SDAFF2019 -20th San Diego Asian Film Festival
November 7-19, 2019
https://sdaff.org/2019/
https://sdaff.org/2019/
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122 titles
- DirectorR.J. LozadaJoseph MangatQuyên Nguyen-LeVietnamese, Korean, and Filipino American stories take shape on the streets of San Diego, a refugee and border city built on military narratives.Opening Night Film
- DirectorJames SweeneyStarsJames SweeneyKatie FindlayDana DroriTodd and Rory are intellectual soul mates. He might be gay. She might not care. A romantic-comedy drama with a twist; a love story without the thrill of copulation.Centerpiece Film
- DirectorJohnny MaStarsXiaoli ZhaoGuidan GanXihu YanA Sichuan Opera troupe are faced with the demolition of their theater and dissolution.Closing Night Film
- DirectorGrace LeeStarsGrace Lee BoggsGrace LeeGrace LeeIs your name Grace Lee? Do you think you are the only Grace Lee? Did you know there are quite a few of you? Oh yes, it's true. There are many of you and they're all over. They are mostly typically dutiful East Asian daughters with the associated and expected talents. Except, that's not always true. Then again, there are even more Grace Lees around. Why?
- DirectorJustin LinStarsParry ShenJason TobinSung KangA group of over-achieving East Asian American high school seniors enjoy a power trip when they dip into extracurricular criminal activities.
- DirectorBing LiuStarsKent AbernathyMengyue BolenNina BowgrenFilmmaker Bing Liu searches for correlations between his skateboarder friends' turbulent upbringings and the complexities of modern masculinity.
- DirectorGrace LeeStarsGrace Lee BoggsDanny GloverBill AyersGrace Lee Boggs is an activist and philosopher in Detroit who has dedicated her life to the next American Revolution and the possibility of a better, more just future for all of humanity. At age 97, she has been building movements and developing strategies for social change for most of her life -- reminding us that revolution is not only possible and necessary, but a process that must always be in motion.
- DirectorMichael KangStarsJeffrey ChyauSung KangJade WuThirteen-year-old Ernest Chin lives and works at a sleazy hourly-rate motel on a strip of desolate suburban bi-way. Misunderstood by his family and blindly careening into puberty, Ernest befriends Sam Kim, a self-destructive yet charismatic Korean man who has checked in. Sam teaches the fatherless boy all the rites of manhood.
- DirectorRichard WongStarsJake MorenoH.P. MendozaL.A. RenigenBest pals Rodel, Billy, and Maribel live in Colma. After graduating from high school the trio is having too much fun doing nothing or crashing college parties. But newfound revelations and romances force them to assess what to hold onto.
- DirectorPatrick WangStarsSebastian BanesPatrick WangTrevor St. JohnWhen his partner Cody dies in a car accident, Joey learns that their son, Chip, has been willed to Cody's sister. In his now solitary home life, Joey searches for a solution. The law is not on his side, but friends are.
- DirectorSpencer NakasakoStarsDavid MarkSophal MeasMike SivMike Siv has a plan: go to Cambodia with his buddies Paul and David, see the sights, have fun and reunite with his father and younger brother, whom he hasn't seen in 22 years. Harsh reality sets in before the journey even begins, however, as Mike, Paul and David have never been out of the U.S., and are the first in their families to visit Cambodia since fleeing the bloody regime of Pol Pot in the late 1970s.
- DirectorAlice WuStarsJoan ChenMichelle KrusiecLynn ChenA gay Chinese-American and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.
- DirectorSemi ChellasStarsHong ChauSarah GadonJohn Gallagher Jr.Inspired by the headline-dominating kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in 1974, this atmospheric drama is a fictionalized re-imagining of her time in hiding, from the perspective of Jenny, a political activist assigned to take care of her.
- DirectorHarry ChuckJosh ChuckA documentary based on Harry Chuck's collection of clippings and period films about the issues that motivated members of San Francisco's Chinese American community to reject submissive stereotypes.
- DirectorRichard WongStarsGrant RosenmeyerHayden SzetoRavi PatelThree young men with disabilities hit the road with a jaded nurse driver to a brothel in Montreal catering to people with special needs. Remake of the acclaimed Belgian film 'Hasta La Vista'.
- DirectorAndrew AhnStarsLucas JayeHong ChauBrian DennehyA lonesome boy accompanies his mother on a trip to clean out his late aunt's house, and ends up forming an unexpected friendship with the retiree who lives next door.
- DirectorAndrea A. WalterStarsRhian RamosOsric ChauMadeleine HumphriesEmpty by Design is a feature film about the struggle of identity that is experienced when living and growing up in multiple places surrounded by different cultures, and what it means to call a place home. The film takes place in Manila, Philippines and follows Samantha, a recent University Graduate who moves back home after her parents have passed away, and Eric, a Hollywood Stuntman and Body double who comes back to shoot a new film. Since moving back home, Samantha can't seem to connect with anyone in her life, friends, family, and has difficulty expressing her frustration and feeling of being back home to her sister Patricia. Similarly, Eric struggles with forming a bond with his estranged grandmother and culture, and aspects surround his job. On a night out, Eric has a brief encounter with Samantha and the two meet again later on and rekindle an acquaintance from high school that forms into an unexpected friendship and a new found meaning of what it means to be "home."
- DirectorBishrel MashbatStarsSam BayaraaMike CaliRobert CorsiniWith time running out and desperate for cash, two Mongolian immigrants turn to crime as their only solution.
- DirectorNadia ShihabMoving between the playful and the contemplative, explores the meaning of identity and home across three generations of an Iraqi family in Texas.
- DirectorJoseph JuhnBorn to Korean immigrant parents freed from indentured servitude in early twentieth century Mexico, Jerónimo Lim Kim joins the Cuban Revolution with his law school classmate Fidel Castro and becomes an accomplished government official in the Castro regime, until he rediscovers his ethnic roots and dedicates his later life to reconstructing his Korean Cuban identity. After Jerónimo's death, younger Korean Cubans recognize his legacy, but it is not until they are presented with the opportunity to visit South Korea that questions about their mixed identity resurface.
- DirectorAisha JamalIn 1991, a refugee arrived in Canada with his wife and five children, having fled his home in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Decades later, upon discovering the dwindling hamlet of Kandahar, Saskatchewan, he felt an immediate connection that needed to be explored. Abdul Bari Jamal's impulsive purchase of eight empty lots in the middle of the Canadian Prairies became an unexpected inheritance for his grown children. When the extended family of self-declared urbanites make their first trip together to witness their new property, Jamal's daughter takes the opportunity to document the unusual family vacation, hoping to unpack her father's relationship to his homeland and Canadian patriotism. What transpires on their journey is so much more than a humorous Green Acres collision of cultures-it's a heartfelt and moving conversation about two nations connected by conflict and how much of our identity is tied to the land we occupy.
- DirectorIsabel SandovalStarsEamon FarrenShiloh VerricoLynn CohenAn undocumented Filipina transwoman falls in love in Brooklyn.
- DirectorValerie SoeStarsGeorge ChenJustin TanKristina WongLOVE BOAT: TAIWAN looks at the Taiwan Love Boat, where college-aged Taiwanese Americans get closer to their history, their culture and each other.
- DirectorSasie SealyStarsTsai ChinHsiao-Yuan HaMichael TowSet in New York City's Chinatown, an ornery, chain-smoking Chinese grandma goes all in at the casino, landing herself on the wrong side of luck - and in the middle of a gang war.
- DirectorMiko ReverezaLiving in the United States illegally for over 20 years, Miko Revereza takes the Amtrak train from Los Angeles to New York in this critical moment of hostility against migrants in the country he has come to know as home. The journey seems daring, perhaps reckless, yet urgent and necessary.