Asian Film Festival & Conference
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
March 19–20, 2010
Film Festival
Showcasing the creativity of contemporary Asian filmmaking, the annual Asian Film Festival will bring five contemporary films to the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center’s Browning Cinema in March. Encompassing documentary, drama, and romantic comedy, the films explore cultural identity in the Asian experience, with a special emphasis on how different groups interact in society.
Follow the links under each film description to find out more and purchase tickets.
Undergraduates can receive credit for participating in the Asian Film Festival and Conference.
Friday, March 19
6:30pm Documentary Film Screening
Koryo Saram— The Unreliable People (2007)
Directed by Y. David Chung & Matt Dibble, this documentary tells a harrowing saga of survival in the open steppe country and shows the sweep of Soviet history through the eyes of Koreans who were deported from Russia after Stalin designated them as an “unreliable people” and enemies of the state. The film won the National Film Board of Canada’s Best Documentary Award in 2007.
Introduction and post-screening Q&A by Director Y. David Chung
9:00pm Feature Film Screening
Cape No. 7 (2008)
Written and directed by Te-Sheng Wei, this Taiwanese romantic comedy with a dramatic edge centers on Aga, a would-be pop singer who returns to his hometown of Hengchun. Working as a postman, he meets Tomoko, a Japanese model organizing a local warm-up band for a Japanese rock concert—and finds a 60-year-old packet of undelivered love letters. With five other ordinary Hengchun residents, Aga—played by genuine Taiwanese pop star “Van”—becomes the lead singer of an unlikely band and with Tomoko unravels the mystery of the love letters. The film enjoyed immense popularity in Taiwan and was Taiwan’s entry to compete in the 81st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
Saturday, March 20
3:00pm Documentary Film Screenings
Children In Heaven (2009)
Directed by Mayaw Biho, this stunning documentary depicts a shantytown of indigenous people living underneath Taiwan’s Sanying Bridge. Every year the inhabitants are charged with violating the Water Law and are forcibly moved from the houses they have built. Nevertheless, after the houses are torn down, the residents return to the same place and build their simple huts again. For the residents and their children, their routine seems like “playing house.” Yet the question of indigenous people’s right of abode remains unresolved.
Malakacaway (The Rice Wine Filler) (2009)
Exploring Taiwan’s indigenous people, this documentary—also directed by Mayaw Biho—features the Pangcah people of the east coast of Taiwan. Some Pangcah tribes have been able to keep their traditional culture and ways of life, especially the Makutaay tribe, highlighted here. The film examines the annual ceremony of Ilisin, providing an intimate look inside one of the world’s most unique societies.
8:00pm Feature Film Screening
Chicken Poets (2002)
Yun Fei, a young poet, seeks the advice of an old university friend who lives in the Beijing suburbs, discovering that his friend has gone into business breeding black chickens. Discouraged about his future as a poet, Yun Fei starts a relationship with a colorblind young girl who encourages him to persevere. But even this new relationship is not enough to inspire him to write. It’s at this point that he buys a pirated record whose magical powers bring him the success he’s longed for. However, sudden fame does not seem to solve everything. The first film of Beijing theatre director Meng Jing Hui, Chicken Poets is an insightful and poetic look at materialism and the younger generation in China.
Academic Panel
Saturday, March 20
4:45 pm
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Free and open to the public
“Asia in Films: Exploring Cultural Identities”
Panelists
Y. David Chung is an associate professor at the School of Art and Design and the former director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan. A multimedia artist and filmmaker, Chung known for his film and video work, installations, drawings, prints, and public artworks.
Nicholas Kaldis is director of Chinese Studies and an associate professor in the Asian and Asian American Studies Department at Binghamton University (SUNY), where he teaches 20th-century Chinese literature and Chinese cinema studies. He has published many essays on Chinese film, prose poetry, nature poetry, and Taiwan nature writing, as well as translations of Chinese scholarly essays, poems, and stage drama.
Brandon Frost (ND ’09), who majored in Japanese at Notre Dame, is now a graduate student in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, researching Japanese cultural and political influences before and during World War II. A tireless advocate for Asian studies on campus, Frost served on multiple Asian Film Festival and Conference organizing committees and performed a hula dance at the 2009 festival.
Academic Conference
The Academic Conference comprises the five films that make up the festival, an interactive filmmaker Q&A session, and the accompanying academic panel that will delve into social and cultural issues raised in the films.
The 2010 Asian Film Festival and Conference is presented by:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
With generous support from:
The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, the Henkels Visiting Lecture Series, the College of Arts and Letters, the Learning Beyond the Classroom Grant, the Office of International Student Services and Activities, the Center for Asian Studies, the Office of Research
Cosponsored by:
The Asian Pacific Alumni Board, First Year Studies, the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures, the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, and the Office of Student Affairs
Special thanks to:
The Kaneb Center and the Snite Museum of Art
2010 Asian Film Festival and Conference Committee
Students:
Priscilla Choi - Committee Cochair
Sunny Chung - Committee Cochair
Emily Chiu
Neil Mathieson
Bri Neblung
See Hyun Park
Carl Magno Paras Santos-Ocampo
Faculty/Staff:
Gina Costa, Snite Museum of Art
Howard Goldblatt, Center for Asian Studies
Sylvia Lin, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Aaron Magnan-Park, Film, Television, and Theatre
Jonathan Noble, Provost Office’s Asia Initiatives
Sharon Schierling, Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Jon Vickers, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Priscilla Wong, Campus Ministry
Related Events of Interest
Snite Museum of Art
Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home
March 14—April 25, 2010
Scholz Family Works on Paper Gallery
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Kronos Quartet and Wu Man
Visiting Artist Series
Saturday, March 27, 2010, at 7:30 pm
Leighton Concert Hall
