The past weekend at VC Filmfest was a crazy fun blast of Asian American cinema and community. Thanks to everyone who made it out to Saturday's Hard Boiled screening. We're in the final stretch leading up to Thursday's Closing Night presentation of Charlie Nguyen's The Rebel. Tonight's highlights include Leste Chen's Eternal Summer (queer cinema with a coming-of-age-twist? Or a coming-of-age film with the twist of queer cinema?); Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves; VC's Digital Histories program, presenting the stories of senior citizen media artists; Love In Translation, the festival's youth showcase; Lou Ye's controversial Summer Palace, which earned the director a 5-year ban from making films in China; and the provocative shorts program Taking Charge/Letting Go.
I particularly wanted to urge everyone to check out New Climate, a program of three distinct, dynamic and moving documentary short films that highlight history and provoke dialogue. There's Alex Ko's Pok Dong, a personal story about this family's trial by fire during the LA riots; Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's Motherland (Cuba Korea USA), a transnational journey in search of a Korean diaspora in Cuba; and Tad Nakamura's Pilgrimage, about the legacy and community activism that grew from the first pilgrimage to Manzanar. Three very interesting, provocative documentaries screening tonight, 7:30pm at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy.
