Each year, TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to support the premier Asian American Film Festival in San Francisco. CAAM Fest, the Center for Asian American Media’s annual festival features not only amazing works in film, TV, and digital media, but now also includes showcases in music and food. This festival is a treasure trove of great Asian American works from established as well as emerging talent.
This year, we proudly co-present four films during this 10 day festival. We invite you to join TaiwaneseAmerican.org in supporting Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans filmmakers, actors, and artists. We’re particularly proud of our Taiwanese American friends, Theresa Chiu, writer/producer for Love Arcadia, and Marilyn Fu, screenwriter for The Sisterhood of Night, whom we have been following and supporting since the start of their projects!
Check out the links below, and be sure to join us at one of the screenings!
LOVE ARCADIA
Screening Dates/Times:
March 14, 2015 7:10 pm @ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
March 19, 2015 9:30 pm @ New People Cinema, San Francisco, CA
March 22, 2015 1:00 pm @ New Parkway Theater, Oakland, CA
Read more. Buy tickets here: http://caamfest.com/2015/films/love-arcadia/
Directed by Lawrence Gan / USA / 2014 / 99 mins / English, Mandarin / World Premiere
To be worth a love song, an ode, a nod to utopia, a city must be something truly special. Director Lawrence Gan paints Arcadia, CA, with sun-washed hues of laughter, good food and equal parts escapism and homesickness. Home to the San Gabriel Mountains, peacocks and bubble tea shops, LOVE ARCADIA tells the tale of one particular tea shop and the love-struck teen who calls it home. When his family business is faced with displacement by a young and beautiful real estate mogul, Jake (Anthony Ma) must come to terms with the possibility of losing his home away from home and all the faces that make it hard to let go. In its world premiere, LOVE ARCADIA tells a classic coming-of-age story with heart — by way of boba straw — that explores the lessons of holding on, letting go and loving with what you got.
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Screening Dates/Times:
March 13, 2015 9:40 pm @ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
March 16, 2015 9:20 pm @ New People Cinema, San Francisco, CA
Read more. Buy tickets here: http://caamfest.com/2015/films/partners-in-crime/
Directed by Chang Jung-chi / Taiwan / 2014 / 89 mins / Mandarin with English subtitles / San Francisco Premiere
Three vastly different teenagers — Huang, Yeh and Lin — attend the same school but barely know each other. On their way to school, they inadvertently discover the bloodied body of Hsia, a well-off schoolmate whose alleged suicide seems suspicious. As the boys set out to uncover clues and right wrongs on her behalf, they unwittingly become accomplices to something perhaps more mysterious and sinister: adolescent friendship. A dark tale of personal secrets and public tragedies, PARTNERS IN CRIME touches upon the manifestations of teenage bullying, isolation and imagination in today’s world, where virtual interactions are becoming the norm. Moreover, this film cleverly portrays the unlikely bonds forming between the inscrutable Huang, bookish Lin and “bad boy” Yeh, all while following the form of a compelling mystery novel. While Chang Jung-chi’s sophomore feature is a sobering departure from his uplifting debut about a young blind pianist, TOUCH OF THE LIGHT (CAAMFest ’13), his keen observations about contemporary youth and his skillful storytelling continue to make him one of the most interesting voices of young Taiwanese cinema.
THE SISTERHOOD OF NIGHT
Screening Dates/Times:
March 13, 2015 7:00 pm @ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
March 14, 2015 5:45 pm @ Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
March 16, 2015 9:10 pm @ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
Read more. Buy tickets here: http://caamfest.com/2015/films/sisterhood-of-night/
Directed by Caryn Waechter / USA / 2014 / 103 mins / English / U.S. Premiere
The friendship between three high school girls leads to a series of increasingly dangerous events, pulling their families and community into a dark spiral of suspicion, fear and ultimately, redemption. Despite its focus on “scary” teen girls, high school cliques and gossip, this is no ordinary teen film. Chronicling a fictional modern-day witch-hunt in a sleepy small town, SISTERHOOD pulls together a wide variety of cultural and historical touchstones, from the Salem witch trials to cyberbullying, to show the power of silence and finding a voice. Its timely narrative explores the ambivalence and disconnectedness of our mediated selves and suggests that breaking away from our collective addiction to online personhood can be profoundly liberating. The excellent cast brings warmth and humor to the occasionally troubling story, and the joy and empowerment that the titular sisterhood evokes lends a sense of hope to temper the film’s dark tone. Based on a short story by Steven Millhauser (THE ILLUSIONIST), this is an exciting first feature from director Caryn Waechter and screenwriter Marilyn Fu.
LA SALADA
Screening Dates/Times:
March 15, 2015 5:30 pm @ Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
March 17, 2015 7:30 pm @ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
March 22, 2015 2:30 pm @ New Parkway Theater, Oakland, CA
Read more. Buy tickets here: http://caamfest.com/2015/films/la-salada/
Directed by Juan Martin Hsu / Argentina / 2014 / 88 mins / Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Quechan, Spanish with English subtitles
Argentina’s bustling La Salada, an enormous discount market just outside of Buenos Aires, provides the nucleus for Juan Martín Hsu’s understated directorial debut. His ensemble cast is comprised of Korean, Taiwanese and Bolivian immigrants, whose experiences converge and dance parallel to one another with equal parts poignancy and humor. Mr. Kim is a successful clothing vendor and a real “Koreano-Koreano,” who must grapple with his daughter Yunjin’s growing disinterest in her Korean fiancé. Bruno, a newly arrived, undocumented Bolivian immigrant, strikes up an unlikely friendship with his employer, Mr. Kim. Huang sells pirated DVDs by day and slips into a routine insomnia at night, characterized by a longing for his native Taiwan and melancholy at home in a Wong Kar-wai film. Hsu’s myopic view illuminates the painful middle ground that all immigrants inhabit, teetering between borders and across chasms. His vision is rendered most acutely in the literal echo that accompanies Huang’s phone calls home — a hope that pain and desire will be read in between syllables and silences, and perhaps remedy us all.
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