Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

There is no shortage of film festivals, especially this time of year.  Of particular interest to APIs are

Boulder Asian Film Fest Feb 11-13

Korean American Film Festival New York Feb 27-28

Korean Film Festival Los Angeles March 4-7

Fusion Los Angeles March 11-14

San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival March 11-21

Chicago Asian American Showcase April 2-15

Japan Film Festival Los Angeles April 10-25

Hawaii International Film Festival April 16-22

Indian Film Festival Los Angeles April 20-25

Disorient (Oregon) April 23-25

Tribeca All Access April 19-25

University of Oregon’s Cinema Pacific May 5-9

Silk Screen Pittsburg May 7-16

Slant (Houston) May 21-23

Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival May 27-30

With Maui, Dallas, Boston, New York, Vancouver, DC, Toronto, San Diego, Philadelphia, Japan American National Museum’s ID Film Fest, a lot still lies ahead.

Definitely the abundance of opportunities for APIs is something to celebrate. The festivals are an integral tool to the progression, development, and promotion of filmmakers, even for those who don’t have films showing. The events provide essential opportunities to network with like-minded souls. And attendees participate in something more than the sum of its parts.

Our community is made up of so many diverse voices and each deserves its own spotlight, even its own festival. However the sheer volume of festivals may counteract individual goals. This is most applicable in the coastal cities. Here in Los Angeles, there are five festivals within two months that focus on APIs. With the downturn of the economy, each presenting organization has to compete for not only sponsor and advertising dollars, but attention and attendance. Lest one forget, a multitude of non-API specific film festivals are in the mix as well. Slant Festival in Houston (which was founded by Hyphen's Melissa Hung) circulated a plea for donations a month after opening up for this year’s submissions. And Fusion gave away more complimentary tickets than those sold. The cast and crew at a KOFFLA screening outnumbered the audience.

Marilyn Tokuda of East West Players (EWP) offered her insight on this: "Understaffing is a problem for many nonprofit organizations including EWP. We have to be focused to ensure things get done and unfortunately that inhibits our ability to work together." She was excited about the possibilities of a coordinated effort to insure a high success rate for all the events. Indeed the renowned theater company has lent its support to organizations, forming unique partnerships on events like The Girls From Afar presentation (reported here in Hyphen). But there is no, say, community-wide integrated consortium that provides continual support. 

Whether feasible or not, to my mind, a coalition would benefit more than hinder. This is not to say that these organizations currently act as their own separate islands and isolate themselves from other groups and events. There are strong partnerships at work. But my heart breaks when I count 10 people in the audience for a screening. And then I think of the possibilities.

Photo by Wilki Tom

Jin Ku, Kim Jeong-Eun, and Director Baek Dong Hun of Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle