Boston Independent Film Festival 2008
Boston is not often recognized as one of those cities where a lot of cultural stuff happens, but you know cultural stuff does happen. Boston, a city with about a population of 590,763 (Greater Boston has a population of 4.4 million), is not exactly a New York City or Los Angeles in terms of “cultural happenings” especially with regards to “Asian” stuff. However, don’t be too quick to dismiss the Bean. Case in point is the 2008 rendition of the Boston Independent Film Festival which runs from April 23 to 29. Check out their blog for tips on what to see.
I took a quick gander at the program and a few films and events caught my eye. I have no idea if any of these movies are any good, but you can’t always trust reviews anyway. What I’m saying is, you ought to go check the movies out for yourself. You might like a movie that someone hates. So, here are the films that caught my eye. Warning: I’m a documentary junkie.
Ping Pong Playa (96 min)
This is what one might call an “Asian American film.” In terms of genre, I think it’s like a dramedy. The movie is about Christopher “C-Dub” Wang, a suburban guy who wears his Asian American identity on his sleeve and dreams of playing pro basketball. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and his worldly older brother, to run his Mom’s ping pong classes and defend the family’s athletic dynasty.
Directed by Jessica Yu, the reviews I’ve seen are mixed, so if you don’t like ping pong, you probably won’t like it. But if you’re name isn’t Oliver Wang and you think supporting Asian American films is important no matter how good the film might be, well, you might go see it anyway. The film was an entry at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and at SFIAFF 2008.
(So apparently Chinese people are good at table tennis. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about how awesome Chinese people are at ping pong and how it is creating a kerfuffle. They are so good that countries like the U.S., Canada, France, Poland, Austria, are bringing in Chinese players to represent their nations in the Olympics. If they don’t have Chinese ping pong players, how else are they going to be competitive?)
Apocalypse Oz (26 min)
I did not hear about this film until I saw it in the program guide for the film festival. The concept of the film is kind of interesting. This film is designed to be a remix of two films: APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) and THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939). The lines in the movie are “sampled” from those films. That’s hot. And the plot line sounds kind of interesting too.
Dorothy Willard, an Amerasian punk teenager, is dispatched deep into the technicolor desert with orders to track down and assassinate her absent and insane Vietnam-vet father-codenamed “The Wizard”-now the enigmatic leader of an ardent gang. Dodging the nefarious cop Sergeant Kilgore, stoned surfers, and gunfights in poppy fields, Dorothy finally confronts the Wizard in a wholly unexpected form.
One could easily think that this movie says something negative about multi-racial children of Vietnam vets, but maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Chief (20 minutes)
Pacific Islander folks often get lumped in with Asian folks. In many ways, their history and experience is much more like that of Native Americans. And by that I mean, they were forced to give up their way of life and assimilate to a Western style of living. In one word, they were colonized. This short follows the experience of a village chief of Samoa who no longer can go home. Apparently, a young Hawaiian girl seeks out his help to deal with her own tragedy. Sundance screened it this year, so it must be good right? Hopefully it won’t remind me of the displacement of indigenous people from their homes when countries like the United States decide to turn places into a tourist attraction for cough, cough… rich white and yes, Asian folks.
Frontrunner (90 minutes)
America is going through a presidential election craze. I don’t know about you, but I’ve begun to tune out all the he said, she said, all the talk about Iraq, the economy, race, class, and gender. I feel as though I’m experiencing election overload. Granted, elections are a very important part of a democracy, so I’m going to say that it is important to keep election events in mind. Nonetheless, I would be lying if I said that I’m up-to-date on the latest Obama v. Clinton v. McCain news.
This movie is about a much more historic election: the first public democratic elections in Afghanistan. Among all the candidates running for president, there was one womann: Dr. Massouda Jalal. “Coming only three years after the Taliban government’s collapse, Jalal’s courageous, uphill battle of a campaign evokes the social reform slowly starting to shape a nation undergoing massive change and unrest.”
Running for public office has got to be stressful, especially in a war-torn country that has lived under oppression (both foreign and domestic) for so long. Dr. Jalal faces more difficulties than political upheaval, since as a woman in an Islamic state, she has to confront challenges that her male opponents do not have to face. Yet, she remains optimistic and true to her mission of pacifism. I think this film is one that can inspire and one that can give me new perspectives. As a student running in the rat race of academia, I always welcome a different perspective on life.
Joy Division (96 min)
I’ll admit that I’m one of those folks who appreciate(d) New Wave music. Back in the early 90s, it seemed that I had a ton of friends who also enjoyed music by the likes of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order, Erasure… The band credited with starting it all? Joy Division.
In this documentary, filmmaker and video director Grant Gee follows the band from their formation in Manchester through their brief, explosive career, ending with Ian Curtis’s suicide. This is the second documentary in recent memory about this band.
I’d like to check this movie out since Grant Gee is fairly well-known in the music video directing world. It also includes intimate interviews with the three surviving band members—Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, who reformed as New Order (which broke up probably for the last time in June 2007). I never saw New Order perform and Joy Division was way before my time (I did see Peter Hook’s side band Monaco perform in San Francisco. You remember that song What Do You Want From Me?), so I think getting to know a little bit about music history might be instructive.
Anyhow, there are a ton of movies showing at the festival. Another one that might be appealing is the documentary about Public Enemy (Public Enermy: Welcome to the Terrordome). If it is done well, then it might be interesting, but there is really only one way to find out. Other movies that I thought might be worth watching include Ballast (drug dealing and suicide in a small Mississippi town), Kids+Money (short film about kids and money), Nerdcore Rising (nerdy/dorky hip hop), Secrecy (reminds me of the film THE CORPORATION (2003)), Very Young Girls (documentary about child prostitution in the United States), and Twelve.
There is one more event that I think is worth attending. There is going to be a cool event on Sun, Apr 27, at 2:30 at The Burren in Davis Square called Comics to Film/Films to Comics. Greg Pak (director of the indie hit ROBOT STORIES (2003) and writer of the popular comic books World War Hulk, The X-Men, and Warbound) will be talking about writing and storyboarding. What’s more exciting is that he might be giving away prizes and admission is free. Greg Pak also runs the Asian American Comics website which keeps tabs on Asian American graphic novelists and comic book writers and artists. It’s pretty dope. I’m a groupie already.
Happy Boston Marathon Day!
Last 5 posts by eugene
- Yet another post on the supratarsal fold - May 12th, 2008
- Famous Asian Americans I Want to Meet - May 6th, 2008
- As I Am: Asians In America Goes National - May 4th, 2008
- East Meets Words Welcomes Conchita Campos - April 27th, 2008
- Wherefore art thou... - April 18th, 2008
Tags: Commentary, film festival.