Center for Asian American Media
Inspiration was the name of the game today. We started off the day with the Multimedia/Multiracial Panel. It was really refreshing to connect some of the bigger identity issues seen on screen to an everyday agenda about Asian America.
At one point while watching PROJECT KASHMIR, I thought of the moments Thomas Fowler spends in the South Vietnamese turret in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Those were the quiet, humanly awkward and poignant moments before the turret was blown apart and Fowler’s life saved by Pyle, his rival in romance.
My day started with hanging out with SPEED OF LIFE director Ed Radke and videographer friend Sevgi Stephenson with the student delegates at a nearby cafe. The conversation wandered all around – how to deal with the confusion of what to do next in life, how it’s cool to do what you love
KARMA CALLING follows the Raj family, an Indian family living in New Jersey. An incredibly light but heart-felt film, it makes you believe that no matter what, everything can and will work out in the end if you just believe. A labor of love by Sarba Das and her entire family, it’s an interesting comparison of India coming to America and America coming to India.
It’s three days and 20 films since I last wrote (11 shorts and 9 features). And indeed, because of the inclement weather, the main light I’ve been getting has been the reflection from the silver screen.
What’s in a father? In the three films that I’ve seen so far this year apart of the film festival, Lee Yoon-Ki’s MY DEAR ENEMY, Sarba Das’ KARMA CALLING, and Ed Radtke’s THE SPEED OF LIFE, that question gnaws at me. My insides, retching. An invisible, depressed father . A desperate father that can’t provide for his family. Fathers who are strangers to their sons and lovers. What does any of this mean?
I think my exhaustion has robbed me of witty headings and my convenient pool of descriptive adjectives. And thank goodness I was an hour early to my personal time-clock because I ended up being just on time for the screening of KARMA CALLING. What I want to know is why not more people came to see this movie. Because, yeah, um, with blatant bias, it rocked.
Join filmmaker Brittany Huckabee and Asra Nomani for clips of the film and a discussion with the Center’s Kiriyama Research Fellow Rachel Rinaldo Monday, March 16, 2009, 5:45 PM USF Main Campus, Fromm Hall (Parker at Golden Gate in San Francisco).
I’m super new to this film festival ordeal. The only ways I’ve experienced movies are in regular theaters, on a small screen with a few friends, or as a topic of discussion in a classroom. KARMA CALLING was the kind of screening that really makes the festival setting win my heart.
Opening night for this year’s SFIAAFF at the Castro Theatre was SPECTACULAR and- as naive as it sounds- unlike any experience that I’ve ever had! It really went by in a flash. After finding my seat in the beautiful, ritzy, busy Castro Theatre amongst my fellow delegates, we chatted anxiously about everything going on around us
CAAM is proud to present, in collaboration with artist Kip Fulbeck, HAPAS.US. This new interactive website is where multiracial Asian Americans Can share their stories about the hapa experience.
Why is this man in a gorilla costume? And where can you get a banana suit? I caught up with David Boyle, the director of White on Rice, to answer these and other deep questions about his new hilarious feature premiering at the 2009 SFIAAFF.
