FILMMATTERS

MY FILM IS DONE:HOW DO I MONETIZE IT?

2009-06-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

MY FILM IS DONE:
HOW DO I MONETIZE IT?

A conversation about independent film distribution and marketing

Learn everything you've always wanted to know about a very complicated process - the distribution of your film. Where do you start? Who are the players? How do you recoup? What's the current state of the market?

Join expert sales agent and producer

Kevin Iwashina
Partner/IP Advisors

as he moderates domestic distribution and marketing experts:

Chan Phung
Manager of Worldwide Acquisitions, Focus Features

and

Laura Kim
Owner, Inside Job

Co-sponsored by
Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
Date:
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Time:
7:00 to 9:30 PM
Place:

Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
5509 Wilshire Blvd
(cross street and parking located on Dunsmuir) Los Angeles, CA 90036
Cost: Free to all CAPE members, $20 for non-CAPE members, $10 for students with ID
Cash Only Please

Seating is limited. Please RSVP HERE

Reception with snacks and beverage to follow panel discussion.

NYAFF 2009

2009-06-15T20:38:00.001-07:00

New York Asian Film Festival opens June 19th!

Subway Cinema presents Asia's finest!
Guests include Lau Ching-Wan, Wai Ka-Fai, Nick Chin and more...

Catch the Festival June 19-July 5. Check out the schedule here and order your tickets now.

Made in America

2009-04-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Community Cinema Presents Stacy Peralta's CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA
April 28, 2009

Support KCET and your local PBS station!

Eric Nakamura x Daniel Wu + CAPE

2009-04-19T11:34:00.001-07:00

Please join us in supporting CAPE - the Coalition of Asian Pacifics In Entertainment - this Wednesday.

* * * * * * * *

CAPE, the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, is pleased to announce its 2009 Entertainment Industry and Membership mixer featuring Giant Robot magazine founder and publisher, Eric Nakamura. Open to CAPE members and the general public, the event includes Nakamura and a Special Guest Interrogator, Daniel Wu, leading a casual discussion.

Following the discussion and Q&A, will be a CAPE membership and entertainment industry mixer. Catering is complimentary with cash bar, only $2 per drink. The event is free to CAPE members and $20 for non-members and general public.

For more information about CAPE, please click here.

Make sure to RSVP here.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
7:00pm to 10:00pm

National Center for the Preservation of Democracy building at JANM
(JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM)
369 East First Street
Los Angeles, California 90012

Celebrate Indian Cinema!

2009-04-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Come join us at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles April 21- 26, 2009!

Nagisa Oshima: Films of a Japanese Master

2009-04-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre Presents

In the Realm of Oshima: The Films of A Japanese Master

In collaboration with LACMA
Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation

April 23 – 26 at the Egyptian Theatre

Trailblazing Nagisa Oshima was one of the fathers of the Japanese Nouvelle Vague in the early 1960s, and his work still has the capacity to shock, provoke thoughtful reflection and entertain. Oshima's works exhibit such wit, beauty and furious invention, never mind profound feeling, that their conceptual gambits take on sensual and emotional force. They are less the product of a postmodernist sensibility, as some critics have characterized Oshima's strategies, than of a desperate intelligence. Oshima made films as if they were a matter of life and death. Though born into privilege, the son of a government worker in Kyoto (reportedly of samurai ancestry), Oshima was a nascent socialist whose ideals were formed in his youth by the general strike of 1947; the Pacific War, Emperor Hirohito's capitulation after the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent American occupation of Japan; the mass student struggle against the Korean War and, most markedly, against AMPO, Japan's security pact with Cold War America. Steeped in Marxist and Freudian thought from his father's prodigious library, Oshima opposed using ideological systems to probe his nation's psyche: "I am not a Marxist," he insisted. "In fact, I find Marxism and Christianity to be the same thing and both of them are bad."

American Cinematheque will be screening various startlingly provocative films directed by Oshima including IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, EMPIRE OF PASSION, CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH, VIOLENCE AT NOON, PLEASURES OF THE FLESH, DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF and more. His movies are for mature audiences, and films like IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES will be restricted with no one under 18 admitted. Many of the films will be screened in new 35mm prints! All films in Japanese with English subtitles. This retrospective continues at LACMA's Bing Theater in May with a different selection of Oshima masterworks.

For more information and the full schedule, click here.

Asian Spotlight at Newport Beach Film Festival

2009-04-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Join us at the Newport Beach Film Festival, April 23-30, 2009!

We are proud to support the Asian Spotlight - 3 films from China, Japan and Korea - and Harry Kim's Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes Of David Choe.

Please order your tickets here:

Dream Weavers: Beijing 2008
Modern Boy
Suspect X
Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes Of David Choe

Get the full schedule here.

Follow NBFF on Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter

2009-04-02T14:19:00.001-07:00

Chicago Asian American Showcase starts tomorrow!

2009-04-02T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Gene Siskel Film Center and the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM) present the 14th edition of Asian American Showcase, April 3 - 16, 2009.

Join Harry Kim on opening night (tomorrow) for his award-winning film, DIRTY HANDS: THE ART & CRIMES OF DAVID CHOE.

There are bunch of great films at the Showcase, including THE DWELLING, so please check it out!

Korean Film Festival DC 2009

2009-04-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

Copresented by Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries and AFI Silver Theatre, the Korean Film Festival DC 2009 showcases new films, two Korean classics, and a special focus on Korean women directors.

These films are in Korean with English subtitles. This festival is made possible by the Korea Foundation and the Korean Film Council.

For more info, check out Committed to Film.

12th Annual Spring Showcase

2009-04-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hawaii International Film Festival presents the 12th Annual Spring Showcase - April 3-9, 2009

Check out the program.

Get your tickets here.

Aloha!

Tokyo! lives on!

2009-03-26T08:31:00.001-07:00

Tokyo! is a hit at Nuart and Westpark and will be going into a second week.

Tokyo! leaves the Nuart tonight. Beginning tomorrow, March 27th, you can catch it at:

Laemmle's Sunset 5
8000 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, 90046
(323) 848-3500

Laemmle's Playhouse 7
673 East Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, 91101
(626) 844-6500

Landmark’s Regent Theatre
1045 Broxton Avenue (between Weyburn & Kinross in Westwood)
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 281-8223

Edwards Westpark 8 Cinema
3755 Alton Pkwy
Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 622-8600

The full line up here.

Who is Black Panther?

2009-03-26T08:25:00.001-07:00

Find out in the new series

Creator/Writer/Director Reggie Hudlin signing at Golden Apple

14th Asian American Showcase Chicago 2009

2009-03-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Chicago – The Foundation for Asian American Independent Media together with The Gene Siskel Film Center present the 14th annual Asian American Showcase, April 3 – 16. The 2009 Asian American Showcase spotlights film and videos, along with music and visual art, produced by Asian American artists from across the United States and Canada, in a varied range of format and genre.

Festival at a glance

· 44 films and videos
· 20 screenings
· 6 feature length films
· 11 documentaries
· 1 mixed short film and video program
· 1 animation short film program
· 1 visual art show
· 1 music showcase

Highlights include:

Dirty Hands : the art and crimes of David Choe, by Harry Kim, opening night spotlight – Friday April 3

Treeless Mountain, by So Yong Kim, closing night spotlight – Thursday April 16

The First Breath of Tengan Rei, by local directors Ed Koziarski and Junko Kajino

Also featuring Dim Sum Funeral - a comical 7day traditional Chinese funeral, the beautifully crafted coming of age drama - Half-Life, and Fruit Fly – a flashy, trashy, and brazenly fun musical.

Don’t miss Sarba Das’s charmingly chaotic comedy about a Hoboken Hindu family in Karma Calling,
Or Hein Seok’s documentary - The House of Sharing about an education center where four surviving Korean “comfort women” now live. Passing Poston: an American story, Origns of Now: stories of the Chicago Nisei, and The Dwelling is a documentary program about the struggles in which the Japanese and Japanese Americans historically and currently face.

Declare INDIEpendence! 2009: A Showcase of Asian American Music
Celebrate the diversity of independent music in the Asian American community with performances by: Spark*Shop, Lanialoha & Kupono, Cynthia Lin and Wallet-Sized Photo. Hosted by Narciso “Seeso” Lobo with DJ Huu T. Ly and special guest Dawen. April 15th, 2009 at Subterranean, 2011 W. North Ave. Show starts at 8:30pm. Doors open and DJ set at 8pm. 17 and over. $10 cover.

Encounter with Distance - a visual art exhibition at the Gene Siskel Film Center Gallery/Café

For a complete list of all Showcase films and events, please refer to our website

All film programs will be at The Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State (between Lake and Randolph Streets), Chicago, IL, $9 general admission, $7 students, $4 for student, faculty of the School of the Art Institute, and staff of the Art Institute. $5 Film Center members. (312) 846-2800.

FAAIM is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Tokyo Sonata

2009-03-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

Tokyo Sonata is now playing in NY. It opens in LA & SF next Friday.

Catch GR Eric's interview with Kiyoshi Kurosawa in SF last week.

Sin Nombre opens today

2009-03-20T17:25:00.001-07:00

Letter from the filmmaker (to Landmark Theatres Film Club)

Dear Film Club Members,

I would like to invite you to see my first feature film, Sin Nombre, about to face the world on screens across the country. All filmmakers will consider their films personal, and perhaps nothing is more personal than the first one. This film is even more personal to me in that I risked my neck to make it, literally.

I began working on this project in 2005, not long after my short film Victoria Para Chino (based on the tragedy in Victoria, Texas, where 19 immigrants died inside of a refrigerated trailer) received an Honorable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival. While researching the short, I had learned that thousands of Central American immigrants were crossing Mexico atop freight trains, facing a maelstrom of dangers, including bandits, gangs, corrupt police, and the constant threat of deportation back to their home countries. The images conjured up a post-industrial version of our own iconic Wild West, but instead of covered wagons it was a freight train, and instead of the classic Hollywood version of “the savages” it was marauding bandits and tattoo-covered gang members who seemed to have been pulled from general casting in Mad Max. And yet this wasn’t the Wild West; it was real and it was happening, is still happening, just south of our border. This was the story I wanted to tell.

I followed the first draft with two years of research in Mexico. I spent time with gang members in and out of prisons, interviewed immigrants from Nicaragua on up to the Texas border and, ultimately, traveled with hundreds of them from Tapachula in the south of Mexico to Orizaba, Veracruz. Together we experienced hunger, braved the weather and nights of hidden dangers, and grew to depend on one another. One particularly dark night in Chiapas our train was attacked by bandits; after several gunshots and screams of chaos, a Guatemalan immigrant lay dead—he did not want to give up the little money he had to make this journey.

In the scope of things, I only shared in these moments of danger briefly, while these immigrants had to continue facing this journey on their own. But what you’ll see onscreen in Sin Nombre is an homage to their true-life stories told from the perspectives of a young girl from Honduras, Sayra, on a journey to New Jersey with a father she hardly knows, and a young gang member, Casper, whose hope for a better life may be cut short by the gang that he once called his family. The two of them will change each other’s lives forever.

For you, the audience, I hope that Sin Nombre creates an experience that is both thrilling and emotional. I hope that you can walk out of the theater having seen through the eyes of these gang members and immigrants with a sense of connection that you wouldn’t have imagined possible. I also hope you just enjoy the film for simply being a good old-fashioned post-industrial Western tale of redemption.

All my best,
Cary Joji Fukunaga, writer/director

Michel Gondry In Person at the Nuart for Opening Night of TOKYO!

2009-03-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Director Michel Gondry Just Confirmed His Appearance Tonight at the Landmark Nuart Theatre in West LA for the Opening Night of TOKYO!

Gondry joins his leading lady Ayako Fujitani for Q&A following tonight's 7:30 PM Screening of TOKYO!

Akira Kurosawa Revisited

2009-03-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

Akira Kurosawa Revisited at the Aero Theatre

Five of Master Japanese Director
Akira Kurosawa's Films on the BIG SCREEN

This is an Aero Theatre Exclusive!

Thursday, March 19 - 7:30 PM
HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU), 1963, Janus Films, 142 min. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Using American crime novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain as a starting point, maestro Kurosawa manages to examine social class barriers and the harsh realities of unprincipled capitalism as well as the tumultuous conscience of Toshiro Mifune, a shoe magnate challenged with a life-changing decision. Will he or won't he pay the ransom when lone-wolf psycho Tsutomu Yamazaki accidentally kidnaps the son of Mifune's chauffeur, instead of Mifune's own child? The specter of greed is seamlessly integrated into this mesmerizing suspense thriller. One of Kurosawa's best! With Tatsuya Nakadai, Kenjiro Ishiyama. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Friday, March 20 - 7:30 PM
New 35mm Print!
KAGEMUSHA, 1980, 20th Century Fox, 179 min, Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Co-produced by Francis Coppola and George Lucas during the latter part of Akira Kurosawa's career, when he often had trouble with financing, this winner of Cannes' Palme d'Or is a melancholy epic of disillusionment. When the double (and brother) Nobukado (Tsutomu Yamazaki) of Lord Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai) comes across a condemned thief (also Nakadai) who looks uncannily like ruler Shingen, Nobukado proposes an idea to his brother's court. In a bid to save himself from having to continue life as his brother's "shadow," Nobukado trains the thief to be the lord's double. When Shingen dies by an enemy sharp-shooter's rifle, his military chiefs heed the final request of their lord and inform the thief he must now double full-time to fool their rivals into believing Shingen is still alive. Yet how long can the shadow exist without his subject? The film asks, "At some point, may the shadow become the main subject himself?" And, quite crucially, "If it does, will the others realize it?" Kurosawa's haunting tale fantastically weaves tides of expressive color and smoke, evoking truth and lies, clarity and confusion, devotion and betrayal. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Saturday, March 21 - 7:30 PM
THE SEVEN SAMURAI (SHICHININ NO SAMURAI),1954, Janus Films, 207 min. Director Akira Kurosawa's most famous film is certainly one of the finest movies ever made - a huge, sprawling but intimate, character-driven period epic about an aging swordsman (the great Takashi Shimura) who enlists six other warriors-for-hire (Toshiro Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isao Kimura, Daisuke Kato, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba) to safeguard a remote village plagued by bandits. One of Kurosawa's prime talents as director, aside from his meticulous attention to writing and character development, was his ability to create a lived-in wealth of detail in all of his in-period samurai films. Nowhere is this talent more evident than in this hypnotic evocation of a bygone age. Theaction film prototype, enormously influential to a legion of filmmakers from around the world, including Sam Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood. In Japanese with English subtitles. "Moves like hot mercury, and it draws a viewer so thoroughly into its world that real life can seem thick and dull when the lights come up." - Ty Burr, Boston Globe.

Sunday, March 22 - 7:30 PM
IKIRU, 1952, Janus Films, 140 min. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. A middle-class businessman discovers that he is dying and decides to change his life before it's too late. As he spends his last months building a playground in a poor section of his city, the man (played by Kurosawa favorite Takashi Shimura) contemplates where his life has gone wrong, and how he can make it right again. The result is Kurosawa's most inspiring film, a movie that avoids every cliché and gets right at the heart of what it means to be human. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Thursday, March 26 - 7:30 PM
THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (KAKUSHI-TORIDE NO SAN-AKUNIN), 1958, Janus Films, 126 min. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. A samurai (Toshiro Mifune) transports a high-maintenance princess through war-torn lands, accompanied by a pair of bickering peasants (characters said to have inspired C-3PO and R2-D2 in STAR WARS). A deft mix of comedy and action transpires in a film that finds Kurosawa at his most playful and entertaining.In Japanese with English subtitles.

Call-Out for Movies

2009-03-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

FLIK 2009 Call-Out for Movies

Deadline For Submission: August 1, 2009

Fee: US $10

Event Info:
September 24-27, 2009
Art Whino Gallery
173 Waterfront Street
National Harbor, MD 20745

What We Are Looking For: We are seeking narrative, artistic, humorous,
dramatic, documentary, experimental, ambient, motion painting (loops) —
works of all genres, formats and styles.

Presentation will be in both screening and gallery formats, so interactive
works and video installations are also encouraged. Submissions intended for
screening should be no longer than 30 minutes.

To submit, review the checklist, agree to the Terms of Submission, then
submit your information and fee online.

Any questions? Please contact: info@flikfestival.com

Tokyo! opens in So Cal tomorrow

2009-03-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Liberation Entertainment and Vitagraph Films present
TOKYO!
A Film by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-Ho
OFFICIAL SELECTION CANNES 2008
Un Certain Regard

Opens Friday, March 20, 2009 in LA & OC

Three of world cinema's great visionaries, Michel Gondry (Be Kind Rewind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Léos Carax (The Lovers on the Bridge, Pola X), and Bong Joon-ho (Memories of Murder, The Host), each direct a segment of this surreal triptych film, set in the ultra-modern Japanese metropolis, Tokyo.

Nuart Theatre
11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, (just west of the 405 Freeway), Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 281-8223

Edwards Westpark 8 Cinema
3755 Alton Parkway, Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 622-8609

Actress Ayako Fujitani the lead actress in the Michel Gondry segment "Interior Design" will appear in person at the Nuart for the 7:15 PM show on March 20th.

See list of all U.S. theatrical and festival screenings

"Interior Design" (Dir. Michel Gondry) -
Tokyo! opens with the first of three featurettes, “Interior Design,” from beloved international sensation Michel Gondry, whose previous features, including, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Science of Sleep (2006), and Be Kind Rewind (2008), revealed a master of surrealist whimsy at the very top of his game.

Hiroko and Akira (Ayako Fujitani and Ryo Kase) are a young couple from the provinces who arrive in Tokyo with limited funds, short-term lodging and what appears to be a solid and mutually supportive relationship that will seemingly carry them through any challenge. Akira is an aspiring filmmaker whose debut feature will soon screen in the city — and hopefully land him an entrée to a more solid career; in the interim he lands work wrapping gifts at a local department store. After securing short-term housing in the cramped studio apartment of old school chum Akemi (Ayumi Ito) — a career girl with a demanding boyfriend who grows weary of Akemi’s houseguests — Hiroko hits the streets of Tokyo in search of a suitable apartment, finding a series of rat-infested hovels that neither she nor Akira can afford on their limited salaries. After Akira’s film screens, to dubious acclaim, one spectator informs Hiroko of the inherent struggles in relationships between creative types: often times, one half of a couple feels invisible, useless or unappreciated, something Hiroko relates to wholeheartedly in the wake of her numerous trials and tribulations in the unfamiliar city of Tokyo. She starts to question her role in the relationship, resulting in a Kafkaesque transformation of self-discovery that will delight fans of Gondry’s trademark surrealism. Adapted from Gabrielle Bell’s comic "Cecil and Jordan in New York."

"Merde" (Dir. Léos Carax) -
Tokyo! continues with the second featurette, “Merde,” from acclaimed French filmmaker Léos Carax, whose previous features include the Cannes Film Festival selection Pola X (1999), the international art-house sensation The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), starring "Merde" lead actor Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche, and the classic French indies Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood; 1986) and Boy Meets Girl (1984).

Merde (a French term translating as “shit”) is the name given to an unkempt, gibberish-spewing subterranean creature of the Tokyo sewers, played by Denis Lavant, who rises from the underground lair where he dwells to attack unsuspecting locals in increasingly brazen and terrifying ways: he steals cash and cigarettes from passersby, frightens old women and salaciously licks schoolgirls, resulting in a televised media frenzy that creates mounting hysteria among the Tokyo populace.

After discovering an arsenal of hand grenades in his underground lair, Merde slips into full-on assault mode, hurling the munitions at random citizens and creating a Godzilla-like atmosphere of urban terror, which the media promptly laps up and reflects back to its equally voracious television audience.

Enter pompous French magistrate Maître Voland (Jean-François Balmer) — a dead ringer for the sewer creature’s gnarled and twisted demeanor — who arrives in Tokyo to represent Merde’s inevitable televised trial, claiming to be the sole person in the world able to speak his client’s unintelligible language. The media circus mounts as lawyer defends client in a surreal court of law hungry for a satisfying resolution. Merde is tried, convicted and sentenced to death — until justice takes an unexpected turn.

"Shaking Tokyo" (Dir. Bong Joon-ho) -
The Tokyo! triptych concludes with the romantic featurette “Shaking Tokyo” from Bong Joon-ho, whose Korean monster movie The Host was the hit of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival before becoming a international box office sensation.

Teruyuki Kagawa stars as a Tokyo shut-in, or hikikimori, who has not left his apartment in a decade. His only link to the outside world is through his telephone, which he uses to command every necessity from a series of random and anonymous delivery people, including the pizza that he lives on and the hundreds of discarded pizza cartons he meticulously stacks in and around his cramped apartment. But one day is different — his pizza arrives thanks to a lovely young woman who succeeds in catching the shut-in’s eye. Suddenly an earthquake strikes Tokyo, prompting the beautiful young delivery woman to faint in her client’s apartment. And then the unthinkable happens — the hikikimori falls hopelessly in love.

Time passes and the shut-in discovers through another pizza delivery person that the improbable object of his affections has become a hikikimori in her own right. Taking a bold leap into the unknown, our hero crosses the threshold of his apartment and takes to the streets in search of his paramour, at last discovering his kindred spirit — at the very moment another earthquake strikes.
______________________________________

In Japanese with English subtitles
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Color 35 mm 1.85, Dolby SRD/DTS 2008
France/Japan/Korea/Germany
______________________________________

San Francisco, here we come!

2009-03-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Join us at the 27th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

Check out all the great films, events, panels. Meet filmmakers. And meet us at Dirty Hands and The Dwelling.

And then swing by GRSF and check out For The Love Of...

Eric Nakamura x Kiyoshi Kurosawa

2009-03-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Eric Nakamura X Kiyoshi Kurosawa

2009-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Giant Robot Tokyo! Screening at the Egyptian Michel Gondry and Ayako Fujitani. Left to right: Eric, Gondry, Rollins.

2009-03-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Countdown to SFIAFF

March 12-22

Join us in SF this week -- in the meantime, check out a profile on SFIAFF Festival Director Chi-hui Yang

2009-03-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Johns Hopkins Medical Institute's Office of Cultural Affairs presents Lovers and Liars: Contemporary Films From Korea. The series features six entertaining and thought-provoking looks at the funny, stupid, noble, and sometimes tragic things we do for love. The series will run for six Thursdays, beginning March 5 at 7:15 with Barking Dogs Never Bite, the feature debut of director Bong Joon-ho (The Host).