The Circuit

by Anthony D'Alessandro
In its 24 years, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival has gone from programming 20 films in one weekend to 160 features, shorts and docs over the course of one week. 

This year's festival kicked off Thursday night with the opening night film "Ping Pong Playa" at the DGA Theater and will close on Thursday, May 8, at the Aratani/Japan America Theater with the Australian pic "The Home Song Stories" starring Joan Chen.

After Thursday night's screening of "Ping Pong Playa," the fest's co-director David Magdael spoke with The Circuit about the various strides that the fest has made since its launch in 1983.

First and foremost, in effort to be straight up about its marketing, this year's fest shed its former moniker as The Visual Communications (VC) Film Festival and rebranded itself as the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.  

In its early years, the fest programmed mostly Asian international pics and would screen mostly at UCLA or in Little Tokyo.  In the mid '90s, the fest's management sought to embrace the growing appetite for Asian American films and began to tinker with its traditional lineup.

"We live in a town that's very separate, and if we always screened our films in little Tokyo, the fest would always be a local film festival," explained Magdael, "It was important to make a presence by being in Hollywood."

As such, this year's screenings will take place at the DGA Theater and the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Hollywood as well as the Imaginasian Center, the Aratani/Japan America Theater and at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo.

While many fests like to have an edge by touting some sort of world or North American premiere, the LAAPFF has found success in working alongside other Asian American film fests throughout the country rather than out-programming them.

"We'll look at what films and filmmakers have worked for their audiences, how they obtained certain prints from Asia as well as support each other's festivals," says Magdael.

For example, Justin Lin's Bruce Lee mockumentary "Finishing the Game" was a popular draw at several Asian-Am fests and served as the opening title for the LAAPFF last year.  This year, the Japanese action pic "The Machine Girl" about a high school girl who avenges her brother's death with a retrofitted machine gun, screened Saturday night after playing the Hawaii International Film Festival two weeks ago.

Other events which occurred throughout this past weekend included a panel discussion with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita ("Letters From Iwo Jima"); a sit-down with "Harold & Kumar" headliner John Cho and scribes Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Scholossberg; a discussion with cinematographer Matthew Libatique ("Iron Man" and "Requiem for a Dream"), as well as a seminar entitled "Media Messengers: Asian Pacific Americans and Our Political Voice" with filmmakers Eric Byler ("Tre") and Annabelle Park.

Photo by Wilki W. K. Tom/©2008 Custom House Photography