MANILATOWN IS IN THE HEART

Directors: Emiko Omori and Curtis Choy
58 minutes (2008)
Feature film

Al Robles is the link to the disappearing manong generation, the bachelor society that came from the Philippines in the 1920s and 30s as workers. We accompany Al in his wanderings in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Manilatown while he tells the manong’s tales of isolation, struggle and merriment. This film was a finalist for the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival.

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HOW WAR ENDS

Director: Rock Chang & Scott Eriksson
12 minutes (2012)
Short film

Eighteen years after Khmer Rouge, two Cambodian brothers, one strong enough to be able to now live with his traumatic memories (Rithy) and the other unable to function in life because of the trauma (Bunthon), each argue their very different ideas about how to deal with Bunthon’s empty painful life.

HOW WAR ENDS was an official selection of the Boston Asian American Film Festival, International Film Festival Manhattan and NewFilmmakers L.A. Sunset-Gower Studios.

MOTHER & CHILD

Director: Jocelyn Saddi-Lenhardt
5 minutes (2012)
Short film

Ligaya, a once vibrant, young Filipina woman, struggles through an identity crisis when her estranged husband announces his imminent return to the States. Torn between her traditional mindset and her self-reliance, she becomes angry and resentful at her son, who may be the only logical piece in her fractured world.

MOTHER & CHILD won best short film at the Chicago Filipino American Film Festival.

THE APPRENTICE

Director: Mahen Bala & John W. J. Cho
5 minutes (2011)
Short film

Since the 1940s, Low Kok Kee and his print shop have been faithfully serving the photography and printing needs of the local community in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With the advent of the digital age and a fluctuating appetite of the young and hip, Low is philosophical about his business in decline.

HIBAKUSHA

Director: Steve Nguyen and Choz Belen
Time: 40 minutes (2012)
Feature film

HIBAKUSHA is an animated drama featuring Kaz Suyeishi, an 84-year-old woman, who recalls her most vivid and horrific experiences as a 17 year old student in the morning of August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown in Hiroshima, Japan. A Q&A with Directors Steve Nguyen and Choz Belen will follow.

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A FLICKER IN ETERNITY

Directors: Sharon Yamato and Ann Kaneko
25 minutes (2012)
Short film

Stanley Hayami was a talented young teenager caught between his dream of becoming a writer/artist and duty to his country. Based on Hayami’s own diary and letters, this documentary chronicles his life behind barbed wire and as a soldier in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during WWII.

A FLICKER OF ETERNITY was an official selection of the United Nations Association Film Festival and New York Asian American International Film Festival.

PEOPLE AREN'T ALL BAD

Director: Matthew Hashiguchi
4 minutes (2012)
Short film

Born in San Francisco in 1924, Yutaka Kobayashi was labeled stupid for refusing to learn Japanese. At the start of WWII, his attempts to enlist in the US Army were refused because of his Japanese heritage. He was later sent to the Topaz Internment Camp, but it was during this dark period that he experienced compassion and kindness from where he least expected it.

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CLASS ‘58

Director: Dan Matsushita
5 minutes (2012)
Short film

A class of post-WWII, first generation Japanese American students journey through the trials, discoveries and promise of a burgeoning nation on the move.

THE CHINESE GARDENS

Director: Valerie Soe
17 minutes (2012)
Short film and discussion

Through text, brief interviews, and images of the empty spaces of Port Townsend, Washington’s former Chinatown, the film examines anti-Chinese violence and the lost Chinese community in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s. The film documents Chinese American resistance and draws connections between past and present race relations in this country.

THE CHINESE GARDENS was an official selection of the Dallas VideoFest 25 and Claremont Colleges Asian Americans in Media Film Festival.

Discussion panel with Valerie Soe, director of CHINESE GARDENS and Bettie Luke, Chinese Expulsion Remembrance Project 2011 Chair, will follow.

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CHOP SOCKY BOOM

Directors: Darlene Sellers and Heath Ward
8 minutes (2012)
Short film

Chop Socky Boom is a misfortunate web comedy that follows the adventures of five misfit Seattle actors cast in an action kung fu show. Portraying the signs of Rat, Pig, Rabbit, Rooster and Dragon, the five traverse the challenges of the low budget film making process, all the while doing battle with their own individual demons.

BASKETBALL, MERI JAAN

Director: Veena Hampapur
5 minutes (2012)
Short film

The short film centers on the life of Yeshodhara, a vibrant woman who immigrated to the United States from India thirty years ago. The film illustrates how her lifelong love of professional sports has served as a vehicle to create a community and sense of belonging for herself.

MORE THAN 1,000 WORDS

Director: Steve Nagano
9 minutes (2012)
Short film

This film explores the work of Mario Reyes, a Mexican American photographer for the Japanese American newspaper Rafu Shimpo, and how he became an integral part of the community.

THAT PARTICULAR TIME

Director: Jeff Man
5 minutes (2012)
Short film

Following his sudden death in 2005, Eddie Oshiro’s legacy is discovered inside his tiny studio apartment — a collection of decade’s worth of photographs taken by Oshiro himself documenting his Little Tokyo community in Los Angeles. THAT PARTICULAR TIME is a portrait of Oshiro and those he impacted in his life.

MAGELLAN DOESN’T LIVE HERE 

Director: Micki Davis
5 minutes (2012)
Short film

Mario Borja, a craftsman and amateur historian, reconstructs a lost history of his people from the British Naval archives to a Pacific crossing. He brings his crew back to Guam in a hand built outrigger called a Sakman.

CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE

Director: Porter Erisman
75 minutes (2012)
Feature film

An inspiring look at China's first Internet entrepreneur as he grew his company, Alibaba Group, from a small apartment into a global company, challenging - and beating - eBay in China along the way. CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE explores the era when the internet brought China face-to-face with the West.

Called a "gripping ... real-life version of "The Social Network" by Inc. Magazine, CROCODILE IN THE YANGTZE was an official selection of the Vancouver International Film Festival and Sonoma International Film Festival.

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