed by Wisit Sasanatieng, CITIZEN DOG begins with the journey of Pod (the film's protagonist) as he leaves his family in a small town to go to Bangkok. His grandmother mockingly tells him that if he ever gets a job in Bangkok he'll grow a tail. In Bangkok, the city is a brighter than Technicolor vision - as candy coated as Oz times 10. After losing his finger in a sardine factory accident, Pod makes friends with Yod. After a heavy rain, his motorcycle taxi driver is transformed into Taxi Ghost by a hailstorm of motorcycle helmets. And the love of his life, which has become obsessed with ridding the planet of plastic, collects so many bottles she builds a bottle mountain to the moon. Complete with song and satire, this film is wonderful, wonderful, and wonderful!
The centerpiece presentation this year was the closing night film at CineQuest: WATER. The third in Deepa Mehta's Elemental Series, this centerpiece presentation will include the attendance of Mehta herself. A period piece set in a small town in India in 1938, WATER concerning the plight of widows in the legal and religious systems of the nation. The film follows the character of Chuyia, an 8-year-old widow. Though Chuyia doesn't remember her wedding, she's given up to a collective of widows who live as outcasts in the township. Whored to the gentry but untouchable by the masses, these women are lowest members of society and they're given no explanation for their situations. When a member of the gentry and a follower of Ghandi falls in love with a widow, he explains to the mother figure of the group that the condition of the widows is the result of a law written to benefit those with wealth and real estate: it's business dressed up like religion.
Local films will be shown as well - of the most ostentatious of the local fair is a high concept, low budget musical called COLMA THE MUSICAL. Filmed in Colma with non-professionals, this song and dance coming of age story about dating, employment and living in a town where the dead outnumber the living, is ironical, bizarre, comical and features an unlikely musical inside the unlikely musical. Director Richard Wong will be in attendance.
For more information about this balanced line up of features, shorts, international films, panels and filmmaker guests, go to http://www.asianamericanfilmfestival.org/
Festivals 
