Yale Bulletin and Calendar

January 17, 2003|Volume 31, Number 15|Two-Week Issue

Talk and screening by alumnus
to highlight Asian American film festival

Yale College alumnus Greg Pak '99, whose film "Fighting Grandpa" has won some 20 honors including a Student Academy Award, is among the filmmakers who will discuss his work during an Asian American Film Festival on campus Jan. 25-30.

Organized by the Asian American Cultural Center, the festival will feature 20 recent films which are either by Asian filmmakers or explore the cultural experiences of Asians. Films will be shown at the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), 53 Wall St., and in the Off-Broadway Space, 39-41 Broadway.

The festival will begin on Saturday, Jan. 25, at 1 p.m. in the WHC with the showing of four films, followed by a 4 p.m. discussion with Asian-American filmmakers. Among the guest speakers are George Lin, head of Asian Pacific American Film, a nonprofit organization established to explore cross-cultural interfaces of East and West through art and education; Joy Dietrich, director of the 1999 film "Surplus," which explores a Korean farmer's struggle to save his family during a terrible drought; and Bertha Baysapan, director of "Face," a coming-of-age story of two women caught between the conflicting cultures of their traditional heritage and the surrounding influence of urban life. "Face" was featured at the 2002 Sundance Festival.

"Shaping Desire: Love and Coming-of-Age in Our Times" is the theme of the five films being shown on Sunday, Jan. 26, beginning at 2 p.m. "'I'm Out': Asian Pacific Americans and Sexuality" is the theme of three films being screened on Monday, Jan. 27, beginning at 7 p.m. The themes for the film showings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 28 and 29, are "Rewriting History" and "The Myth of Bollywood," respectively. Screenings on both days begin at 7 p.m. See the Calendar, page 9, for film titles and locations.

The festival will conclude on Thursday, Jan. 30, with "Seekers and Dreamers: Social Justice, A Conversation with Greg Pak." It will begin at 7 p.m. in the Off-Broadway Space with the screening of Pak's "Fighting Grandpa" and "Cat Fight Tonight." The former film, which aired on PBS in 2001, features a young filmmaker talking with three generations of his extended family as he searches for evidence of love between his immigrant Korean grandparents. "Cat Fight Tonight" explores the relationship between a "crazy" woman, "crazy" man and a confused cat.

Pak will take part in a question-and-answer session with audience members after the screening of his films. Following this session, the films "Of Civil Rights and Wrongs" and "Presumed Guilty" will be shown. The former, directed by Eric Paul Fournier, tells of the 40-year legal fight to vindicate Fred Korematsu, who challenged in court the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. "Presumed Guilty," directed by Pamela Yates, chronicles a year in the lives of a group of lawyers in the San Francisco public defender's office, along the way revealing their triumphs, defeats and moral dilemmas.

For further information, call the Asian American Cultural Center at (203) 432-2931.

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Talk and screening by alumnus to highlight Asian American film festival

Campus Notes