All right. It's about time we talked about VC Filmfest 2007, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. It's back! Just three weeks away, spotlighting the best in Asian and Asian American cinema for its 23rd year. They've got a solid, diverse program of narrative features, documentaries and shorts, as well as seminars, workshops and parties—basically, the very best of what a film festival of its kind has to offer. The festival kicks off Thursday, May 3rd with its Opening Night feature, Justin Lin's 1970s Bruce Lee-centric comedy spoof Finishing the Game. It looks like this film is quickly becoming the big festival favorite of 2007.
The program continues for a weeklong showcase of Asian American features like Gene Rhee's The Trouble With Romance, Desmond Nakano's American Pastime, Socheata Poeuv's New Year Baby, Fay Ann Lee's Falling For Grace, and Juwan Chung's Baby. The festival program also includes an impressive selection of films from Asia, including Lou Ye's Summer Palace, Lee Jun-Ik's King and the Clown, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves, Othello Khanh's Saigon Eclipse, and whole mess other great works. I highly recommend Ruby Yang's Academy Award-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District. And I'm quite interested in seeing Taika Taititi's Eagle vs. Shark.
VC is highlighting Grace Lee's innovative zombie mockumentary American Zombie as the festival's Centerpiece Presentation. It's a clever, hilarious and creepy twist on the zombie genre, about a community of the undead living and working among us, just trying get by in everyday human society. They're also paying tribute to the late, great Mako with a presentation of free presentation of The Wash. The festival winds down with the Closing Night presentation of Charlie Nguyen's action/adventure romance epic The Rebel, a film I know absolutely nothing about... but the photo on its festival page features a dude holding a gigantic knife, and that's kind of badass.
That should do it for now. It's gonna be a good time, my friends, so make your plans, mark your calendars, buy your tickets, and go here for more information.