Critic's Notebook

SF International Asian American Film Festival Visits the Archives

A theme that emerged in this year’s San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) was the importance of archives in the film world. The existence of film archives and restoration facilities all have a part to play in the films of Lino Brocka (who received retrospective treatment in the fest), Kim Ki-young’s 1960s classic The Housemaid, Ruby Yang’s documentary A Moment in Time (about Chinese American movie houses of old San Francisco), documentaries such as Aoki and State of Aloha that make heavy use of archival footage to tell their non-fiction narratives, and even an Austrian director’s film about representatives of the North Korean women’s soccer team, Hana, Dul, Sed….　

topics: activism, asian american cinema, asian cinema, audiences, authors, awards, bay area, blogs, sf international asian american film festival

Q&A

Red Vic Reprising 'Lesh Sabreen?'

Muayad Alayan, a 24-year-old filmmaker from the only remaining Arab neighborhood in West Jerusalem, was not even aware there was such a think as Palestinian cinema until, as a teenager, he came to the Bay Area to visit his brother and sister. Later, after a stint at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, he returned to San Francisco as a film student at City College. Among his teachers was local filmmaker Christian Bruno, who this year traveled to Jerusalem as the director of photography for Alayan’s Lesh Sabreen? (Why Sabreen?, now taking donations).

topics: activism, arab cinema, bay area, exhibition, red vic movie house

Experience

28th SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival Opens

This year’s San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival observes an organizational milestone: 2010 marks the beginning of a fourth decade for the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), hitherto known (until 2005) as the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA).

CAAM’s and NAATA’s achievements over the last 30 years are too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that an organization originally founded to nurture Asian American filmmakers (an effort given further muscle by strong support from the Center for Public Broadcasting) as well as counter ethnic stereotypes still prevailing in popular media (perhaps peaking with the protests against mid-late ’80s thrillers Year of the Dragon and Black Rain) has long since accomplished all that and more. Today’s CAAM can look back on helping to foster such important high-profile voices as Wayne Wang and Ang Lee, while stoking both present and future makers via its distribution, PBS presentation and funding arms.

topics: activism, actors, asian american cinema, asian cinema, audiences, bay area, sf international asian american film festival, women filmmakers, world cinema, youth

Critic's Notebook

'Village' Offers New Look at New Orleans

S. Leo Chiang, born and raised in Taiwan, knew what it was like to be an outsider in the United States, so the seemingly inexplicable rebellion of previously docile Vietnamese residents in New Orleans was an ideal subject for this documentary director.

It took him more than a year to track down bits and pieces of film from unclassified archives at the University of New Orleans that could reconstruct the untold story of what happened to the 5,000 residents of the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam after the 2005 Katrina hurricane wreaked havoc on that Louisiana city.

topics: activism, asian american cinema, bay area, directors, diy, documentary

Fear-Free Fundraising

Do ask, do tell

I’ve been raising money for 20 years. During my career, I have asked people for all kinds of money for all kinds of reasons. However, whether I’m asking for $1,000 or $100,000, I have found that there are some key concepts that rule.

These are my Hella Hot Tips for how to ask people for money. The good news is that this isn’t brain surgery. It’s common sense. If you take these key concepts and use them as your guide for individual donor fundraising, you, too, will raise money.

topics: authors, bay area, diy, funding

Critic's Notebook

Gazing West with 'Sweetgrass'

There will probably never be a theatrical release for a film by James Benning, the Southern California-based filmmaker who recently made one of his frequent Bay Area visits for a four-night series of works presented by San Francisco Cinematheque. Benning’s landscape-focused movies often consist of very long stationary shots (sometimes as long as ten minutes each) sans commentary, interviews, explanatory text, or any sound save live found ones. They’re extraordinary, if a little too “pure” for the average moviegoer—even most arthouse habitues.

Amazingly, however, the marital filmmaking team of Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor have managed not only to score theatrical distribution but also make something of a splash with Sweetgrass, a new documentary opening this weekend that is almost as hypnotically austere in style and content as the films in Benning’s oeuvre.

topics: bay area, directors, documentary, environmental films, women filmmakers, world cinema

Report

Bay Area's Pixar rises again at Oscars

Cementing its status as the preeminent animation company of the ‘00s, Pixar won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for the third time in seven years. Up director Pete Docter collected his first trophy in six trips, a stunning run that includes original screenplay nominations for Toy Story (1995), Wall-E (2008) and Up. The helium-fueled adventure was further buoyed by Michael Giacchino’s Oscar for original score, the category in which he was nominated two years ago for Ratatouille.

Pixar received five nominations altogether, including Best Picture (snagged by The Hurt Locker, directed by San Carlos native and San Francisco Art Institute alum Kathryn Bigelow), Original Screenplay (awarded to Mark Boal’s for The Hurt Locker over Docter and co-writer Bob Peterson) and Mixing.

topics: activism, animation, awards, bay area, hollywood, independent film, oscars