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MAY 5 - 7:00 p.m. • Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre
PUNCHING AT THE SUN
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Tanuj Chopra
When Mameet Nayak's older brother Sanjay is gunned down in the family convenience store, a wave of loss reverberates through Elmhurst. The neighborhood loses a local basketball legend, the family loses a dutiful first-born son, and Mameet loses a mentor and best friend. One month later, Mameet is seething with grief, confusion and adolescent nihilism. He is a benchwarmer on the basketball team, doesn't listen to his coach, and feels antagonistic towards the world at large. Along with his friends Ritesh and Parnav, he becomes a magnet for trouble, unable to suppress his fits of rage. Retreating inside a persona of teenage bravura, he becomes embroiled in a series of conflicts.
Video (Originated on 16mm) 83 minutes, color, narrative
MAY 5 - 7:15 p.m. • Directors Guild of America, Theater 3
BEAUTIFUL MEN (Ren Mian Tao Hua)
(Peoples Republic of China, 2005) Dir.: Du Haibin
Using a deceptively complex split-screen device to contemplate the issue if sexual identity, BEAUTIFUL MEN observes three drag queens, capturing their lives in and out of the drag bar. Sister Sha, the first love of the bar owner, had her first performance in the bar during the 1960s, and won't quit dancing until she turns 60. Qingqing, the famous veteran dancer, accidentally marries a woman and will soon become a father. And Xixi, the rising star, delicately maintains a relationship with his lesbian girlfriend, whom he plans to marry in order to please his parents.
Video, 100 minutes, color, documentary, in Mandarin w/E.S.
MAY 5 - 7:30 p.m. • Directors Guild of America, Theater 2
Not all stories are about the young and the restless. Here is a sampling of tales that show us where we've been, where we are and where we're going. A fascinating look at characters real and imagined who demonstrate that the best is yet to come!
TRT: 90 minutes
PAWNS OF THE KING
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Ming Lai
A World War II Zero fighter pilot (Sab Shimono), haunted by the past, is forced to confront his fears when he meets an old enemy, a US Amery 442nd soldier (Michael Yama), and plays a fateful game of chess.
Video, 18 minutes, color, narrative
VAUDEVILLE
(United States/Korea, 2005) Dir.: Chansoo Kim
Loosely based on the director's vision of Korea in the 1930s, VAUDEVILLE is a visual poem about despair, wandering and the loss of cultural identity.
Video, 5 minutes, color, animation
GOING FOR HONOR, GOING FOR BROKE: THE 442 STORY
(United States, 2005) Dir.: George Johnston
GOING FOR BROKE, GOING FOR HONOR: THE 442 STORY gives a concise overview of the achievements and the eventual impact of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated U.S. Army unit comprised mostly of Japanese Americans.
Video, 16 minutes, color, documentary
GRANDMA'S RECIPE
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Imelda Betiong
Milan Gomez, a down-to-earth sweet grandmother, is obsessed with winning the coveted Honolulu Dessert Contest. For the past four straight years, Milan loses to her ruthless neighbor, Betty Lau, a brass, cocky woman who has the upper-hand because of a secret ingredient. When Milan finds out Betty's secret ingredient, Milan's faced with a moral dilemma-will she cheat to win or will she do the right thing?
Video, 21 minutes, color, narrative
GOLD MOUNTAIN BALLAD
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Cecilia J. Pang
A Chinese Opera icon gives up fame and fortune in her homeland to move to the United States for artistic freedom in pursuit of the American dream. This is a highly personal human interest film which intends to invoke the world of a group of immigrant artists with juxtaposing their off-stage life against their dramatic transformations on stage.
Video, 30 minutes, color, documentary
MAY 5 - 9:45 p.m. • Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre
This is a must-see program that captures a slew of deliriously desperate situations. From the American soldier in Iraq, to the criminal getaway driver, to an illegal immigrant sneaking into the U.S.-each person struggles to survive in the face of a situation where there appears to be no exit.
TRT: 89 minutes
LOS COYOTES
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Lee Isaac Chung
A gang's first attempt at immigrant smuggling involves bringing a Mexican boy to his father, but instead they get stranded in the desert.
Video, 21 minutes, color, narrative, in Spanish w/E.S.
WINNING THE PEACE
(United States, 2004) Dir.: Eli Akira Kaufman
WINNING THE PEACE is the story of an Iraqi American Marine on a personal crusade to redeem his place of birth. Ultimately his moral imperative to torment the wicked and save the aggrieved proves untenable.
Video, 18 minutes, color, narrative
WONTON
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Wenhwa Ts'ao
Grace, a young Chinese woman, escapes an INS raid of the restaurant where she is illegally employed. Not only does Grace get away, she helps Armando, an underage Salvadorian dishwasher, avoid the fate of the other illegal workers who are subjected to humiliating treatment, capture, and possible deportation.
Video, 12 minutes, color, narrative
GHOST SOLDIER
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Allan Tsao
From an underground Iraqi prison, an Asian American soldier fights despair by remembering a promise to reunite with his childhood girlfriend, digging deeper and deeper into his memories to find the courage and the strength to save his life and that of another American soldier, Misha.
Video, 24 minutes, color, narrative
PASSENGERS
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Paul J. Aspuria
A reluctant driver's evening unexpectedly changes after a turbulent late night ride with a dysfunctional couple who are expecting a child.
Video, 14 minutes, color, narrative
MAY 5 - 9:45 p.m. • Directors Guild of America, Theater 3
This powerful group of experimental, documentary and narrative short works draws you in to stories of the past, future, present and beginning. The protagonists navigate their transformation, memory, family relationships and consciousness in these creative, sensory and emotive works.
TRT: 74 minutes
I THOUGHT OF YOU OFTEN
(Canada, 2006) Dir.: Yun Lam Li
I THOUGHT OF YOU OFTEN is a visual poem about the meaning of aging within a culture that is not one's own. Though almost everything has a barcode, beauty and meaning can still be found. Elements are set in dynamic opposition, particularly the natural world vs. the mechanically-produced commercial one. At the centre of this multifaceted maze of meditation is a tree, and at the center of the tree is not knowledge, but a song of memory.
Video, 6 minutes, color, experimental
RETURN (Kaeru)
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Yoshie Suzuki
KAERU follows an elderly Japanese woman (Obaasan) as she fills her days waiting for her granddaughter's return home. The only problem is, her granddaughter (Ikuko) isn't meant to return for months. What she remembers and what she forgets in her daily preparatory rituals is the cause of frustration and concern for her neighboring daughter (Etsuko), who must deal with her mother's ill-conceived behavior.
Video, 13 minutes, color, narrative
CURL
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Derek R. Shimoda
A short documentary detailing a bizarre, fascinating, and oftentimes dangerous rite of passage ritual for a young boy. He will enter the arena as a child, but will he emerge as a man? Will he even survive? Or more importantly, will he look good?
Video, 3 minutes, black & white, documentary
my break ups into a million pieces
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Amir Motlagh
my break ups into a million pieces observes a young woman's migration to Southern California after her famous father's death. Directed by Amir Mothlagh and written by Lilledeshan Bose, my break ups is an exploration of personal and spiritual identity, death, romantic relationships and myth of Americana from an Asian perspective.
Video, 16 minutes, color, documentary
BEGINNING (Simula)
(Philippines, 2005) Dir.: Ruelo Lozendo
A worm enters a man's ear and lives inside his body. As the worm's metamorphosis unfolds, the man experiences his own transformation. Subsequently, a butterfly comes out of his ear, thus marking the "beginning" of his new being.
Video, 10 minutes, color, narrative
SAYONARA SUPER 8
(Canada, 2006) Dir.: Pia Massie
A filmmaker composes a parting ode to her creative tool of the past two decades-her Super 8 camera-in the face of the digital revolution.
Video, 6 minutes, color, experimental
THE DREAMING HOUSE
(Canada, 2005) Dir.: Keith Lock
The filmmaker, his father and his youngest child, walk past the tiny house in Chinatown where the filmmaker's father was born, triggering a sublime moment.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
FUTURE WORLD: TAPE 8
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Masumi T. Childers
Characters in a futuristic society display abnormally-abusive behavior that also exists in our world today.
Video, 10 minutes, color, narrative
LATENT SORROW
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Shon Kim
Moving Painting #7 to reach coexistent point where abstract and figure are equally fused.
Video, 4 minutes, color, experimental
MAY 5 - 10:00 p.m. • Directors Guild of America, Theater 2
ROOM 710
(Canada, 2005) Dir.: Ann Marie Fleming
In a metropolitan hotel room, a guest has trouble falling asleep. The commotion next door doesn't seem to help matters...
35mm, 8 minutes, color, animated narrative
THE MOTEL
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Michael Kang
Ernest lives and works at the family business, a sleazy hourly-rate motel on a strip of desolate suburban bi-way with his Mother, his Grandfather and his little sister. Though he's only thirteen, Ernest has to take on the responsibilities of man of the house since his father has abandoned the family. After school, Ernest cleans all the vacant rooms, baby sits his eight-year-old sister Katie and, at night, watches the front desk making sure that guests pay for their three-hour check-ins. His mother, meanwhile, belittles his accomplishments at school, perhaps fearful that Ernest may actually be growing into an individual. And then Sam Kim checks in. Sam, a charismatic Korean American man who has his whole life packed in the trunk of his car, has come to the motel to sleep with as many ethnically diverse prostitutes as possible and hopefully to forget about the crumbling life he left behind. Sam sees himself in Ernest, a boy lost in the worst stages of pre-pubescence with nobody to help guide him. Sam becomes inspired to take Ernest under his wing and teach him the steps to manhood....
35mm, 74 minutes, color, narrative
MAY 5 - 12:00 MIDNIGHT • Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre
THE ECHO (Sigaw)
(Philippines, 2004) Dir.: Yam Laranas
Marvin, a young man, moves into a unit of an old decrepit apartment building. He doesn't really want to live there, but it's his way of expressing his independence from his mother. Every night, he hears awful sounds of abuse emanating from his neighbor's apartment. The noise turns out to be an abusive cop who frequently beats his wife in front of their young daughter. Marvin's girlfriend, Pinky tries to talk him into moving, but he won't let fear get the better of him. When Marvin begins to see flashes of the neighbor's daughter drenched in blood, he begins to worry about his sanity. But there are far worse things than madness at work in his apartment complex. Marvin and Pinky must now confront the evil in the apartment building or be forever haunted by its secret.
35mm, 105 minutes, color, narrative, in Tagalog w/E.S.
