disorient asian american film festival... and other opportunities

Check it out, Oregon. The 2nd Annual DisOrient Asian American Film Festival starts today and runs through April 29th with a great slate of Asian American cinema. That's right. Oregon knows how to party. Things kick off tonight with everybody's favorite Opening Night film, Justin Lin's Finishing Game, and continues through the weekend with films like Julia Kwan's Eve and the Fire Horse, David Grabias and Nicole Newnham's Sentenced Home, Ramin Bahrani's Man Push Cart, and then closing things out with Richard Wong's fan favorite Colma: The Musical. It's all happening this weekend, and you're gonna love it, Oregon. For more information, go here.

In other film festival news, the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival is currently accepting submissions for its 2007 festival. They're the largest Asian film and video festival in Canada, showcasing a little bit of everything. This year the festival will run November 14-18, 2007. The early deadline to submit is June 1st, and the final deadline is June 29th, so you've got some time. For more information, go here.

And over in Vancouver (we got love for Canada), they are now accepting entries for the 11th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival, the country's oldest festival dedicated to exhibiting films and videos by North American artists of Asian heritage. The festival runs November 1-4, 2007, showcasing narrative, documentary animation and experimental works. The early bird deadline is next week—April 30—but the final deadline is May 31st. To learn more about the submission guidelines, go here.

And while we're talking about filmmaker opportunities, the Korean Film Council is seeking applicants for it second Filmmakers Development Lab in Hawaii, in association with IFP, Center for Asian American Media, and The Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaii. It's a program, sort of modeled after the Sundance Labs, aimed at encouraging and developing emerging Korean American filmmakers to bring their stories to the screen. Last year's fellows include Philip Chung, Abraham Lim, Young-il Kim, Jinho Park, and Mora Mi-ok Stephens. For more information on how to apply, go here. But you gotta act fast—the deadline is April 30 (5pm Korean time).