All right, Bay Area films fans. At long last, it's the 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
As a big supporter of Asian American cinema, with personal roots at the Center for Asian American Media, I've been attending the SFIAAFF for the better part of a decade. It's an event I look forward to every year, and this time, we're celebrating thirty years of film festival goodness.
Here's the official SFIAAFF30 trailer, which will get you retrospectin':
The festivities kick off this Thursday with the Opening Night presentation Quentin Lee's coming-of-age drama White Frog. Starring Booboo Stewart, Harry Shum Jr., Joan Chen and B.D. Wong, it's going to be a star-studded evening at the Castro Theatre.
After the film, you can head over to the Opening Night Gala at the Asian Art Museum, where you can mix with moviegoers and enjoy some food, drink and music from Teresa Lee of PaperDoll, Freddy Anzures and DJ Nuxx.
But what will you wear? Here's a fun Gala Style video CAAM created with the help of the good folks from Retrofit Republic, featuring Festival Director Masashi Niwano, San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim and Thick Dumpling Skin's Lisa Lee (I'm somewhere in there too):
I'm glad I had the chance to take part in this. Big props to the Center for Asian American Media, Retrofit Republic, and the Asian Art Museum, and big big big thanks to the hot folks at Step Heavvy for the hair and makeup.
The 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival runs March 8-18 in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. For further information about the festival, including tickets, program details and the full schedule of screenings and events, go here. And I will see you at SFIAAFF30.