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We Are Watching —

The Asian American Film Festival

It’s nearly spring, and for the next two weeks San Francisco will be buzzing with filmmakers, videographers, artists, musicians, producers, distributors and movie-lovers as NAATA’s 19th annual International Asian American Film Festival unrolls its red carpets around the Bay Area. Those behind the scenes at NAATA have said that the festival is always equal parts film showcase and equal parts community event. Among the networking and schmoozing that is sure to go on, the festival also reinforces the strengths of our community by celebrating our endless stories and complexities.

As Asian Americans began to increasingly infiltrate mainstream movie and television screens, with both high-profile features such as Crouching Tiger, and regular characters showing up on television shows such as ER, the festival’s showcase is especially important in giving voice to the images and moments that may have gone unheard. The days of Asian Americans only being characterized with squinty eyes and thick accents, or having our cultures reduced to eyeball soup-consuming cults, seem to be (slowly) fading.

The 97 works that will be showcased at the festival explore the timeless Asian American themes of family, identity and heritage across the diversity of pan-Asia. Throughout the festival, you can experience everything from the teen angst of Filipino Americans struggling with identity, to the triumph of a transgender Thai volleyball team, to the healing powers of a Hmong American shaman practicing in Wisconsin.

Here you can see short films about sex, technology, lesbians, anger, love, death, food and music. These filmmakers are holding up lenses and reflecting light into all kinds of corners of our communities, exposing our undersides and our quirks. This week, you can sit in the dark anonymity of a theater and experience the expansiveness of our communities.