I had a great weekend partying with folks over the weekend at the Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival... My only regret is not being able to catch The Taqwacores on Friday. Next time. If you're headed to the festival on Tuesday night, here are some highlights to check out:
Digital Histories 2010
The Film Festival is pleased to present the sixth edition of this groundbreaking project of Visual Communications and Little Tokyo's DISKovery Center. The perspectives of our elder media artists might lack the technical polish of some big-budget blockbusters, but their works speak far more eloquently than anything playing in the local multiplexes.
The Shaft
Whether in John Ford's classic HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) or John Sayles' harrowing MATEWAN (1987), coal-mining communities are portrayed as shadow towns that the rest of society is happy to ignore even as they profit from the blood and sweat of their labor.
In China, the bleakness of such life is magnified by the personal peril that coal workers face; it is the most dangerous mining nation on Earth. However, for Beijing filmmaker Zhang Chi, it's not the mines that pose the greatest threat. In his debut, THE SHAFT, it's a toxic brew of personal foibles, the pettiness of peers, and vagrancies of fate that threaten to drown dreams of betterment.
Aoki
Richard Aoki, a founding member of the Black Panther Party, passed away on March 15, 2009 leaving an exceptional legacy for individuals, present and future, dedicated to the pursuit of justice and equality. His commitment to give voice and empower people who have been oppressed and abused was a gift to the '60s revolutionaries as well as to generations of Asian Americans.
Filmmakers Ben Wang and Mike Cheng were fortunate enough to follow Aoki in interviews and public appearances in the last five years of his life, leaving the filmmakers a treasure trove of insights and truisms from a man who was dubbed in the '50s ghetto he grew up in as "the baddest oriental to come out of West Oakland."
A Village Called Versailles
New Orleans East is home to a tight-knit and flourishing community of Vietnamese Americans that first emerged when a group of Vietnamese refugees were resettled there in 1975. Today, this community still thrives even stronger than ever, but it wasn't without a fight that this was achieved. A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES tells the empowering story of a community determined to keep their home.
Cinema Musica!
CINEMA MUSICA returns with a fresh new lineup of music videos! Despite the ability to view music videos in HD or HQ quality on YouTube, isn't it just so much better (and more fun) to watch them on a big screen where we can truly appreciate the quality of work?