"The Water Ghost," directed by Elizabeth Sung, "one of the few student films to boast underwater photography."

"freshmen," directed by Tom Huang. "Taking a page from the Spike Lee School of Filmmaking, Huang wrote, produced, directed, edited, and acted in this first venture."

"The Living Museum," directed by Jessica Yu, "funny and touching."

The LA-based media arts group Visual Communications hosted its 14th Annual Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival on May 13th through 20th. Held in four Los Angeles locations and boasting over 75 short and feature-length works from around the world, the event proved to be the summer's largest film festival in Southern California. 
    The festival also hosted several workshops for Asian-American filmmakers, a public interview with Hong Kong director Peter Chan (HE'S A WOMAN, SHE'S A MAN, COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY, THE LOVE LETTER), and a panel discussion addressing the relationship between independent Asian-American filmmakers and Hollywood. Industry talents like editor Maysie Hoy (THE JOY LUCK CLUB), Academy Award winner Jessica Yu (BREATHING LESSONS, THE LIVING MUSEUM), Spencer Nakasako (AKA DON BONUS), and video artist Bruce Yonemoto shared their insightful and often entertaining anecdotes about getting their films made and sold.
    Although the bulk of the films were by Chinese-, Korean-, and Japanese American filmmakers, the wide cultural and ethnic array of filmmakers left few cultural stones unturned. Audiences screened more than a token number of films made by directors of Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Korean, Filipino Cambodian, Laotian and Indian ethnicity. Most of the filmmakers attended the festival, allowing for post-screening question-and-answer sessions. 
    Much of the material showcased here dealt with youthful angst and racial identity issues, but several pieces, such as Philip Kan Gotanda's "Life Tastes Good" and Dayyan Eng's "East 22nd Street," simply told straight narratives that, notwithstanding an Asian cast or location, did not carry political or sociological agendas. Computer and illustrated animation also got its chance to shine, with one of the 12 programs dedicated to highlighting works produced through Visual Communications' Youth Animation Workshop.
    Worthy of note is the number of Academy Award-caliber films, among them two documentaries honored at this year's Oscar ceremonies: Barbara Sonnenborn's "Regret to Inform" and Keiko Ibi's "The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years," the latter of which won the Best Documentary Short Subject nod. "The Living Museum," the latest effort by Oscar-winning Jessica Yu, and two films by Student Academy Award winner Greg Pak, "Fighting Grandpa" and "Po Mo Knock Knock," were also screened. 
    The festival's final night saw Visual Communications hand out their newly-created Golden Reel award, which went to "The Last Seven Days of Annie Ong." Receipients of the audience awards were Tom Huang for "freshmen" and Kimi Takasue for "Rosewater."

The following is a non-comprehensive overview of films screened at the festival:

MADE IN HONG KONG is director Fruit Chan's feature-length look at post-Handover Hong Kong. Shot with a rough, "independent" look that some would say borderlines guerrilla filmmaking, the film pulls us into the world of cynical, uninspired youth who have little more in their lives than local gangster politics, mindless bullying and harassment, and a seemingly hopeless quest for a moral truth by which to live. Autumn Moon runs through the streets of Hong Kong hustling to collect money for local triad godfathers while watching out for his retarded friend Sylvester. His reputation for trouble makes him unpopular with several parents in the neighborhood in the story, including his own and those of his terminally ill girlfriend Ping. Having stumbled upon the goodbye letters of a girl who commits suicide, Moon contemplates delivering the letters while trying to get his own life together.
    The film is a very touching but cynical tale of loneliness and searching for a reason to be good in a world of bad. Chan does a great job of giving us reason to like these characters despite their cynicism. The final moments of the film, a juxtaposition between Mao Zedong's words of encouragement for young people and Autumn Moon's own pessimistic predictions for the future, is a disturbing commentary about the younger generations of Hong Kong, although what is equally interesting is the fact that government and police authority figures do not have relevant roles in the story itself.

Made as a 22-minute thesis film at Beijing Film Academy, Dayyan Eng's EAST 22ND STREET, is a moment in the parallel lives of Li Xiaobing and Fang Zhimin, two everyday guys on the verge of taking a chance with the best of intentions. The two are not connected by story (Li is a migrant construction worker temporarily living in Beijing, Fang an elementary school teacher starting his first day at his alma mater), but their parallel situations make them both instantly likable characters forcing us to sympathize when bad things happen to good people.

SICHUAN STREET SONGS, a half-hour documentary about everyday street venders in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China, was written, directed, and produced by Zhong Chen and Emma Zevik. Shot on video, the piece cleverly introduces each character with a familiar sound or song associated with their work. Elderly vendors sing praises of their seemingly random products (one sell medicinal herbs, the other sells rat poison). Quiltmakers rap layers of wool with bamboo sticks. Each character seems to realize that their job is all they have, and all come off as quite unassuming about the world around them. For those who have lived or traveled in China, the connection between sound and person will touch home very effectively. "Sichuan Street Songs" was one of the films nominated for the festival's Golden Reel Award.

STEEL, directed by Jude Weng, parodies the now infamous promotional ads put out by the cotton and pork industries. In this minute-long short, a young girl is wronged by a cheating boyfriend and seeks out revenge, the focus of each well-produced scene being the role steel plays in our everyday lives. 

HI THERE! ANGRY LITTLE ASIAN GIRL is a feminist-minded short whose title sums up the main character. With primitive animation (each shot is nothing more than an illustration and voiceover) and dubiously in-your-face humor, this piece (and its sequel, ANGRY LITTLE GIRLS) screens in the vein of TV's South Park (which, coincidentally enough, the sequel disparages in a tasteless-but-thematically-appropriate fashion). The story follows Angry Little Asian Girl as she voraciously rips into daily instances of sex and gender oppression. What is interesting here is that the director Lela Lee's commentary about societal sex and gender inequality is as obnoxious and over-the-top as the examples she gives, leaving one to wonder if her main character is in itself a parody. 

THE LAST SEVEN DAYS OF ANNIE ONG is a half-hour documentary video about a Chinese woman (born Annie Ong) who, as a child, was adopted by British parents and given a new name. Now a grown woman, she travels to Singapore in search of her real mother. Most interesting about this piece is its work-in-progress feel, which gives it the integrity that trendy documentary TV shows like MTV's "The Real World" and "Road Rules" lacks. From a production standpoint, this documentary is nothing more than a camcorder, director, and actor, but because Annie acknowledges the camera as we go on this search with her, the audience becomes invested in the story as more than just an omniscient observer.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, a black-and-white silent piece about a woman preparing herself as a rather carnal birthday gift for her lover. Director Antonia Kao almost puts a litmus test to audience's interpretations of the film, as she shoots this otherwise warm gesture with an eerie tonality.

Michael Kang's A WAITER TOMORROW is a clever send up of waitstaff revenge in the honor of John Woo's legendary Hong Kong action films. Set in a sushi bar, two waiters finally strike out against their overly antagonizing and undeserving customers with passionate retaliation. 

In his latest venture, BISHONEN. . . Beauty!, director Yonfan exposes the underground world of Hong Kong gigolos. Drawing from the recent real life scandal that included pictures of Hong Kong policemen posing with known models and young men, BISHONEN tells the story of Jet, the toast of gigolo Hong Kong. Knowing and having partied with everybody who's anybody, Jet's life runs in the fastest of fast lanes. When he meets Sam, a local cop whose studly exterior is equaled by his innocent and benevolent character, Jet falls in love. But when Sam's speckled past begins to haunt his current standing, a tangled web of covert relationships begins to unravel. 
    With a celebrated career in photography prior to his 1984 directorial debut, Yonfan's films' visual element always captivates audiences. BISHONEN is not without a compelling story, however, brought to life through a talented and endearing cast.

Jessica Yu's THE LIVING MUSEUM is the highly acclaimed documentary about a group of mental patients (living in New York's Creedmore Psychiatric Center) whose illnesses offer a unique perspective on their celebrated works of art. Yu ambitiously delves into telling the patients' individual stories as well as that of their art, which includes painting, sculpting, chalk weaves, woodwork, and even storyboards for filmmaking. The characters themselves are funny and touching, displaying a surprising comfort with the camera and the audiences who see their work.

Tom Huang's thesis-based feature, "freshmen," centers on four students from different racial, class, and family backgrounds as they take the first few baby steps of their collegiate lives. The demographically convenient foursome are forced to form their own study group for a history class, which gives them a forum to affect each other throughout the film. The story will be very familiar to many twenty-something adults, although it speaks very directly and sincerely about racial stereotypes and misunderstandings about diversity, Like its festival-mate MADE IN HONG KONG, "freshmen" is shot primarily handheld, giving the film a documentary-style look of authenticity. 
    "Freshmen," while drawing understandable comparisons to John Singleton's HIGHER LEARNING, proves to be a more triumphant effort, as the cast and crew do more storytelling with less production value. The talented and attractive cast is both funny and touching, and although "freshmen" suffers from carrying more minutes than it probably needs (138, the longest film of the entire festival), the interconnected storylines evolve smoothly and individual scenes do not linger. Taking a page from the Spike Lee School of Filmmaking, Huang wrote, produced, directed, edited, and acted in this first venture.

As one of a handful of films that address gay/lesbian identity issues in the Asian-American community, Kian Kuan uses himself as a case study in his 6-minute abstract entitled A SEEKER. Here Kuan takes the audience on a voyage of values between the racially conservative and sexually liberal, finally extracting the best of both worlds in hopes of creating peace for his own.

In FIGHTING GRANDPA, director Greg Pak chronicles his factfinding search about a questionably aloof (and seemingly mean) ancestor through interviews with family members, old photographs, and an introspective voiceover. The story captivates as much as his efforts rally audiences to stay optimistic about his grandfather's elusive legacy. In the end, however, the film is a powerful illustration of familial love in traditional Asian culture. This highly personal documentary about the director's quest to learn more about his late grandfather won Greg Pak a Student Academy Award in 1998. 

In HAN CHEE (Sweet Potato), second-generation Taiwanese-American Jean Cheng takes us on a historical and political ride through Taiwan in an attempt to connect with roots she has never known firsthand. News footage and interviews with family members sets the tone of a documentary, but Cheng's narration is poignantly personal and reflective.

LAUREN, a 10-minute student short tells the story of a young women whose birthday triggers sweet memories of her mother and her youth. This is in sharp contrast to her presently strained relationship with her father.

Elizabeth Sung's graduate thesis film, THE WATER GHOST, is one of the few student films to boast underwater photography. This fantasy tale follows a Chinese American girl as she comes to grips with the death of her mother through a mysterious encounter with a ghostly spirit condemned to haunt the bottom of a forbidden lake.