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MAY 9 - 3:00 p.m. • National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
This new crop of media works showcases the works by seniors, older adults, and guests from the Frank D. Lanterman Regional Center participating in a unique collaborative video training project with Visual Communications and the Little Tokyo Service Center’s DISKovery Center. As demonstrated in this program, age is not an impediment to creating media that really matters, nor to demystifying the internet for the older generation.
TRT: 52 minutes
MY UNCLE’S LEGACY: A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Robert Anderson
Explores how the filmmaker’s uncle has served as a role model and mentor by chronicling his life’s accomplishments as a photojournalist during the Chicano Movement.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
THIS IS MY LIFE
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Armen Frundzhyan
This autobiographical work by Armen Frundzhyan examines three of the many facets of his life: tutor, leader and Lakers fan.
Video, 5 minutes, color, documentary
INTRODUCTION TO KOMAMOTO KENJIN-KAI
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Chie Iseri
What is a Kenjin-Kai? Chei Iseri offers a brief introduction and chronicles her Kenjin-Kai’s historical function and current role in the Japanese American community.
Video, 5 minutes, color, documentary
SHIKZA!
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Abijah Martinez
This abstract documentary explores the experiences of a shikza playwright trying to fit into a Jewish community.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
AN AMERICAN STORY: “GO FOR BROKE”
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Anna Nagai
Anna Nagai discovers a hidden monument in a parking lot and talks with Dr. William Sato about his life and the Japanese American War Memorial.
Video, 8 minutes, color, documentary
MY VALENTINE
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Bem Nagase
With no memories of his grandparents, Bem Nagase shares his love for his granddaughter and insures that she will remember him.
Video, 5 minutes, color, documentary
MEMORIES OF TULE LAKE INTERNMENT CAMP
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Mitsuko Nagell
Mitsuko Nagell talks with Frank Iwasaki about his experiences during WWII at Tule Lake concentration camp.
Video, 7 minutes, color, documentary
FAMILY TIME
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Ngoc Nguyen
A meditative reflection on family relationships, the concept of home, and the distances in-between.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
FINDING JEANIE
(United States, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Jean Wong
Jean Wong documents her lifelong struggle with a learning disability and how it has affected her life.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
MAY 9 - 5:00 p.m. • National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
Ride along, as the youth take us on a journey of growing up in communities that may not mean much to outsiders but to them, it's a place called "home". Through the eyes of this years' youth, we gain insightful views of the hidden lives and fond memories of growing up in neighborhoods that was once their and how gentrification and other social factors leads to an uncertain future in their communities.
TRT: 105 minutes
PROTECT YOURSELF (Prutehi Hao)
(United States/Guam, 2005) Dir.: The Youth of Guam
Chamorro youths learn the basic facts about staying safe in the age of AIDS in this multi-part video about the importance of abstinence and safe sex.
Video, 14 minutes, color, narrative
ECHO PARK: A DIFFERENT VIEW
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Stephanie Cisneros
Inhabitants of Echo Park, an urban neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles, observe the phenomenon of gentrification on their community.
Video, 14 minutes, color, documentary
ANTI-CULTURE
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Sumana Tumpa
Los Angeles-based Bengali youths sound off about their experiences dealing with fitting into American society, and of their determination to retain their Bangladeshi culture even as they acknowledge they are fully acculturated into American popular culture.
Video, 9 minutes, color, documentary
LIGHT AND SHADOW
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Shirley Watanabe-Nishida
A young teenager stops just short of ending her life when her conscience comes to life and persuades her to see things in a different light.
Video, 5 minutes, color, narrative
SEE ME
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Steven Liang
A young high schooler has a hard time revealing his newfound identity as a gay activist to his parents. So what does he do? He makes a video...
Video, 8 minutes, color, documentary
BROKEN
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Cameron Lee
A young couple's bliss is forever shattered when one is caught cheating on the other in this locally-produced music video.
Video, 4 minutes, color, music video
JEALOUSY
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Kyle Tanaka
A young man tries to break up with his girlfriend, but she has news of her own for him.
Video, 7 minutes, color, narrative
CHEATERS
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Erica Lee, Jia Liao
In an apparent homage to trashy reality TV, a jilted teen lover gets the low-down on who her partner has been shacking up with. We don't think she's going to like what the detective finds out...
Video, 6 minutes, color, narrative
JUST BECAUSE I'M ASIAN
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Eugenia Su, Cherie Anne Le-Jovenal, Mya Zojo
It just goes to show that it doesn't pay to cheat off the person sitting next to you in class...
Video, 3 minutes, color, narrative
TINA2
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Angela Ngo, Kaitlin Dover, McKenna Dover, Adrian Leung
Two women-one Vietnamese, the other Indonesian, and both named Tina-recount their struggles to come to America, and their present lives living with their families in central Oregon.
Video, 3 minutes, color, documentary
SMELLS LIKE FISH SAUCE
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Chau Nguyen, Tony Ngo, Boon Tran, Quang Pham
A wacky, fake public service announcement extolling the many uses of Vietnamese fish sauce.
Video, 3 minutes, color, narrative
CUTTING THROUGH CONFUSION
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Liza Abordo, Jasmine Agito, Victor Lodevico, Alejandro Quintana
Victor, a Los Angeles-area youth recently "out" as a gay man, negotiates his conflicted dual identities as boy-or girl.
Video, 14 minutes, color, documentary
DODGER BLUES
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Gabriel Perez
A true-blue Dodgers fan ruminated on his conflicted feelings about the home team's stadium and the largely Latino community of Chavez Ravine that was razed to make way for it.
Video, 6 minutes, color, documentary
DOWNTOWN
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Max Martinez
A montage of images paint an intimate portrait of downtown L.A. as seen by a youth wary of the repressive LAPD presence in his community.
Video, 90 seconds, color, documentary
GOING THROUGH PROBATION
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Santiago Martinez
A young man ruminates on his troubles as a parolee and how his status impacts just about every aspect of his life.
Video, 1 minute, color, documentary
MY NEIGHBORHOOD: SOUTH CENTRAL L.A.
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Julio Diaz
An important community institution, the South Central L.A. Community Garden, is a landmark that provides a source of hand-grown produce for inner-city neighborhoods. It is also in imminent danger of being shut down for commercial development.
Video, 90 seconds, color, documentary
NASTY FOODS
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Danya Robles
Students at Los Angeles' Belmont High School sound off about the decidely unhealthy selection of cafeteria food for students and why the state budget crisis contributes to the problem.
Video, 3 minutes, color, documentary
THUG TRUTHS
(United States, 2006) Dir.: Sovanna Ouk
Three Khmer youths from Long Beach, California-all of them involved to varying degrees in gang activity and two of them related by marriage-muse on the reasons why they got involved with gang culture. A reflective and thoughtful meditation on lost youth and harsh realities.
Video, 8 minutes, color, documentary
MAY 9 - 7:00 p.m. • Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre
JOHN & JANE TOLL-FREE
(India, 2005) Dir.: Ashim Ahluwalia
Glen and Sydney have taken Western names, partly for convenience, partly for their own pleasure. They sleep during the daytime and work in the middle of their night, following American business hours. Neither of them has ever left India. As part of their training, they learn the meanings that work, money and God hold for Americans. When their shifts end, Glen and Sydney go back to traditional Indian homes, with simple amenities and mothers who urge them to eat. JOHN & JANE TOLL-FREE is an astonishing look at the souls of the outsourced. This documentary finds an entirely original and fitting language to express the eerie dislocation of virtual work. The lives it depicts are real, but the film's approach gives those lives the scope of speculative fiction.
35mm, 83 minutes, color, documentary
MAY 9 - 7:30 p.m. • National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
FINDING HOME
(United States, 2005) Dir.: Art Nomura
Veteran filmmaker Art Nomura visited Japan for the first time in 2003 at the age of 57. After years of ambivalence about his Japanese background, Nomura was forced to rethink his former relationship to the country after his eldest son decided to accept a job near Tokyo. Nomura traveled around Japan seeking out and interviewing other Japanese Americans who had chosen to live there for the long term. He found over fifty of them, and this frank and sincere documentary focuses on six Americans of Japanese descent who have put down permanent roots in the country of their ancestors.
Vince, a web designer from Hanover, New Hampshire who has been living in Japan for seven years, states that his decision to leave was confirmed after the first U.S. invasion of Iraq, an event that underscored his distaste for American political hypocrisy. Enson, a professional fighter from Honolulu living in Japan for thirteen years, found himself surprised at the sense of national identity that emerged after he moved: “One of the first times I ever considered myself American was when I came to Japan.” Jane, born and raised in Los Angeles, came to Japan as a child with her family on what she thought was a temporary visit. She was shocked to learn that her family expected her to stay in Japan and eventually run the family fashion business. Twenty-five years later she is a rare woman executive of a Japanese company and still has to contend with cultural resistance to powerful women in business.
Full of thoughtful insights into the experiences of Japanese Americans both in the U.S. and Japan, this documentary also provides a colorful view of everyday life across Japan, from busy downtown Tokyo streets, to raucous festivals, to a freestyle kimono dressing competition.
Video, 52 minutes, color, documentary
MAY 9 - 9:30 p.m. • Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre
IT'S ONLY TALK (Yawarakai Seikatsu)
(Japan, 2005) Dir.: Hiroki Ryuichi
Yuko is 35 years old, single, out of work, and on medication from her psychiatrist to combat her manic depression. Living in Kamata Town ("not an ounce of chic", according to her web page) Yuko divides her time among a variety of men friends, each with his own peculiarities. Her university classmate, Homma, suffers from impotence. "K", whom she meets on the net, is a self-confessed pervert. Then, there is a young gangster, Yasuda, a fellow manic-depressive. Her cousin, Shoichi, is also on the scene, having left his family to pursue his mistress, only to be given the cold shoulder by her, too. Yuko seems to create a different persona (and a different history) depending on whom she is talking to at the time. Human contact is just as important for her as for anyone else, but sometimes her condition makes it difficult for others to relate to her for as long as she would like.
35mm, 126 minutes, color, narrative, in Japanese w/E.S.
