New York’s Asian American International Film Festival is running through the end of this month, opening July 15 with international star Maggie Cheung on stage for a screening of Olivier Assayas’ award-winning Clean.
The 28th annual festival is using three venues (Asia Society, IFC Center and Cinema Arts Centre) and includes this year’s centerpiece film, Michael Kang’s The Motel, about a 13-year-old Korean American misfit desperate to create his own identity.
Cheung won Best Actress at Cannes in 2004 for her performance in Clean as a junkie struggling to get her life back together. It is one of more than 80 roles that garnered Cheung this year’s AAIFF’s CineVisionary Award.
Other New York premieres include Gaurav Seth’s Pink Ludoos, which is about a Punjabi Canadian girl whose impending arranged marriage is cramping her untraditional lifestyle. Yasmin Ahmad’s Malaysian film, Sepet (Malay for “single eyelid”), is about the taboo romance between a Chinese peddler of pirated videos and a Malay Muslim schoolgirl. And the Taiwanese documentary, 62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between, is about the island’s struggle for self-determination through a portrait of director Anita Wen-Shin Chang’s own grandmother.
Another documentary making its U.S. premiere is Heesook Sohn’s Happy Family about a Korean American woman living in Berlin with her family who sets out to learn about her relatives scattered around the world. The sex caper AV by director Ho-cheung Pang is about four Hong Kong University students who dupe a Japanese porn star into acting in their bogus X-rated movie. Yuthlert Sippapak’s Pattaya Maniac, is an action filled romantic comedy about two best friends who get tangled up with the Thai mafia.
Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s Janji Joni is about a Jakartan man’s race against time to deliver film reels to a movie theater for the chance to meet a beautiful woman.
DETAILS: The festival includes 19 world premieres, 14 U.S. premieres and 47 N.Y. premieres. www.aaiff.org.