All right, what is up, my playas? This is for all my people in Southern California. The 24th annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is on! Eight days dedicated to showcasing some of the best feature narratives, documentaries and shorts reflecting the visions and voices of Asian Pacific peoples and heritage. Here's a Los Angeles Times article on this year's festival: Evolution of L.A.'s Asian film festival.
Things kick off tonight the Opening Night presentation of Jessica Yu's indie sports comedy Ping Pong Playa. It's a fun film with a great cast and a lot of heart. here's the plot synopsis, according to the festival catalog:
PING PONG PLAYAThe cast and crew will be present at the screening tonight, including Jessica Yu, Jimmy Tsai, Roger Fan, Peter Paige, Scott Lowell, Smith Cho, Elizabeth Sung and Jim Lau, among others. Good times. It's all going down tonight, May 1 at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood.
Christopher “C-dub” Wang is a suburban guy who sports an urban swagger, waxes political on all things Asian American, and clings to pro basketball pipe dreams. Blaming genetics for his failure to make the NBA, C-dub squirms in the shadow of his older brother, Michael, a doctor and ping pong champion. With a family-run store devoted to ping pong and a mom who teaches it at the local Chinese Community Center, the Wangs’ entire world revolves around the sport. When his mom and Michael are hurt in a car accident, C-dub is forced to take over his mom's ping pong class of misfits. C-dub starts to appreciate the benefits of ping pong when he uses the class to make some extra money on the side and befriends one of the kids who happens to have a beautiful older sister. But when the family livelihood is threatened by a rival player's attempts to lure the kids away, C-dub begins to take things seriously. With the National Golden Cock Tournament coming up and an injured Michael unable to defend his title, C-dub must become the player he pretends to be and defend his family’s ping pong dynasty.
The festival runs May 1-8, at locations around the city: the DGA, Laemmle's Sunset 5, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, Aratani/Japan American Theatre and Imaginasian Center. For more information, and to see the full schedule of events, visit the festival website here. Check out a program or two. You're gonna love it.