Written by Neha Aziz, AAAFF Community Programs Director & Film Programmer
The Sundance Film Festival starts next week and they have a ton of Asian and AA/PI films to watch! They have a few different ticket and package options for viewers across the globe and single ticket films cost $20 and are on sale now, while they last! Their short film and Indie Episodic programs are free to US residents. Take a closer look at these films below and help support the Independent Film community!
FEATURES:
2ND CHANCE
Bankrupt pizzeria owner Richard Davis invented the modern-day bulletproof vest. To prove that it worked, he shot himself 192 times. He launched a multimillion-dollar company and became a cult figure among police. Davis’s rise and fall reveals a man of contradictions and the nature of power and impunity in America.
Director/Screenwriter: Ramin Bahrani
AFTER YANG
In the near future, a father and daughter try to save the life of Yang, their beloved robotic family member.
Director/Screenwriter: Kogonada
ALL THAT BREATHES
Against the darkening backdrop of Delhi’s apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.
Director: Shaunak Sen
EVERYDAY IN KAIMUKI
A young man is determined to give his life meaning outside of Kaimukī, the small Hawaiian town where he grew up, even if it means leaving everything he’s ever known and loved behind.
Director: Alika Tengan
Screenwriter: Naz Kawakami, Alika Tengan
THE EXILES
Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
Directors: Ben Klein, Violet Columbus
FREE CHOL SOO LEE
After a Korean immigrant is wrongly convicted of a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gang murder, Asian Americans unite as never before to free Chol Soo Lee. A former street hustler becomes the symbol for a landmark movement. But once out, he self-destructs, threatening the movement’s legacy and the man himself
Director: Julie Ha, Eugene Yi
JIHAD REHAB
Twenty years after the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was established by the U.S. military in the wake of 9/11, its legacy continues to cast a long shadow. This film focuses on several men — detained in Guantanamo for years without charge by the United States — after they are placed in what’s billed as the world’s first rehabilitation center for extremists. There, they undergo the center’s “deradicalization” program, which includes therapy sessions and life skills classes, before they are permitted to be released into an unfamiliar society where they will face new challenges. In the process, the four men illuminate their individual understanding of what the term “jihad” has meant in their own lives, and express the anguish and complexities of their personal journeys.
Director: Meg Smaker
MAIKA
After a meteor falls to Earth, 8-year-old Hung meets an alien girl from the planet Maika, searching for her lost friend. As Hung helps his otherworldly friend search, the alien inadvertently helps Hung make new friends and heal a broken heart. But danger lurks everywhere…
Director/Screenwriter: Ham Tran
MIDWIVES
Two midwives work side by side in a makeshift clinic in Myanmar.
Director: Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
SIRENS
On the outskirts of Beirut, Lilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East’s first all-woman metal band, wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars.
Director/Screenwriter: Rita Baghdadi
TIKTOK, BOOM.
With TikTok now crowned the world’s most downloaded app, these are the personal stories of a cultural phenomenon, told through an ensemble cast of Gen-Z natives, journalists, and experts alike. This film seeks to answer, “why is an app best known for people dancing the target of so much controversy?”
Director: Shalini Kantayya
WATCHER
A young woman moves into a new apartment with her fiancé and is tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building.
Director: Chloe Okuno
Screenwriter: Zack Ford
SHORT FILMS:
BREATHE
At 12 years old, gifted Jaehee uses an unorthodox healing method that propels her into conflict with her overbearing father.
Director/Screenwriter: Stephen Kang
CLOSE TIES TO HOME COUNTRY
Millennial immigrant Akanksha waits for her sister’s visit from India — they haven’t seen each other in nine years! Meanwhile, she’s dogsitting the fancy Frenchie of Instagram influencers India and Harry, who themselves are on a trip to India’s namesake.
Director/Screenwriter: Akanksha Cruczynski
MAKASSAR IS A CITY FOR FOOTBALL FANS
In a city where men have to go crazy about football, Akbar has to pretend to love the game in order to prevent rejection from his new college friends.
Director/Screenwriter: Khozy Rizal
ORTHODONTICS
Teenage girl Amitis, who always has headgear as part of orthodontic treatment, suddenly does something strange to her friend, Sarah.
Director/Screenwriter: Mohammadreza Mayghani
RENDANG OF DEATH
In a quaint Padang restaurant, filled with people enjoying their lunch break, two bros put their friendship to the test when it turns out that only one plate remains of their favorite dish: The Rendang of Death.
Directors: Percolate Galactic, Andri “Yujin Sick”
Screenwriter: Ryan S. Jackson
SANDSTORM/MULQUAT
Zara, a teenage girl, shares a sensual dance video with her virtual boyfriend, who begins to blackmail her into meeting him in person. Will Zara give in to this stranger’s increasing demands or will she set herself free?
Director: Seemab Gul
WARSHA
A Syrian migrant working as a crane operator in Beirut volunteers to cover a shift on one of the most dangerous cranes, where he is able to find his freedom.
Director/Screenwriter: Dania Bdeir
