It's a sunny and unusually warm day in Park City, Utah the Friday before Barack Obama is set to be sworn in as our country's next President, and somewhere in the lobby of the Park City Marriott, I'm having a brief conversation with Juli Kang, a friend and former member of our Film Festival's programming team who now works for the Sundance Film Festival. Currently a member of the team charged with overseeing the execution of the feature film competitions and showcases, Juli asks me what films by Asian American or Asian filmmakers I was planning to go see this week.
"Uh, I wasn't planning to see many Juli. I've already seen most of them, or we're already screened many of them for Film Fest consideration."
Feigning incredulity, Juli retorts in mock disgust, "Then why are you even here, Abe?"
"Juli...why, indeed?"
The two of us laughed in mutual recognition of the absurdity of my attending what is arguably the preeminent film festival for independent cinema with no plans or apparent intentions of watching anything by people of "our" communities. Walking back to the condo in the mid-morning sun, I still couldn't help but laugh to myself at my offhanded remark...as friends for many years, Juli saw my comments coming from a mile away and wasn't in the least bit fazed. I suspect, as a former programming colleague at Visual Communications, she was well aware of the subtext behind my diss: in a lot of cases, if you see a film at Sundance in January, chances are that you are already behind the curve. The task of tracking, vetting, and inviting potential programming selections for an event like The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival begins long before the World, International, or even local premiere. For instance, veteran Chinese director Zhang Yuan's DADA'S DANCE was first espied by me at the Pusan International Film Festival back in October; while Tze Chun's CHILDREN OF INVENTION was already in the works for the better part of last year -- an expansion of his 2007 Sundance short film WINDOWBREAKER, Chun's film was no secret to Asian Pacific American cinema insiders, nor to the many webbies who've visited his Facebook page. So, the behind-the-scenes work of scouting out noteworthy programming selections has already been in-progress. And for quite a long time.
So, what the hell AM I doing here in Park City, Utah, anyway?
Well, for one thing, to support our communities' artists. As I've done every year since 2002, I'm here along with other VC staffers and media arts colleagues to organize and host the 8th edition of the Park City Asian Pacific American Film Experience, a pro-active effort to bring our artists to the attention of Sundance and Slamdance Film Festival goers. Besides Tze (whose WINDOWBREAKER played our Film Festival in 2007) past, present, and (perhaps) future Festival alumni with works at Sundance include Jessica Yu (THE KINDA SUTRA) and Kimi Takesue (SUSPENDED); longtime patrons to our Film Festival may remember that even director Zhang himself was represented by the much-lauded BEIJING BASTARDS in 1994 and SONS in 1995. And on the Slamdance side, JP Chan explains (somewhat) all those past shorts featuring meat cleavers with I DON'T SLEEP I DREAM; while VCers are especially proud of Jerry Chan, an alum of the organization's innovative Armed With a Camera Fellowship whose 2007 AWC project DJ:LA plays in Slamdance's Anarchy Online section.
The other, more slippery reason for being here has a lot to do with the Sundance selections themselves. As a film festival devoted to some measure of diversity and inclusion in its program line-up, I'm disappointed, but not so surprised, at the relatively small number of Asian Pacific works invited to screen at this year's event. By now, I've stopped bitching and moaning so much over it, instead preferring to promote our own Film Festival set for this Spring and to support our artists already here (and who already know I'm in town). Instead, I've determined to try something a bit different this time out: my plan for Sundance 2009 is to take in works by non-Asian filmmakers and guage whether I can find a sense of indentification, of universality, with the selections I screen. I wonder, are the themes and issues explored by Asian Pacific Americans through cinema a shared experience with African American, Latino, Arab, and other disenfranchised communities, much less those of privileged maistream audiences? And in turn, will a jaded Asian Pacific American film festival co-director and programmer like me find a shared communal identification with disparate stories from other ethnic communities and the dominant culture here in America? I'm only here for five days, and already there are roadblocks in my way: the APA Film Experience Reception, the stack of feature-length screeners of submissions to our Film Festival that I brought with me and absolutely need to get through before my return to L.A.; and my previously stated intention of watching the Inauguration of Barack, Da Hawai'i Kine, as our first truly 21st Century U.S. President next Tuesday. It's gonna be daunting, but we'll see how far I get. Juli, wish me luck...
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