Mission | History | APA Film Staff
"The mission of the DC APA Film Festival is to bring attention to the creative output from APA communities and encourage the artistic development of APA films in the greater Washington DC metropolitan region."
Asian Pacific American (APA) Film, a nonprofit corporation, explores the cross-cultural interface of East and West through art and education. The DC Asian Pacific American (APA) Film Festival is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of the APA Film Festival may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. http://www.fracturedatlas.org/.
Towards this end, our mission embodies the following goals:
To raise public awareness of APA media arts;
To encourage and promote the artistic development of APA media artists;
To provide arts education opportunities, with particular outreach to APA youth and adults;
To raise awareness and act as a catalyst for the discussion of issues affecting APA communities;
To bring diverse people together, to promote artistic and social interactions; and
To sponsor a DC APA Film Festival annually.
From 1983 to 1996, Asian American Arts and Media (AAAM) presented Asian American film festivals in the Washington, DC area. In the autumn of 2000, APA Film revived this festival, opening at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery of Art's Meyer Auditorium and continuing for a week-long run at the Foundry Theater in the heart of Georgetown. In 2001, in addition to the Freer, the festival added the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and two academic institutions, Georgetown University and George Washington University, as additional venues. The overwhelming success of the festival year after year expresses a definite need in the community, as well as the mainstream public for APA media arts.
2005 Film Festival Highlights
The 2005 festival attracted nearly 3,000 attendees during ten days of programming.
During our festival, we screened over 80 films, held several parties, helped hold 2 concerts, and hosted numerous filmmakers.
THE MOTEL, a Sundance film that portrayed the life of a chubby Chinese American boy and the relationships he forms against the backdrop of a motel, opened our festival. Director Michael Kang was present to conduct a Q&A session after the screening at the Landmark E Street theater.
We presented the North American premiere of INITIAL D, the highest grossing Asian film of the year, at the Regal theater in Chinatown, one of several new venues that we screened programs at this year.
Asian American rapper, Jin, held a concert at Club Daedalus after the screening of the documentary NO SLEEP TIL SHANGHAI, which detailed events as Jin and his crew tour Asia to promote his debut album.
The award winning film, CAVITE, closed our festival at the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring. Co-directors Neill Dela Llana and Ian Gamazon conducted a Q&A session after the screening.
2004 Film Festival Highlights
The 2004 festival attracted 2,600 attendees during ten days of programming.
During these ten days, we screened a total of 65 films (11 feature-length films), held two panel discussions, and hosted 18 filmmaker guests.
Our closing night party, which was held at Panache, became our largest festival party to date.
TAKE OUT, a realistic film chronicling the tribulations of illegal Chinese immigrants, opened our festival at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Co-directors Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou conducted a Q&A session after the screening.
The 'Product Placement and Love' shorts program became our most successful short film program to date by attracting a record crowd to the Hirshhorn Museum. Filmmakers Karen Lin, Vincent Tsu and Jimmy Tsai were in attendance.
THE MAGICAL LIFE OF LONG TACK SAM, a selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, closed our festival at the Freer Gallery of Art. Director Anne Marie Fleming conducted a Q&A session after the screening.
2002 Film Festival Highlights
The 2002 festival was wildly successful and was the most attended APA event in the District of Columbia, offering a rich mix of educational programs and entertainment free of charge to the public.
Ten days of programming:
- 48 films
- 15 guest filmmakers and cast members
- 3 panel discussions
- 1 evening of music with APA musicians
- In addition, two extra programs were showcased after the close of our festival in collaboration with the Reel Affirmations Film Festival, DC's established gay and lesbian film festival
Once again, the opening night crowd packed the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum to capacity with the screening of Romeo Candido's Lolo's Child, followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker and reception in the lobby of the museum. Notable attendees included representatives from the Canadian embassy, and the Smithsonian leadership.
The first weekend featured Lunch with Charles, a Hong-Kong/Canadian romantic comedy, and several short films programs followed by panel discussions: It's a She Thing: Female Filmmakers; So Happy Together: Queer Asian Cinema; and Looking in the Mirror: What Does it Mean to be Asian and American Today. Panelists included prominent local community leaders, academics, filmmakers, journalists, and writers.
Other highlights of the festival included our first-ever musical performance featuring three APA performers: The Grace Chung Jazz Band, Girl @ the Bus Stop, and The Romeo Candido Karaoke Show. Other notable screenings include the documentary Presumed Guilty, a look at the San Francisco public defenders office; the award-winning romantic drama Charlotte Sometimes. Our closing night film was Green Dragon, a Sundance Film Festival Selection. Produced by, and starring, Forrest Whitaker and Patrick Swayze, it is a touching look at Vietnamese refugees struggling to maintain hope in America.
2001 Film Festival Highlights
Over a period of 9 days, we:
- screened 35 films
- featured 10 guest filmmakers
- held 2 panel discussions
- reached a total audience of approximately 2,000- a doubling of attendance from the first festival!
We were also the first APA film festival in the country to make all programs free of charge to the public. On opening night, the Filipino American family comedy, The Flip Side (an official selection of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival) was met with a capacity audience at the Hirshhorn. The screening was followed by a Q&A session with actors from the film and a reception..
The first weekend of the festival featured two powerful documentaries, No Hop Sing, No Bruce Lee: What Do You Do When None of Your Heroes Look Like You? and Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool. A panel discussion on Asian stereotypes and cultural commodification in the media followed, moderated by local NBC Reporter Shari Macias and featuring Howard University law professor Frank Wu and filmmaker Anmol Chaddha.
Other highlights included the screening of Bean Cake (winner of the Palme d'Or for short films at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival), a Women Who Direct series of short films, and the poignant documentary The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America, about a Hmong American and his struggle to keep his family in Wisconsin connected to their 5,000-year-old spiritual traditions. Our special guests of this screening were the filmmakers and the Hmong family profiled in the documentary.
2000 Film Festival Highlights
Our inaugural festival was a grand success and attracted over 1,000 patrons. It featured Post-Concussion as the opening night film, which was met with great acclaim in the overfilled 300-seat Meyer Auditorium at the Freer Gallery. The film dealt with a neoyuppie's reassessment of his material success as he managed a recovery from a traffic accident. The Korean-Canadian director and star of the film was the guest of honor at the Filmmakers' Reception.
The week-long screenings also took place at a Loews Cineplex in Georgetown and featured such films as ABCD, a South Asian tale of modern life and love in America, and Bugaboo, a comedy depicting the dot-com malaise. The Festival closed with First Person Plural, a powerful documentary about a Korean American adoptee's inner turmoil upon discovering that she was not an orphan and the journey she made to reconcile the love for the mother that raised her and her biological mother. This documentary was subsequently broadcast nationally on PBS.
Board of Directors
Christian Oh, President
Wyman Lee, Vice President
Jenny Kim, Secretary
Eric Paler, Treasurer
Kelly Chen
Tad Doyle
Vincent Huang
Benjamin Lee
Anna Petrillo
Nina Vo
