Ways of Seeing: People and Places of Southeast Asia
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Family home movies, moving and still images from the French colonial era, Hollywood films, and declassified CIA propaganda frame the varied histories of Southeast Asians in a live interactive presentation at I-SEA Film Festival opening night party. Attendees discover little known histories and explore different notions of the Southeast Asian experience through moving and still images. What ideologies and values frame these images? Beyond the stereotypes, do these images reflect some semblance of Southeast Asian identity? Curated by Ina Adele Ray the program is co-presented by Stephen Gong from Center for Asian American Media Memories to Light and Laotian Poet, Bryan Thao Worra. Featuring Southeast Asian Streetfood Pop-up - SUP!, music provided DJ Richie from Traktivist.com and a food installation by artist Ouater Sand.
The Kalampag Tracking Agency: Experimental Films & Videos from the Philippines (1985 - 2015)
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Curated by Merv Espina & Shireen Seno, Manila
Various directors—67 min The Kalampag Tracking Agency is a curatorial and organizational collaboration between Shireen Seno and Merv Espina. Overcoming institutional and personal lapses to give attention to little-seen works—some quite recent, some surviving loss and decomposition—this program collects loose parts in motion, a series of bangs, or kalampag in Tagalog, assembled by their individual strengths and how they might resonate off each other and a contemporary audience. Featuring some of the most striking films and videos from the Philippines and its diaspora, this initiative continues to navigate the uncharted topographies of Filipino alternative and experimental moving image practice from the past 30 years. |
Indochina - Traces of a Mother (2011)
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Idrissou Mora-Kpai/ France, Benin, Việt Nam/
71 min/ Feature Documentary The film documents a little-known chapter in African, Asian and French colonial history and the personal story of Christophe, a Beninese-Vietnamese orphan that returns to Vietnam to look for his long-lost mother. |
Director's bio: Born in Benin in 1967, Idrissou Mora Kpai studied in Germany at the University of Film and TV at Potsdam-Babelsberg where he graduated with an MFA in film directing. Since then, Idrissou has founded the production company MKJ Films in Paris and produced and directed several documentaries, including The Queen Mother (Si-Gueriki – 2002), Arlit, deuxième Paris (2005) and Indochina, Traces of a Mother (2011), all of which have been presented at international festivals and garnered numerous accolades and prizes. His other accomplishments include being an artist in residence at Cornell University, USA, and being a visiting assistant professor at Duke University, USA where he taught at the Arts of the Moving Image department and African & African American Studies department.
Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul/ Chiang Mai, Thailand/ 114 min/ Feature Art Drama
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Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including colored light therapy, to ease the mens’ troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.
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Modern Love Shorts + Director Q&A
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Mattie Do/
Vientiane, Laos/ 98 min/ Feature Horror A young girl, raised alone by her overprotective father sequestered in their home in Vientiane, Chanthaly suspects that her dead mother's ghost is trying to deliver a message to her from the afterlife. After a change in the medication treating her hereditary heart condition causes the hallucinations to cease, Chanthaly must decide whether or not to risk succumbing to her terminal illness to hear her mother's last words. Chanthaly was screened at Cannes in 2014 and will be having its San Francisco premiere at I-SEA Film Festival. |
The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing Ngor (2015) + Director Q&A
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Arthur Dong/ Phnom Penh, Cambodia | Los Angeles, USA/ 87 min/ Feature Documentary
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Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the only Asian to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, for the heartrending role of Cambodian photographer Dith Pran in Roland Joffé’s 1984 film THE KILLING FIELDS. Though he continued acting, Ngor retrained the spotlight on Cambodia, traveling worldwide to speak out against Pol Pot’s regime and the Vietnamese occupation of his country that followed. He became such a powerful voice that specters of conspiracy still haunt his untimely 1996 death. Veteran doc-maker Arthur Dong unspools Ngor’s phenomenal life with original animation, rare archival material and newly shot footage inspired by his autobiography Survival in the Killing Fields. Following the screening, join director Arthur Dong for Q&A.
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Vientiane in Love (2014)
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Vannaphone Sitthirath, Anysay Keola, Xaisongkham Induangchanthy & Phanumad Disattha/ Laos/ 85 min/ Feature Drama
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The first Lao omnibus film that delves into different aspects of love as shown through five separate stories. These love stories set in Laos’ capital city reflect nuanced and non-typical relationships, complete with romance, heartbreak, and even humor.
Directors' bios: Anysay Keola was born and grew up in Lao P.D.R. In 2003, he was granted a scholarship from AusAid (Australian Government) to study in Australia. In 2007 Keola obtained Bachelor of Multimedia System from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. |
In mid-2012, Keola’s thesis movie At the Horizon, has been a great success for Lao cinema industry, the film has attained recognition from various groups of audience among Southeast Asia and Asia pacific region. Anysay Keola, together with other young Lao filmmakers, founded "Lao New Wave Cinema Productions" aiming to change the face of Lao cinema industry.
Phanumad Disattha graduated from Rangsit University in film, Bangkok, Thailand. After his graduation, he directed one of the Thai omnibus film titled Brown sugar released in Thailand 2010.
Later on he re-settle in live with his family in Laos. Together with filmmakers in Laos, they founded a production house called "Lao New Wave Cinema Productions". In 2013 Phanumad wrote and directed his 2nd feature film, a comedy drama movie Huk Aum Lum which became the first Lao movie to be commercially distributed in Thailand.
Vannaphone Sitthirath is a Vientiane-based freelance journalist and documentary maker whose mission is to develop a socially responsible continuing documentary of life in her country and region. She is also a co-founder of "Lao New Wave Cinema Productions". She has contributed to various media projects and news agencies including Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific. With her passion for film and television, in 1999, Vannaphone studied film and TV production in Queensland school of Film and TV Production in Brisbane, Australia. She had a chance to involve in a number of short film projects during her study in Australia.
After her study, she has done work on social and cultural issues and trends in the Mekong Region and her documentary film So Close won special prize in the 2008 International Women’s film Festival in the Philippines. Her other documentary films were also selected to be screened in a number of film festivals and NGOs and UN agencies’ training workshops. Some of her photos done for the Imaging Our Mekong program were exhibited at the Noordelicht festival in the Netherlands in 2006. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and communication from Griffith University, Australia. She still always has passion and commitment to support filmmaking in Laos.
Xaisongkham Induangchanthy as awarded the Singapore Scholarship in 1999 to study mass communication in Singapore and was introduced to a world of cinema and discovered his passion for filmmaking. In 2004, together with his schoolmates, he made a documentary about fisherman’s life in southern Laos for his final year project, titled Against the Tide. Later, Against the Tide won an award for ‘Outstanding Documentary’ at the 4th Annual University Student Film and TV Festival in the Greater China Region 2006, Hong Kong, and screened at Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival 2006, New York.
In 2009, he was awarded the Australian Development Scholarship to study Master of Fine Arts, majoring in video production and made a documentary about Lao people in Australia as his final year project, titled Lost in Transition. Lost in Transition was one of the works selected for the showcase by his university. When he returned home, he joined "Lao New Wave Cinema", formed by a group of aspiring young filmmakers in Laos to make the first thriller drama film in Lao film history. He has also done a couple of short films. In September 2012, he was selected to participate in ‘Asian Film Academy’ as part of the Busan International Film Festival. He was the first Lao filmmaker selected for the program. As part of the program, his script was selected for a short film production and he also co-directed one of the short films that was later shown at the festival.
Phanumad Disattha graduated from Rangsit University in film, Bangkok, Thailand. After his graduation, he directed one of the Thai omnibus film titled Brown sugar released in Thailand 2010.
Later on he re-settle in live with his family in Laos. Together with filmmakers in Laos, they founded a production house called "Lao New Wave Cinema Productions". In 2013 Phanumad wrote and directed his 2nd feature film, a comedy drama movie Huk Aum Lum which became the first Lao movie to be commercially distributed in Thailand.
Vannaphone Sitthirath is a Vientiane-based freelance journalist and documentary maker whose mission is to develop a socially responsible continuing documentary of life in her country and region. She is also a co-founder of "Lao New Wave Cinema Productions". She has contributed to various media projects and news agencies including Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific. With her passion for film and television, in 1999, Vannaphone studied film and TV production in Queensland school of Film and TV Production in Brisbane, Australia. She had a chance to involve in a number of short film projects during her study in Australia.
After her study, she has done work on social and cultural issues and trends in the Mekong Region and her documentary film So Close won special prize in the 2008 International Women’s film Festival in the Philippines. Her other documentary films were also selected to be screened in a number of film festivals and NGOs and UN agencies’ training workshops. Some of her photos done for the Imaging Our Mekong program were exhibited at the Noordelicht festival in the Netherlands in 2006. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and communication from Griffith University, Australia. She still always has passion and commitment to support filmmaking in Laos.
Xaisongkham Induangchanthy as awarded the Singapore Scholarship in 1999 to study mass communication in Singapore and was introduced to a world of cinema and discovered his passion for filmmaking. In 2004, together with his schoolmates, he made a documentary about fisherman’s life in southern Laos for his final year project, titled Against the Tide. Later, Against the Tide won an award for ‘Outstanding Documentary’ at the 4th Annual University Student Film and TV Festival in the Greater China Region 2006, Hong Kong, and screened at Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival 2006, New York.
In 2009, he was awarded the Australian Development Scholarship to study Master of Fine Arts, majoring in video production and made a documentary about Lao people in Australia as his final year project, titled Lost in Transition. Lost in Transition was one of the works selected for the showcase by his university. When he returned home, he joined "Lao New Wave Cinema", formed by a group of aspiring young filmmakers in Laos to make the first thriller drama film in Lao film history. He has also done a couple of short films. In September 2012, he was selected to participate in ‘Asian Film Academy’ as part of the Busan International Film Festival. He was the first Lao filmmaker selected for the program. As part of the program, his script was selected for a short film production and he also co-directed one of the short films that was later shown at the festival.
POV: First person documentary + Panel
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These documentary shorts present first- person and autobiographical views on love, labor and the distances between.
Films include: Distance Between, Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory, My Beautiful Resistance, and A Daughter’s Debt
Films include: Distance Between, Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory, My Beautiful Resistance, and A Daughter’s Debt
Distance Between (9 min) - Filmmaker R.J. Lozada has offered to be a sperm donor for a lesbian couple wanting to conceive. Knowing that he might not play an active part of the child’s life, this documentary serves as a sort of love letter to the child, in an attempt to establish a paternal bond.
Director's bio: R.J. Lozada is an award winning multi-media journalist and filmmaker who explores and engages multiple diasporas. Lozada has worked in varying capacities from film festival programming for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival to producing documentaries, radio segments, and photo editorials. Lozada co-produced and shot the documentary Among B-Boys, following young Hmong American men and hip hop. As Director of Photography, Lozada completed shooting Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story, a profile on Eddy Zheng, community advocate who was incarcerated during his teenage years through his adulthood. For a number of years, Lozada has also been a contributor and host for APEX Express, one of two weekly Asian and Pacific Islander radio magazine shows on Pacifica Foundation’s network, as well as Multimedia Editor for Hyphen Magazine. In addition to production, Lozada was a paralegal to the condemned at San Quentin State Prison for over five years.
Director's bio: R.J. Lozada is an award winning multi-media journalist and filmmaker who explores and engages multiple diasporas. Lozada has worked in varying capacities from film festival programming for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival to producing documentaries, radio segments, and photo editorials. Lozada co-produced and shot the documentary Among B-Boys, following young Hmong American men and hip hop. As Director of Photography, Lozada completed shooting Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story, a profile on Eddy Zheng, community advocate who was incarcerated during his teenage years through his adulthood. For a number of years, Lozada has also been a contributor and host for APEX Express, one of two weekly Asian and Pacific Islander radio magazine shows on Pacifica Foundation’s network, as well as Multimedia Editor for Hyphen Magazine. In addition to production, Lozada was a paralegal to the condemned at San Quentin State Prison for over five years.
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Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory (26 min) - In 1975, a seven-months pregnant Vietnamese refugee, Giáp, escapes Saigon in a boat and, within weeks, finds herself working on an assembly line in Seymour, Indiana. 35 years later, her aspiring filmmaker son, Tony, decides to document her final day of work at the last ironing board factory in America.
The documentary follows Tony on a painful, but loving journey. The half hour film explores the refugee experience, the communication gulf between parent and child, and how racism shapes the Asian American experience. It will stimulate insight, discussion and understanding of the hardships of assimilation. |
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Director's bio: Tony Nguyễn made his directorial debut with Enforcing the Silence, a 2011 feature documentary about the unsolved murder of Lâm Dương, the first Vietnamese American to be reportedly assassinated in the United States. He co-authored a profile on Lâm Dương for 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History (Haymarket Books), a 2012 book that offers a “peoples’ history” of the individuals who have shaped our country.
My Beautiful Resistance (2014, 8 min) - Penny Baldado, owner of Oakland, CA’s Café Gabriela, originally moved to the United States to live as an out lesbian, because she felt that she couldn’t do that in her native Philippines. Her status as an undocumented immigrant becomes an obstacle as she attempts to establish her American life.
Director's bio: Penny Baldado moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1999, to reunite with her father who had been living in the states for many years. She viewed the move as a way to expand her opportunities. However, Penny found the transition to life in America difficult, and she felt powerless after leaving her support system in the Philippines. My Beautiful Resistance documents her struggles and success in overcoming intersections of gender, racial and sexual discrimination.
Penny’s Café Gabriella continues her efforts in the area of social responsibility by being a model green café, and by using her business to support local artists and community groups who would like to exhibit their work in the space.
Director's bio: Penny Baldado moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1999, to reunite with her father who had been living in the states for many years. She viewed the move as a way to expand her opportunities. However, Penny found the transition to life in America difficult, and she felt powerless after leaving her support system in the Philippines. My Beautiful Resistance documents her struggles and success in overcoming intersections of gender, racial and sexual discrimination.
Penny’s Café Gabriella continues her efforts in the area of social responsibility by being a model green café, and by using her business to support local artists and community groups who would like to exhibit their work in the space.
A Daughter’s Debt (2014, 29 min) is one of the first films to discuss and explore women’s issues in contemporary Hmong culture. Three generations of Hmong- American women share their experiences of bride purchasing, polygamy, and commodification in this intimate portrait of struggle and hope.
Director's Bio: Chao Thao is a Hmong-American filmmaker. As a believer that the medium of film is a powerful instrument for social change, Chao is passionate about sharing diverse stories that have been obscured by history. Her philosophy as a filmmaker is to bring forth these different perspectives. Chao received her MFA in Film and Television Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She was a recipient of the prestigious 2012 Princess Grace Award, the USC Annenberg Graduate Fellowship and the Bud Greenspan Award for Documentary.
Director's Bio: Chao Thao is a Hmong-American filmmaker. As a believer that the medium of film is a powerful instrument for social change, Chao is passionate about sharing diverse stories that have been obscured by history. Her philosophy as a filmmaker is to bring forth these different perspectives. Chao received her MFA in Film and Television Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She was a recipient of the prestigious 2012 Princess Grace Award, the USC Annenberg Graduate Fellowship and the Bud Greenspan Award for Documentary.
Big Gay Love (2013) + Director Q&A
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Ringo (Vinh) Le/ USA/ 86 min/ Feature Romance, Comedy
Jonathan Lisecki stars in this unconventional take on the standard Hollywood romcom formula, as a socially awkward gay guy in the stock Meg Ryan/Kate Hudson role, with a cult-TV heartthrob cast as his potential soul mate—as they attempt to find Big Gay Love. |
Director's bio: Ringo Le is an Asian American filmmaker who is of Vietnamese descent. Ringo is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles. After college, he was selected as a fellow to participate in the Film Independent Project:Involve film mentorship program. He has also participated in the CBS Director's Program at CBS Television City in Los Angeles.
Le directed the film Saigon Love Story, which was nominated for the Winds of Asia-Best New Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2006. The film was an official selection at the Shanghai International Film Festival 2006. In addition, Saigon Love Story had a highly acclaimed, sold-out screening at VC FilmFest 2006. In 2013 he wrote, directed and produced Big Gay Love, which starred Jonathan Lisecki and Nicholas Brendon.
Le directed the film Saigon Love Story, which was nominated for the Winds of Asia-Best New Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2006. The film was an official selection at the Shanghai International Film Festival 2006. In addition, Saigon Love Story had a highly acclaimed, sold-out screening at VC FilmFest 2006. In 2013 he wrote, directed and produced Big Gay Love, which starred Jonathan Lisecki and Nicholas Brendon.
The Look of Silence (2014)
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Joshua Oppenheimer/
Jakarta, Indonesia | Copenhagen, Denmark/ 98 min/ Feature Documentary The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. |
Bonne Nuit Papa (2014) + Director Q&A
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Marina Kem/ Hamburg, Germany/ 101 min/ Feature Documentary
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This film about conciliation, connection, and farewell documents Marina Kem‘s search for her father’s story—a father who was strange to her in two regards—strange because of his Cambodian origins, strange because of his silence. Dr. Ottara Kem never spoke of his Cambodian background. But on his deathbed he expressed his desire to be buried in his homeland Cambodia. For his daughter Marina Kem it is the beginning of an intense, poetic and conciliate journey. Tracing the footsteps of his life, she immerses herself deeper and deeper into the history of Cambodia’s ideological wars and at the end she finds a new family and reconciles herself with her roots. Followed by Q&A with director Marina Kem.
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Finding Phong (2015)
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Swann Dubus, Tran Phuong Thao/ Hà Nội, Việt Nam & Los Angeles, USA/ 92 min/ Feature Documentary
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Phong grew up in a small town in the center of Vietnam - the youngest of six children. From the time he was a young boy, Phong felt like he was a girl with a mismatched boy's body. Not until he moved to Hanoi to attend university at age 20 did Phong discover that he was not the only one in the world with this predicament. His dream to 'find himself' by physically changing sex becomes a reality several years later. The movie follows Phong's struggle during these years, with excerpts from his intimate video journal, along with his encounters with family, friends and doctors - all of whom must come to terms with the boy's determination to become a complete girl.
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Cambodian Son (2014)
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Masahiro Sugano/ Phnom Penh, Chicago, Osaka/ 90 min/ Drama Documentary
Cambodian Son follows Kosal Khiev, a volatile yet charming and talented young man who struggles to find his footing amongst a new freedom that was granted only through his deportation. Armed only with memorized verses, he must face the challenges of being a deportee while navigating his new fame as Phnom Penh’s premiere poet. |
