Vilcek Foundation

Almost Perfect, Film

Director: Bertha Bay-Sa Pan
Screenwriter: Bertha Bay-Sa Pan
Producer: Bertha Bay-Sa Pan, Derrick Tseng
Cinematographer: Sam Chase
Cast: Christina Chang, Tina Chen, Edison Chen, Kelly Hu, Ivan Shaw, Roger Rees

Synopsis: At thirty-four, Vanessa is still her large and boisterous family’s go-to girl, with a threadbare excuse of a life of her own. Her love life begins to blossom when she runs into Dwayne, an old friend (Ivan Shaw). Dwayne is the almost perfect guy, who just might be perfect for her; but as those sparks fly, her family starts to go up in flames. Her surf-bum brother (Edison Chen) has gone AWOL; and her overanalyzing, overintellectual mother (Tina Chen) has barred her father (Roger Rees) from their home, sending him into his own midlife crisis.

They all need Vanessa, all the time, to fix all their problems, much to the consternation of Dwayne, who’s beginning to get fed up with the whole deal. Trapped within one family crisis after another, Vanessa has decisions to make: be the family’s savior, or carve out some “me-time“ and concentrate on possibly the best thing to happen to her in her entire adult life! ­

—Abraham Ferrer

Profile: Bertha Bay-Sa Pan’s feature film directorial debut FACE, premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival in Dramatic Competition. Pan also received the Premio Speciale Prize at the International Women’s Film Festival in Torino. FACE was released in theaters in 2005, garnering positive reviews from major publications including The New York Times, and The Hollywood Reporter. ALMOST PERFECT is her latest feature.

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Living in Seduced Circumstances, Film

Director: Ian Gamazon
Screenwriter: Ian Gamazon
Producers: Quynn Ton
Cinematographer: Ian Gamazon
Cast: Long Nguyen, Quynn Ton

Synopsis: Minh is a young Vietnamese woman taking a relaxing trip in the country with Mr. Thanh (Long Nguyen of Journey from the Fall; HIFF, 2006), an older man with whom she had an affair. This is not your typical May/December romance. For one thing, Minh has drugged and abducted Mr. Thanh and taken him to an isolated cabin in the forest. For another, Minh, who is pregnant by at least seven months, spends every waking hour terrorizing a bloody and beaten Mr. Thanh, whom she has duct-taped to a wheelchair. How did it come to this?

Filipino-American filmmaker Ian Gamazon (Cavite; HIFF, 2007) crafted this dark and disturbing psychological horror-thriller. As his story unfolds, filmgoers will come to understand what drives Minh, whose behavior is at once horrifying and kittenish. And viewers may even come to sympathize with Mr. Thanh’s predicament. Despite the emotional roller-coaster ride, one can’t help but snicker as Minh cheerfully lumbers about the woods finding different ways to torment her former lover.

—Jason Musni Soeda

Profile: Ian Gamazon’s debut CAVITE had its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005. He was named in Filmmaker Magazine's Twenty Five New Faces of Independent Film in 2006. CAVITE earned Gamazon the Someone To Watch Award for the 2006 Independent Spirit Award, and the film was subsequently picked up by Magnolia Pictures. LIVING IN SEDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES marks his third feature.

My Last Day Without You, Film

Director: Stefan Schaefer
Screenwriter: Stefan Schaefer, Christoph Silber
Producers: Diane Crespo, Stefan Schaefer, Christoph Silber
Cinematographer: Dan Hersey
Cast: Nicole Beharie, Reg E. Cathey, Ken Duken, Marlene Forte, Laith Nakli

Synopsis: When a young business executive, Niklas, is sent from Frankfurt to New York to shut down a division of his firm, he doesn’t realize his life is about to be turned upside down. By 9:30 a.m. he has done what he was tasked to do. But his flight back home doesn’t leave for another 11 hours. In this time, seemingly by chance, he meets and falls for Leticia, a beautiful African-American secretary and aspiring singer.

Only one problem: Unbeknownst to him, she’s one of the people he just fired. They end up back in Brooklyn, where he meets her father, a pastor, and begins to realize who she is. Unable to tell her the truth about himself, Niklas stumbles through a romantic few hours of eating, walking through Brooklyn streets, and listening to Leticia play music in her new apartment. At the worst possible time, Leticia finds out Niklas’s true identity. In a rage, she abandons him deep in Brooklyn. Despite this, it’s clear he’s been stricken by an emotion he’s never experienced before.

—Brooklyn Film Festival

Profile: Considered one of Germany’s leading screenwriters, Silber has contributed to award winning films such as GOOD BYE LENIN! He has won the German Critics Award and the Grimme Award, Germany’s Emmy. Together with his partner Stefan Schaefer, Chris founded the New York production company Silver Shepherd in 2009. The duo produced and wrote MY LAST DAY WITHOUT YOU, inspired by Chris’s own story.

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Skateistan: Four Wheels and a Board in Kabul, Film

Director: Kai Sehr
Screenwriter: Nadia Hennrich
Producers: Rene Kock, Oliver Percovich
Cinematographer: Kalle Dobrick
Cast: Sharna Nolan, Oliver Percovich

Synopsis: Oliver Percovich and Sharna Nolan come to Kabul in 2007 bringing only a few skateboards with them. They have an idea to set up daily sessions with kids, to connect with them through skateboarding. They begin skating in an abandoned water fountain, attracting a few of the nearby children; soon those numbers multiply, attracting both boys and girls of all ages. These humble beginnings soon transform into the first school for skateboarding — they called it Skateistan. Skateistan’s goal is to bring hope to those without it while at the same time bridging the gap between gender, ethnicity, and class.

As the skating sessions grow, however, so do the mounting problems to keep the program alive. One problem is that girls are forbidden to skate in public with boys beyond the age of 12. This becomes the seed for one of Ollie and Sharna’s most inspired ideas: build a state-of-the-art indoor skate park. For Ollie and Sharna, breaking barriers is one thing; bringing hope and happiness to children in a war-torn country is everything.

—Jason Pila

Profile: A writer and editor, Nadia Soraya Hennirch was born in Hamburg, moved to Teheran as a young girl, and remained there until 1982. After earning a degree in chemistry, Nadia was drawn to the editing room when a friend introduced her to the world of filmmaking. She moved to the United States in 2002, and in the intervening years has edited commercials, music videos, and various long format films including SKATEISTAN. 

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The Price of Sex, Film

Director: Mimi Chakarova
Screenwriter: Mimi Chakarova
Producers: Mimi Chakarova
Cinematographer: Adam Keker

Synopsis: Would you be willing to jump out of a three-story-high window to escape your situation? You might if you were a young Eastern European woman promised work as a housekeeper or waitress, only to find yourself forced into the seedy world of prostitution far from home. That’s the story told by photojournalist Mimi Chakarova in The Price of Sex. Across the world, from Moldova to Turkey and beyond, she leaves no stone unturned in this chillingly thorough documentary on sex trafficking.

The government, police, family members, pimps, johns — everyone is complicit in the trafficking of these women. The Price of Sex examines how these factors, coupled with the fall of communism, have left villages with few competitive options and, thus, open to traffickers eagerly preying on the naivete of their victims. With no easy solutions, this issue affects everyone. ­­

—Jeff Kent

Profile: Mimi Chakarova has had numerous solo exhibitions of her documentary projects on South Africa, Jamaica, Cuba, Kashmir and Eastern Europe. This is Chakarova's 13th year teaching visual storytelling at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. For her film, THE PRICE OF SEX, Chakarova was awarded the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival. 

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Apart Together, Film

Directed by Quan'an Wang
Starring: Lisa Lu, Ling Feng, Xu Caigen
Synopsis: Fifty years of separation Lui Yanshang leaves goes to Shanghai to look for Qiao Yu'e, the love of his life.  After having made contact via letter, he manages to arrange a meeting during which he quickly realizes that Qiao Yu’e, who has founded a family with an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, still feels the same way about him as before. It’s not hard for Liu Yangsheng to persuade his former partner to go back with him to Taiwan. He hopes that, by promising to leave his entire savings to her husband and their children, he will be able to secure the family’s agreement. But his proposal gives rise to a huge outcry in the family. The situation between the two lovers seems impossible to overcome until an unexpected incident occurs.

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Au Revoir Taipei, Film

Directed by Arvin Chen
Starring: Jack Yao, Amber Kuo, Frankie Gao, Lawrence Ko
Synopsis: Kai, a brokenhearted young man from Taipei, yearns to be with his girlfriend, who's left for Paris. He spends his days working at his parents' noodle restaurant and his nights trying to learn French at the local bookstore, where he meets Susie, a sweet but lonely girl who works there. Afraid of losing his girlfriend, and in need of money to get to Paris, he accepts a dubious offer from a local gangster to deliver a mysterious package to Paris. It's the beginning of a wild night for Kai, at the end of which he realizes that leaving both Susie and Taipei may take him further away from true love.

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Beijing Taxi, Film

Directed by Miao Wang
Starring: Bai JiWen, Zhou Yi, Wei Caixia Wei
Synopsis: Beijing Taxi vividly portrays modern-day China through a humanistic lens, documenting a profound transformation in an era of Olympic transitions. Through stunning imagery of Beijing and a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, the intimate lives of three Beijingers connect a morphing cityscape and a lyrical journey through fragments of a society riding a bumpy road to modernization.

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Dog Sweat, Film

Directed by Hossein Keshavarz
Starring: Ahmad Akbarzadeh, Tahereh Esfahani, Bagher Forohar, Shahrokh Taslimi, Rahim Zamani
Synopsis: Invoking the subversive urgency of cinema vérité, filmmaker Hossein Keshavarz interweaves the lives of seven young people in contemporary Iran. Misunderstood by their families and oppressed by conservative Islamic society, they act out their personal desires behind closed doors. A feminist finds herself in an affair with a married man; new lovers search for a place to be physically intimate; a gay man is pressured to leave his partner for an arranged marriage; a female pop singer risks exposure; and a grief-stricken son lashes out at fundamentalists.

Keshavarz’s film debut is certain to trigger conversation about the contradictions brewing within contemporary Iran, where two-thirds of the population is under thirty. This covert society, forced to operate without government sanctions, is bravely brought into the sunlight by Dog Sweat, which displays a side of Iranian life virtually unseen by the outside world. Shot clandestinely in Tehran—a risky endeavor for the cast and crew—this provocative film provides the new generation of Iranians a fervent voice of rebellion. 

A Village Called Versailles, Film

Directed by S. Leo Chiang
Starring: Father Vien Nguyen, Mimi Nguyen, Minh Nguyen, Ngo Minh Khang, Joel Waltzer, Cynthia Willard-Lewis
Synopsis: A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES is a full-length documentary about Versailles, a community in eastern New Orleans first settled by Vietnamese refugees. After Hurricane Katrina, Versailles residents impressively rise to the challenges by returning and rebuilding before most neighborhoods in New Orleans, only to have their homes threatened by a new government-imposed toxic landfill just two miles away. A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES recounts the empowering story of how this group of people, who had already suffered so much in their lifetime, turns a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future.   United States 2009/68 min Director:  S. Leo Chiang Cast: Father Vien Nguyen, Mimi Nguyen, Minh Nguyen, Ngo Minh Khang, Joel Waltzer, Cynthia Willard-Lewis AIFP Guest: S. Leo Chiang.

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Bombay Summer, Film

Directed by Joseph Mathew-Varghese
Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Jatin Goswami, Samrat Chakrabarti, Gaurv Dwivedi
Synopsis: Bombay Summer explores the fleeting friendship between three young people and its eventual disintegration in the face of betrayal and personal loss. At the center of the story is Geeta, a young, middle-class woman, adept at balancing the needs of family and life in modern India. She is in the middle of a secret affair with Jaidev, a struggling writer who comes from a rich, traditional family. Their lives take a dramatic turn when they befriend a young migrant, Madan. Even though they come from different backgrounds, the three bond as friends. Interweaving stories of their personal lives, the film follows their journey of self-discovery and loss. United States 2009/102 min. Director: Joseph Mathew-Varghese Cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Jatin Goswami, Samrat Chakrabarti, Gaurv Dwivedi AIFP Guest: Joseph Mathew-Varghese.

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Prince Of Broadway, Film

Directed by Sean Baker
Starring: Prince Adu, Karren Karagulian, Aiden Noesi, Keyali Mayaga
Synopsis: PRINCE OF BROADWAY is the story of Lucky and Levon, two men whose lives converge in the underbelly of New York's wholesale fashion district. Lucky, an illegal immigrant from Ghana, makes ends meet by soliciting shoppers on the street with knock-off brand merchandise. Levon, an Armenian-Lebanese immigrant, operates an illegal storefront with a concealed back room where counterfeit goods are showcased to interested shoppers. Lucky's world is suddenly turned upside down when a child is thrust into his life by a woman who insists the toddler is his son. While Lucky copes with his new domestic dilemma, Levon struggles to save a marriage that is falling apart. The seedy side of the wholesale district is revealed through a journey that continually confronts the interplay between what is fake and what is real.  United States 2008/102 min. Director:  Sean Baker Cast: Prince Adu, Karren Karagulian, Aiden Noesi, Keyali Mayaga AIFP Guest: Karren Karagulian (lead actor).

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The People I've Slept With, Film

Directed by Quentin Lee
Starring: Karin Anna Cheung, Wilson Cruz, Archie Kao, Lynn Chen
Synopsis: THE PEOPLE I'VE SLEPT WITH portrays a promiscuous woman who finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy and needs to figure out who the baby's daddy is...NOW. Angela Yang loves sex. She loves it so much she needs to make baseball cards of her lovers to help her remember where she's been. She doesn't think twice about her lifestyle until she finds out that she's pregnant. Her gay best friend, Gabriel Lugo, tells her to "take care of it," but her conservative sister, Juliet, persuades Angela to get married to the baby's father and lead a "normal" life like her. Angela listens to her sister, chooses to keep the baby, and goes on a quest to find the identity of the father by any means necessary. Canada, Hong Kong 2009/100 min. Director: Quentin Lee Cast: Karin Anna Cheung, Wilson Cruz, Archie Kao, Lynn Chen AIFP Guest: Quentin Lee.

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White On Rice, Film

Directed by Dave Boyle
Starring: Hiroshi Watanabe, Nae, Mio Takada, Lynn Chen, James Kyson Lee, Justin Kwong, Joy Osmanski
Synopsis: Jimmy is 40, divorced, and shares a bunk bed with his 10-year-old nephew. For most men, this state of affairs would be ego-crushing, but Jimmy is strangely unperturbed. Despite an utter lack of social finesse, he embarks on an enthusiastic mission to replace his ex-wife with someone better. Assisted by his suave friend Tim, he wrangles dates with all the women in his office (without success) and completely flubs a set-up arranged by his sister Aiko. But worst of all, his carefree attitude provokes the ire of Aiko's straight-laced husband, Tak, who is quickly losing patience with Jimmy's freeloading. Jimmy hardly seems to notice, and when Tak's beautiful niece Ramona comes to visit, he begins to court her shamelessly. In addition to reading her diary, he pays his nephew to draw her portrait (passing it off as his own), and tries to give her a ride by breaking into Tak's car. Finally, when Jimmy shirks his responsibility to the family in order to follow Ramona to a party, the resulting mayhem causes everyone to take another look at how they relate to one another. United States 2009/86 min. Director: Dave Boyle Cast: Hiroshi Watanabe, Nae, Mio Takada, Lynn Chen, James Kyson Lee, Justin Kwong, Joy Osmanski AIFP Guest: Hiroshi Watanabe (lead actor).

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Chief, Film

Directed by Brett Wagner
Synopsis: Semu Fatutoa is a highly ranked Samoan chief who passes his days behind the wheel of a taxi in Honolulu, transporting tourists and businesspeople to and from the airport. His legs, which he keeps hidden from view, tell the story of why he fled his ancestral village. On them are the ceremonial tattoos that mark him for life as a leader among his people. To him, however, they are the symbols of personal tragedy. For as he lay recovering from the painful ritual, too weak to move, his nine-year-old daughter drowned in the ocean. Blaming the tattoos for his inability to save her, Semu has spent the last two years driving, essentially in circles.

Those circles begin to close in on him via a series of events. A mysterious Samoan has been staking out his apartment in Waikiki, calling him on the phone, following him home from the beach. Why? More frightening is the earthquake that has struck the Big Island, and which threatens to unleash a tsunami on Honolulu. Everyone is leaving the city; but not Semu. Why not? He has become transfixed by a young Hawaiian girl, around his daughter's age, who he has seen wandering the city in her bathing suit. Twice in the same day she has crossed his path; twice he has watched her go by. But try as he might, he cannot ignore the sense that her appearance is a message to him, one he must answer, even as a wall of water looms over the city. Together, these circumstances conspire to force Semu to reclaim his responsibilities as Chief.

Filmmaker Profile: Brett Wagner directed Chief, starring real-life Samoan chief Sielu Avea. Born on the island of Savaii, Samoa, Avea has introduced the world to fa'asamoa, the Samoan way, and may be familiar to audiences from his appearances on Oprah Winfrey, The Tonight Show, and MTV and BBC television. Wagner's first movie, Five Years, was named Best Feature Film at the Victoria Independent Film Festival and received the Best Screenplay award at the Avignon Film Festival. Chief is garnering equal acclaim, having won Best Dramatic Short Award at the recent Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. It is the first Hawaiian-made movie to premiere at a Sundance Film Festival, and was named by IndieWire as one of the ten must-see shorts there. Chief is scheduled to premiere in Oahu at the Hawaiian International Film Festival in October. Wagner, who earned his MFA from New York University, is currently at work on a script for Terrence Malick's production company.

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Long Story Short, Film

Directed by Christine Choy
Synopsis: Long Story Short recounts the professional lives of Larry and Trudie Long, a pioneering Asian American vaudevillian couple of the forties and fifties, whose popularity on the Chinatown nightclub circuit eventually wins them a spot on The Ed Sullivan Show, then the pinnacle of recognition in show business. Their daughter, actress Jodi Long, who wrote and narrates the documentary, is moved to record her parents’ memories and experiences when she wins a part in the Broadway revival of “Flower Drum Song” - her father appeared in the original production forty years earlier. The film also chronicles the behind-the-scenes struggle of the pair to forgive the injustices suffered by Asian Americans during World War II, a particularly difficult problem for Trudie, who was incarcerated in Japanese internment camps. Theirs is a tale of fortitude, to overcome and to challenge media stereotypes, and what it often costs personally to leave behind a legacy of positive change.

Filmmaker Profile: Filmmaker Christine Choy has received more than sixty international awards for her work in film, including an Oscar nomination in 1989 for Best Documentary for Who Killed Vincent Chin? and Best Cinematography award for My America…Or Honk if You Love Buddha at the 1997 Sundance International Film Festival. Shanghai-born Choy trained as an architect before shifting gears entirely and moving to LA, where she earned her Directing Certificate from the American Film Institute. To date, she has more than seventy works in various formats to her credit, which have appeared on HBO, PBS, the Sundance Channel, Lifetime, NHK, and many other stations. Her films have been shown worldwide, at festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Hong Kong, and Pusan, as well as the Asian American International Festivals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. In her companion career as educator, Choy is the founding director of School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and a member of the Project Vetting Committee of the Film Development Fund, Hong Kong.  Her teaching credentials include New York University’s Graduate Film/TV Program, Yale and Cornell Universities, and SUNY–Buffalo. Choy can now count among her film accolades the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the 2008 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival for Long Story Short.

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Ocean of Pearls, Film

Directed by Sarah Neelam
Synopsis: Ocean of Pearls is the story of a young Sikh doctor struggling with the inequities of the American Health System and ultimately his own identity. Directed by Sarab S. Neelam

Prince of the Himalayas, Film

Directed by Sherwood Hu
Synopsis: An adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of the Himalayas takes as its dramatic backdrop the majesty and mystery of the Tibetan landscape. It is here, in Kingdom Jiabo, where Prince Lhamoklodan returns after hearing of his father's sudden and unexplained death. As disturbing to him is that his mother, Queen Nanm, has already been remarried - to his uncle Kulo-ngam - who has usurped the throne. The young prince, and rightful heir, becomes determined to learn the truth of his father's death and take revenge. As his obsession begins to menace his spirit, it also casts a shadow over his love for Odsaluyang. Finally, as he threatens his uncle, the new king, at sword-point, his anguished mother tells Prince Lhamoklodan what he must know in order to face his destiny and reclaim his title.

Filmmaker Profile: Shanghai-born Sherwood Hu directed and co-wrote Prince of the Himalayas, his third feature film. Also adapted as a play, the script had a successful run on the stage in Shanghai, and was selected for the 9th Shanghai International Arts Festival. Hu's first feature film, Warrior Lanling, an epic ritual film about ancient China, took the opposite route, evolving from a stage production, "The Legend of Prince Lanling." It received an Honorable Mention from the Kennedy Arts Center. Hu's second film, Lani Loa: The Passage, one of the first U.S./China co-productions, was executive-produced by Francis Ford Coppola and Wayne Wang. Hu has also directed a forty-episode television series, Purple Jade, for China Central Television. Hu received his Masters of Arts degree from the State University of New York and his PhD in directing from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Following an apprenticeship at The Public Theater in New York under Joseph Papp, he began his professional career directing theater productions, including "Rashomon," "Consant Prince," and "The Chairman's Wife." Hu's film work has not weakened his strong connection to live theater - among his recent stage directing credits are A.R. Gurney's "Sylvia," Jean-Paul Sartre's "Dirty Hands," and a modern ballet called "Shakespeare and His Women." Hu has also come out from behind the camera to perform in the lead role of Song Liling in several productions of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly.

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Someplace Else, Film

Directed by Kai-Duc Luong
Synopsis: Someplace Else is a moving self-portrait of director Kai-Duc Luong, recorded in film-journal form as he transitions from his corporate job, which he quits after realizing its benefits have lost much of their value to him, to what he hopes will be creative fulfillment and a sense of purpose. Co-directed by Avisheh Mohsenin, Someplace Else is also a tenderhearted journey through the blues - the director's melancholy - symbolized by the music of acclaimed Chicago soul-blues singer and guitarist Vance "Candylicking" Kelly. Luong's thoughtful ruminations on where he has been and where he is going are interspersed with evocative images of the Windy City and footage of Kelly and his Backstreet Blues Band. Someplace Else is something else in filmmaking, blending documentary and personal reflection.

Filmmaker Profile: Director, screenwriter, and editor Kai-Duc Luong's own journey to creative fulfillment was a long one. Born in Phnom-Penh, Cambodia, at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge tyranny, he survived the killing fields and, still an infant, was taken to Paris shortly after his father's death. In France, he studied for the Grandes Ecoles before coming to the United States in 1997 as an exchange engineering graduate student. But his version of the American dream did not feature engineering; since childhood, Luong knew he wanted to be a filmmaker. He has been living that dream for the past 11 years, currently in Chicago. In addition to Someplace Else, Luong's other directing credits are Vacant, The Texture of Time, and Sami and Binx.

Someplace Else co-director Avisheh Mohsenin also has followed a circuitous path to her creative career. Born in Grenoble, France, she moved with her parents and sister to Tehran, Iran, in 1976, and so endured the years of the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Twenty-plus years later, she came to the United States to undertake graduate studies in Economics. Her lifelong dream, however, was to create art - in particular, contemporary photography. She considers herself a self-taught photographer who lives a parallel life as an economic consultant.

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Vietnam Overtures, Film

Directed by Stephane Gauger
Synopsis: Vietnam Overtures is a documentary about a rescue; but unlike most rescue stories from that embattled country, this one is about the recovery of a centuries-old classical music tradition, another casualty of the long war there. Through a program called Transposition, initiated in Norway in 2005 and launched in 2007, and in association with four Vietnamese institutions - the Ha Noi Conservatory of Music, the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra, the HCM City's Conservatory of Music, and the HCM City Opera and Symphony Orchestra - the classical music scene in Vietnam is getting a much-needed helping hand. Director Stephane Gauger chronicles the musical dialogue between these Vietnamese and Norwegian conservatories, as they work together to prove again that music is, indeed, a universal language.

Filmmaker Profile: Born in Saigon and raised in Orange County, California, Stephane Gauger's first feature film, Owl and the Sparrow, won nine awards in 2007, including the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Best Narrative Feature at the San Francisco, San Diego, and Dallas Asian Film Festivals. Gauger has also received nominations for Breakthrough Director at the Gotham Awards in New York and the John Cassavates Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Educated in theater and French literature, Gauger's love of cinema took him from the stage to film sets; he apprenticed in film lighting under Matty Libatique, ASC, and worked in the camera and lighting departments on independent films in the United States and Southeast Asia, including Sundance winner Three Seasons. Also a writer, Gauger served as storywriter and second unit director on Powder Blue, a drama about four disconnected loners in the urban landscape of Los Angeles.

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Finishing the Game, Film

Directed by Justin Lin
Starring: Dustin Nguyen
Synopsis: Bruce Lee's shocking and untimely death in 1973 threatened to sink the completion of his passion project, GAME OF DEATH. Undaunted, Hollywood executives immediately began a frantic search for a replacement to slide into the yellow jumpsuit. FINISHING THE GAME is thestory of how it all happened. Or rather, how Justin Lin and his writing partner, Josh Diamond, imagined it happened. And out came a crafty, knockout comedy (or "faux documentary," as the director calls it) that is as much a biting Hollywood satire as it is an insightful study on racial representation. Slyly employing a cinema vérité style, the film follows a motley group of Bruce Lee­wannabes as they audition to be the next big kung fu star. Apparently, every male has an inner Bruce Lee, regardless of their shape, size and color: there's the self­absorbed Breeze Loo, actor of B­films like Fists of Führer and Exit the Serpent; Raja, a South Asian doctor­turned­stunt double; and Tarrick Tyler, who's actually half­white, but fancies himself an advocate for the Chinese community. Asthey go through round after round of humiliating auditions and cattle­calls, who among them will be the first to reach the finishing line?

Filmmaker: Justin Lin is a Taiwanese­American film director who was born in Taipei and raised in Buena Park, California. He attended UCLA School of Film and Television where he earned a B.A. and M.F.A. in film directing. His solo directorial debut, BETTER LUCK TOMORROW, made a huge impact with critics and fans alike and was acquired by MTV Films. His second film was ANNAPOLIS, the Navy boxing drama starring James Franco and Tyrese. His next film, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT, was an action movie that revealed the world of Japanese "drift" racing and became a box office success. In the fall of 2007, LVHIFF will present the Hawaii premiere of Lin's latest film, FINISHING THE GAME, which he wrote and directed.

Owl and the Sparrow, Film

Directed by Stephane Gauger
Synopsis: OWL AND THE SPARROW opens with the harsh words of a factory owner in rural Vietnam to Thuy (Pham Thi Han), his orphaned ten-year-old niece. Threateningly waving the bamboo blinds she has mis­measured, he tells her "You are useless." Thuy runs away and finds work and friends within a network of child laborers in the city. There, she finds her canny perception of grown­up needs and desires useful to her new friends, Mr. Hai (Le The Lu), a zookeeper, and Lan(Cat Ly), a flight attendant. Matching his uncommon sensitivity to her solitary independence, Thuy puts together a new family from the compassion and companionship they find in each other.

Filmmaker: Born in Vietnam and raised in Orange County, California, Stephane Gauger received a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre and French literature. His love of cinema then moved him away from the stage and onto film sets, where he trained in film lighting under Matthew Libatique, ASC. Mr. Gauger subsequently worked in the camera and lighting departments on independent films in the U.S. and Southeast Asia (including Sundance winner THREE SEASONS), all while honing his writing and directing craft on short narrative and documentary films. OWL AND THE SPARROW was his first feature.

The GateKeeper of Enmyoin, Film

Directed by Reiko Tahara and Max Uesugi
Synopsis: When she is seven years old, Teijun Ogawa is given to a Shingon Buddhist temple. Cutoff from her family, she becomes a rare niso (female priest) and, eventually, builds her own temple, Enmyoin, in rural Southwestern Japan. Over eighty years later, the proud niso shares her story with U.S.­based Japanese filmmaker, Reiko Tahara. Intrigued by Teijun's seemingly free spirit, Reiko looks to her for guidance as she reflects upon her own journey for freedom—as an immigrant, a wife, and a mother (she is married to the film's co­producer and co­director, Max Uesugi). What she does not expect is that the niso steadfastly refuses to share her view as a woman—it's as if the subject is taboo—and she dies before filming is completed. Even more miraculously, Teijun managed to find a young woman to head her temple after her death. When Reiko revisits Enmyoin to find Teijun's unspoken feelings, the film shifts from a simple portrait to a genre­bending detective documentary with rich narrative flavor and spiritual sustenance, offering a fascinating glimpse into female priesthood in male­dominant Japanese Buddhist culture.

Filmmaker: After emigrating from Japan, Reiko Tahara and Max Uesugi founded Mrex Productions in 1994­­a collaborative filmmaking partnership based on a strong belief in thepower of media to promote mutual understanding and learning among people. Their short film, REMNANTS (1995), was shown at many festivals including SXSW, the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival and the NY Asian American International Film Festival.

The Rebel, Film

Directed by Charlie Nguyen
Synopsis: THE REBEL is one of Vietnam's first big­budget blockbusters, and it has it all: drama, intrigue, revolution, romance, and thrilling martial arts choreography. Cuong is a government agent employed by the French colonists in 1920s Vietnam to brutally suppress Vietnamese nationalist rebels. Cuong is ably and athletically portrayed by rising martial arts star Johnny Nguyen. Troubled by his conscience, Cuong betrays his cruel employers and goes on the run with afierce young insurgent girl, played by beautiful Vietnamese pop star/model/actress Ngo Thanh Van. Their flight leads to a number of kinetic and bone­crunching martial arts battles. The film climaxes in atragic confrontation between peasants with farm tools and soldiers with rifles, the significance ofwhich is unlikely to be lost on anyone familiar with our own nation's involvement in the war to come.

Filmmaker: Born in Vietnam and now based in Orange County, California, director/producer Charlie Nguyen created Cinema Pictures in 1992 and released his first feature, HUONG VUONG 18TH, in 1994. The film, which was entirely self­funded, combined history and drama with martial arts. Since then, he has produced and directed hundreds of music videos, short films, documentaries and live concerts in cities worldwide. His credits include CHANCES ARE (director, producer), FINDING MADISON (producer), and THE REBEL (director).