FEBRUARY 2009: Back From Europe, Pt. 1

A number of weeks back, I took a close look at the works that came in through our Open Call as well as the works we solicited from various film festivals around the world and came to the conclusion that in order to make our programming truly special, I was going to have to take a week out of February, when the bulk of our programming decisions would be made and confirmed, and travel once again to Germany to seek out works (and in select cases, lock down confirmations that were "sitting on the fence") at the European Film Market and the Berlinale, or Berlin International Film Festival. The decision to travel into another cold weather film festival so soon after enduring the biting cold and lukewarm offering of the Sundance Film Festival was not taken lightly: since we decided five years ago that trekking to South Korea in the fall to attend the Pusan International Film Festival to seek out new works was a more productive business itinerary for me, I've always found myself looking towards Europe to see what the programmers of the Berlinale were up to. Though not primarily known as a film festival that focusses on Asian international cinema the way that PIFF does, the Berlinale nevertheless offers a daring, if slim, profile of new Asian cinema; and through its complementary European Film Market, a gathering place to discover new works in an environment decidedly more intense and frenzied than the main Festival itself.

Though I've attended events in the past few months that, on paper, should have yielded a crop of new selections, the fact is that such selections can't be guaranteed to possess a long shelf life. Some works are quickly swept up into "distributor hell" and long-term "festival strategies" (a common code that exposes a producer's wishes that their work is deserving of mainstream festival exposure, at the expense of the less obvious dividends that specialty film festivals such as ours can yield); while other times, selections I was initially excited about just don't hold up well. The reality is that year after year there will always be that crop of programming "spoils," and in order to minimize the prospect that our committee would be obliged to select from a crop of so-called "leftovers," I made the decision to trek to Berlin and see if the new works that emerged subsequent to our jaunt through the American Film Market in November and Sundance in mid-January would be accessible to us.

Another, stressful reason for going had to do with securing works I saw last October at PIFF, when they weren't yet screened but in final-cut stages. Since then I made some invitation for select films only to discover that they have been indeed invited to Berlinale and its heavyweight precursor, the International Film Festival Rotterdam. So, my mission was simple: secure the films that may fall through the cracks, and view brand-new works that could possibly make it into our program in May.

As I'm writing this entry on the plane on the way back from Berlin (the Festival just concluded a couple of hours ago, according to the clock on my laptop), I'm still processing the week that was, and will be sending off follow-up letters in the next day to take care of the final details.

FEBRUARY 2009: That "Question" Again

It's been a couple of weeks since my return from Park City, and the question of whether I find any identification in mainstream stories (and even more pressing, if I can look past the cultural "exotica" factor) has remained a nagging one. One night, in between screenings, I explain my activities to Ellen Park, who manages the Media Fund for San Francisco's Center for Asian American Media. I mention my ever-present struggle with reconciling support for our communities' APA makers regardless of subject matter versus those mainstream directors and producers who create stories that purport to give a "face" to diasporic and overseas Asian communities and peoples -- these days, I guess the question has taken on the identity of The "Slumdog" Question, given that very famous film that's screaming out "Oscar me!" lately.

I find that Ellen also faces such conflicts at her work, particularly since she finds herself in the position of considering projects by mostly white directors who locate their stories in Asian themes and locales. We agree that, all around, the question is a tricky one, and at some point we're bound to leave someone dissatisfied or unhappy with our decisions, both from the funding side (Ellen) to the exhibition and promotion side (me). I leave that question to hang for the time being, as I leave to attend a midnight screening of the documentary GOOD HAIR.

As Sundance soldiers on without me (I leave midway through the Festival, without a clue as to how the rest of the week turns out), I ponder the effects that "visions and perspective" inform the remaining works I take in. The most challenging, the documentary EL GENERAL by Natalia Almada, attempts to stitch together the fragments of the directors vague recollections of her grandfather, a politician who became Mexico's President in the late 1920s. I say "challenging" because I was obliged to screen the film on a Sunday night, the worst possible time to view a work that demands the viewer's utmost attention. "Challenging, too, for its daring storytelling structure: starting with halting recollections by the director's mother recorded before her death, the audio tapes yield grudging insight into a father/mother relationship, and it is left to a pastiche of audio, interviews, and astounding archival footage to tell the story. Were I attentive enough to really watch the film, I would have to say that EL GENERAL is the most absorbing documentary I've seen in a long time.

Far more problematic was GOOD HAIR, a documentary produced by a team led by comedian Chris Rock (the director, Jeff Stilson, and executive producers were, in fact, part of the team that created comedian Rock's HBO talk show of a few year's back). This exhaustive examination of everything to do with nappy hair finds its creative kernal in a comment that Rock's youngest daughter shares with father one night -- that she doesn't have "good hair" like the people she sees on television and advertising. This prompts father Rock of a far-flung journey around the globe to see how different societies, but the least being Black diasporic society, views black hair, styles and decorates black hair, and otherwise worships and reviles black hair. Yet something was missing from the documentary -- Rock's own children, particularly the one who raises the question in the first place. Without the kids perspectives or on-screen personages to provide any sort of counterpoint to dad's efforts (outside of a few throwaway still shots somewhere in the first ten minutes of the film -- oooh, don't blink, or you'll miss them!) the journey to GOOD HAIR is criminally incomplete, and for me, real tiresome, real quick.


For me, the most nettlesome conflict between "vision and perspective" versus "representation" played itself out during the screening of PAPER HEARTS, a "hyrid" film seemingly built for the Judd Apatow Generation. Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec, the film is in many respects the creation of its screenwriter and executive producer, a comedian named Charlyne Yi who made her mark as one of the background "buddies" in the comedy KNOCKED UP. A cockeyed romance built around Yi's documentary footage seeking the answers to why people are fearful of love (and why she herself resists throwing aside her exterior smarminess for true love), I came away wondering if the narrative love story (devised by Yi and director after observing that she constantly insinuates herself into the documentary footage) was more the director's doing; or if director Jasenovec's role was subservient to serving Yi's story. I dunno. The film received big enough laughs from the audience I sat through it with, but I'm not easily swayed. PAPER HEARTS is a work of very manneristic filmmaking, and weeks later, I'm still debating in my head whether this was a work of genuine guerrilla filmmaking, or some kind of big put-on.

I see Ellen in a few weeks time, though I doubt that with a film festival of her own to work on in San Francisco she'll have time to sit down and play back with me that conversation we had that night. No doubt, The "Slumdog" Question will hound her as she sifts through another round of funding applications later this year, in the naked light of day.