JANUARY 2008: Who's Gonna Love This Work?

It's the latter part of January, and as the days inch forward to the Lunar New Year, I should be thinking of final arrangements for attending one of the two big European marketplace festivals slated for the coming fortnight. Indeed, I've trekked eastward to the European Film Market at Berlinale religiously since 2001, in part to discover new films to include into our festival line-up, and also to network with filmmakers and industry professionals who regard Europe as a valuable proving ground for their productions and artistic visions. So what, do I ask myself, am I doing in snowy Park City, Utah at the Sundance Film Festival? I'm not sure it's the films: indeed, I've not bothered to screen such critically-acclaimed and provocative fare of recent vintage as TEETH, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and whatever other film has broken out due to Sundance. More to the point, my presence here has more to do with the Asian Pacific Filmmakers' Experience Reception that Visual Communications and other organizations have presented here since 2002 (and which I've blogged about extensively on the Visual Communications website -- look for the whole 4-1-1 there).

The switching of my programming research calendar to a warm-weather itinerary (basically, a six-week long trek dominated by my attendance at the Pusan International Film Festival and Asian Film Market) insures that I come into contact with a critical mass of Asian Pacific international films, not to mention the rare opportunity to observe the ever-shifting directions of world cinema through the films and filmmakers I encounter. For instance, it was quite breathtaking to experience the debut feature films of past VC FILMFEST artists Aditya Assarat and Liew Seng Tat at Pusan this year -- Aditya's mesmerizing WONDERFUL TOWN and Seng Tat's rambumctious yet precious FLOWER IN THE POCKET have won numerous awards on the international film festival circuit to date, and as I write this, the two films are poised for their European premieres at the Rotterdam International Film Festival at the end of this month. It was also beneficial to know that the digital cinema revolution has fully taken hold in Southeast Asia; that region has in recent years played host to new and exciting filmmakers from Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. The Philippines, in particular, has asserted itself as a new hotbed of vanguard filmmaking talent through the efforts of film festivals including Cinemanila and Cinemalaya to expose this new generation, as well as the emergence of new voices as Khavn de la Cruz, Lav Diaz, Ruelo Lozendo, Raya Martin, Auraeus Solito, John Torres, and many others. These artists and many others like them have not only been nurtured and developed in their home countries and regions, but have found a foothold and even critical and popular acclaim in the West.

In a sense, the exciting developments of new Asian Pacific cinema only serves to bring into sharp relief the relative homogenous personality of the Asian selections here at Sundance 2008; the heavily China and Japan-centric line-up of international work vis-a-vis the concommitant lack of diverse APA offerings. For instance, a publicist friend of mine bemoaned the exclusion of works this year from South Korea, while glimpses of the new and exciting Southeast Asian cinema are nowhere to be found throughout the program line-up. If it wasn't for the otherwise fulfilling task of organizing the APA Reception, I myself would be asking what I'm doing here. Uh, on second thought, I've been asking myself that ever since the full Sundance line-up became public. I have to think that perhaps Sundance has missed the boat this year -- that in an effort to give a nod to the fact that this is after all an Olympic year, a measure of recognition is being paid through the Asian programming. If so, that would be a shame. The Sundance audience would be better and much more enlightened by exposure to what's going on throughout Asia right now. But then, I am not a Sundance programmer. And this is not the audience I program for and answer to...

DECEMBER 2007: "The Question" and Other Burning Issues

Back in June, I was sitting in on a sneak-preview screening of a trimmed-down version of Richard Wong's COLMA: THE MUSICAL, which was being readied for a coveted theatrical release courtesy of Roadside Attractions, a boutique distributor that fell in love with the film as it was beginning its 2006 film festival run. The screening, sponsored by Project:Involve (a diversity initiative of Film Independent, the breakaway L.A. arm of this country's Independent Feature Project, or IFP), was an opportunity for director Wong to talk about the long road to realizing a theatrical release with his first feature, one paved with numerous award prizes and laudits along the festival circuit. The discussion started out fine -- that is, until the moderator turned the discussion over to the audience for questions. Straight away, the first question, from some white lady obviously watching the screening in "sleep" mode, was the dreaded

"Could you tell us what your budget was for the film?"

What was quite irksome was the lady's response when director Wong demurred -- she aggressively pressed the question until he hesitantly divulged the film's production budget, prompting a buzz among the audience members who apparently craved that information. The next question was even more shocking in its inanity: another white lady congratulated the filmmaker's effort and, quoting her, sent out her "hope that you find a distributor," which must have really pleased the Roadshow Attractions reps in attendance that night.

I filed away that night as just another example of what happens when "colored" filmmakers take their works out into the mainstream arena and forgot about it until another night, four months later, in the South Korean port city of Busan. As part of that city's Pusan International Film Festival, WEST 32ND, director Michael Kang's follow-up to his earlier THE MOTEL, was enjoying its international premiere. As me and Kim Yutani, a former member of our programming team who now splits her time between the Sundance Film Festival and OutFest, sat through the crowded post-screening Q & A, a young Asian woman who we presumed was a journalist asked, you guessed it, The Question:

"Could you tell us what your budget was for the film?"

Over the years, I've heard the question asked so many times at IFP screenings that I've assumed that the right to ask such questions must be some kind of birthright of the privileged. But to hear it at the Pusan International Film Festival, a venue that has gained a reputation for the intelligent and uniquely interrogational dialogues between artists and audiences, was absolutely disheartening. Michael deftly sidestepped the question by stating his preference to concentrate on the aesthetics and craft of making film. But for me, hearing it again, half away away from La La Land, was quite odious and discouraging indeed. Me and Kim could only look sideways at each other, suppress a laugh, and give each other a bemused look as if to say, "What the muthah f.....?"

Months later, as I enter the first of hopefully many observations on the programming directions that will frame the 24th edition of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival set for May 1 to 8, 2008, I dial up those memories -- this time, to assess whether my attitudes toward The Question and others like it (you know the ones: "What was your shooting ratio," "How did you cast your film," "Where can I buy the DVD," "Who were your cinematic influences," "What advice would you give young filmmakers starting out," etc. etc. etc.) reflect an inability for audiences to truly engage the moviewatching experience; or if they reflect a kind of elitist attitude towards the audience's basic Need to Know.

As a matter of full disclosure, I will acknowledge that in past editions of our very own film festival, we've fielded various versions of The Question at numerous artist Q & As; I remember presiding over one especially embarrassing session when the only two audience members with questions to ask intended to ask the very same question -- "What was your budget" and "Uh, never mind, I was gonna ask the same question." Thinking back over the years, it's also become clear to me that ethnic-specific cultural events such as the Film Festival exist precisely as a forum for audiences truly interested in finding out about the filmmaking process to ask questions that may come off as inane or utterly disengaged. To them, so what if they may come off to us "cultural workers" as cinema bumpkins? Turning the equation around, maybe it's a case of us "cultural workers" being "art snobs," only in the worst sense of the term. I have to admit that in an event intended to be as populist and inclusive of everyone's perspectives and opinions as possible, maybe we're forgetting that in its most elemental form, this event exists so that people will learn, discover, and -- basically -- find out.

As I comment on our programming findings and selections in the coming weeks and months, I'll endeavor to consider the question of "whose film festival is this anyways" as well as the impact of our audiences on how and why we program the work that we will present to you this spring. I suspect that in this diary, I'll address my own snobbery honed by years and years of co-directing this film festival, and hopefully be able to intelligently articulate my excitement around our selections without coming off as some schoolteacher. This is cinema, after all, an opportunity to both learn and be entertained -- and not some kind of medicine that's supposed to be good for you.