Interview

For ten years, the PS 124 club has been the only Asian American team to compete in the renowned Junior Theater Festival. The group is one of the few select schools to nationally premiere the kids production of Frozen. In  Curtain Up!, directors Hui Tong and Kelly Ng give us a glimpse into the lives of these young thespians and how they are growing up coming into their cultures and identities alongside their love of the arts. Tong and Ng join PAAFF to talk about some of the joys, challenges, and surprises in transforming their thesis project short film into a full-length feature. Tell me about how you found this story and what drew you to it. Hui: I was a graduate student at Columbia Journalism School in summer 2018 and was doing research and reporting work. When Crazy Rich Asians came out, everyone was excited about this new milestone for Asian representation. As an enthusiastic theater actor and director (and teacher at a kids’ summer theater camp) in college, I was curious about how Asians were doing in the theater/musical industry. So I started interviewing a lot of Asian/Asian American theater artists in New York and it finally led me to find the Broadway legend Baayork Lee and the theater club that she helped found at Yung Wing Elementary School in Chinatown. I was totally drawn by the kids the first time I visited them; their seriousness and professionalism was beyond my expectation, and a group full of Asian American kids doing musical theater was such a rarely seen thing. They were doing “Aladdin” at that time and I learned that they had been doing all Disney musicals — Asian American kids in Chinatown doing iconic American shows. Wow. I thought I was going to find some stories, and started filming right away. This film originally started as a short for class and then you expanded it into a feature. Can you tell me about the moment you knew this was a bigger story than 30 minutes could hold? Kelly: Part of it, for me, was when we started to feel vexed about not being able to include Jack and Alvin into the 30-minute short. (I remember us having several long discussions about this!) While I wouldn’t expect any two Asian children to be the same, the variety of personalities, family backgrounds, interest toward theater, etc, was one key thing that tugged at me through this process of documenting the club and its young participants. And I personally wish for the audience to take that away too. Hui: Oh it’s not just for class but for our thesis project. But yeah, I think around the time when we were able to get into the kids’ homes and really learn more about their personal stories, as well as the larger social issues that they talked about, I started to consider the possibility of making a feature, though it was still a few months before our graduation date. In the editing process we initially had a very long rough cut and tried very very hard to make it a 30 minute short, so after we submitted our thesis we came back to our edits and did some additional shooting which we thought would be valuable to the making of a feature. Anyways, I really want it to be seen and the topics in it to be discussed, so a feature would be a good medium for that. What were some of the challenges you found while making this film and what did you learn? Kelly: As a first-time filmmaker, I found the process of storyboarding challenging – and in particular, cutting the “fat”. I think there were many points when we wanted to include more soundbytes or a few more shots, which resulted in some earlier versions running too tight. We ran a few “rough cut screenings” by many others, both professional filmmakers and non-pros who simply love films, and were greatly helped by having their perspectives, especially because they were not as close to the material. I remember someone commenting on one of the earlier cuts that things were happening so quick they found it “difficult to breathe”! Also, as someone who has spent all of my journalism life in print prior to Curtain Up!, I took a while to get used to the visual storytelling approach – which is something I’m still learning. The quotes and soundbytes often strike me more and earliest, as they would a typical print reporter, hence I really appreciated reminders by Hui and others to also check if the visuals hold up. Hui: I think it is both a challenge and a lesson to figure out what the “connection” with our documentary subjects really mean. We had been filming the kids doing their rehearsals just fine for a few months when we realized that we might have taken it for granted that we have won their trust and established true connections. But we had not. Because we were closely following them around they started to get a bit tired of us, tried to avoid the camera, and even called us stalkers — that was very heart-breaking! There was some misunderstanding there and we reached out to some of the main characters’ parents to “apologize”, and some of the kids even came back to us to “apologize”, and that was when we felt like we built some real connection with them, and their parents as well. Actually all our home scenes took place after this crisis. So it does take time, authentic heart and some challenge to really build connection with your subjects. Also since this started as a student project but I really wanted to bring it out into the world, it was also challenging to really get into the industry and learn what making a documentary truly is, besides just filming and editing. By all the staff that we as producers also have to do after the post-production was done, I was

Baldwin Chiu was just digging into his family history a little, expecting his recent family roots to lead him somewhere in east. Instead, he finds himself taking a sharp turn south. Mississippi, that is. What started as a simple inquiry about his family history opened up to a trove of untold history. In “Far East Deep South,” we follow Chiu as he uncovers the history of his family, and of larger Chinese-American communities, more deeply intertwined with the story of America than his AP history books ever let on. Chiu discussed with PAAFF what it was like discovering his family and his community’s history far back in the U.S., the shared histories of segregation between Chinese-Americans and Black Americans, and how he is pushing to get his film into classrooms to change the face of American history. This film has expanded monumentally from a short documentary into a feature, not to mention an education initiative. Tell me about the moment you knew this was to become a bigger project and what it’s been like expanding. Baldwin Chiu: It wasn’t necessarily one moment but more like a snowball of moments. When we were touring with our short documentary, “Finding Cleveland”, audience questions kept coming and we kept researching and discovering more. We were discovering so much history that we never learned in our AP History classes in California. The constant wave of audiences coming out to support our short film gave us an indication that there was a hunger and demand for stories like ours to be told. Fairly early on, it was clear that there was still more history to be told beyond our short and we ended discovering even more family revelations that were life-changing. Expanding the story was challenging in that there was so much history to cover, but we had to pick and choose what we could include in the context of our film as it related to the family story. We also realized that this was not just a family story. It was also the story of America. One challenge you faced was making sure in telling your family’s history, you didn’t diminish or perpetuate tensions between Black and Chinese-American communities. How did you navigate this and what you found surprising in the process? Baldwin Chiu: We were actually very surprised to discover that in the south during this Jim Crow era, that the African American and Chinese American communities had a very favorable relationship with one another. Growing up in California and knowing the history in the major cities, especially, were fraught with tension between the black and Asian community, we were very surprised to learn about this. Jim Crow laws preventing Chinese and Blacks from living in white neighborhoods led to these two communities developing a symbiotic relationship. We felt it was important to hear from the Black community first hand and not just go by what the white or Chinese Americans recounted. At least in the 1800s and early 1900s, there was a respect between the black and Chinese community in the South that we don’t always see today. We consulted with our African American friends, historians, and social activists regarding these topics to make sure we weren’t diminishing their story but instead, adding to their story to show our shared history. We wanted this shared history to make Black history more relevant to Asians. Tell me about what you learned in having to really focus in on making your film not only historically accurate but racially sensitive to both Black and Chinese-American communities? Baldwin Chiu: When we were consulting other Black filmmakers, historians and residents in the Mississippi Delta, we learned that there were certain points of sensitivity and it affected how we edited our film. For instance, we took out any references anyone made about Chinese and their work ethic. It was brought to our attention that this could be misinterpreted to imply that only Chinese had a good work ethic and that the Blacks didn’t, even though we weren’t making that comparison at all. There is sensitivity to the Asian model minority myth from both communities too. We wanted to minimize anything that could be misconstrued or would continue to perpetuate stereotypes. Tell me about what it’s been like using your film to include Chinese-Americans in U.S. History. Baldwin Chiu: It’s been really encouraging to see progress made in terms of teachers starting to use our film in schools and making US history lessons on segregation more inclusive of the Asian experience. Recently, a high school history class in Oregon watched our film and it really changed the perspective of the students who were predominantly non-Asian. Many of the students commented how they never knew that the Chinese faced so much discrimination in this country like being subject to Jim Crow laws and the Chinese Exclusion Act. We’ve also had a professor at a university in Missouri change his US history syllabus each semester to always include a discussion about the Chinese and the Mississippi Delta when they cover the American South. Our goal Is to see the way US history is taught in schools to be more inclusive of the Asian experience and those of other underrepresented groups in our history books, not just to be diverse, but to be accurate. We just signed on with New Day Films for our educational distribution so we hope that leads to our film being shown at more schools. Tell me about some memorable conversations this film has sparked for you. Baldwin Chiu: We’ve had a lot of people apologizing to us about asking the question, “Where are you really from?” after they’ve seen our film,  I think we’ve made a lot of people that are not Asian think about the implicit bias that people have towards those of us of Asian descent.  There is a presumption that someone with an Asian face is not from the US or maybe doesn’t even belong here. We showed an early version of our

Lying somewhere between dream and nightmare, American immigrants face a tenuous existence in a land that never quite feels like home. Whether regularly fighting deportation or struggling with the monotony of life on alien soil, the films in our program Uncertain Movements represent reality for those who have found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place in the so-called land of the free. The filmmakers featured in this short film program chatted with us about their films and their dreams. Keep Saray Home (Best Documentary Short Nominee) Director: Brian Redondo Without spoiling anything, describe your film in 7 words or less. Redondo: Southeast Asian families face deportation with courage. Do you have a favorite memory from making this film? Were there any challenges that you had to overcome? Redondo: While filming the climactic scene of the film, I got emotional and once you see the film, you’ll know why. I was operating the camera and the footage gets wildly shaky because of my reaction. Normally this footage would be unuseable. But we decided to go with it anyway because the emotion rings true even though the shot was “ruined.” What do you hope to see in the future for the film industry? How do you see yourself and your work playing a role in this future? Redondo: I want to see a much broader range of stories, story formats, and story-tellers. For the medium to continue growing, fresh ideas and fresh perspectives are key. In the documentary world, I hope to continue making films for and about Asian Americans and people of color, and give voice to topics not normally discussed. But I also hope to do this in new, challenging ways that stretch the genre itself. What’s next for you? Redondo: I’m editing a short documentary about an experimental nature program at prisons in the Pacific Northwest. Passage Director: Asavari Kumar Without spoiling anything, describe your film in 7 words or less. Kumar: A woman recounts her immigration journey. Do you have a favorite memory from making this film? Were there any challenges that you had to overcome? Kumar: The fact that we were able to make this project with people who we love and respect was inherently a magical experience. Passage unfolds very much like a personal essay where a series of events are retold– warped and colored by memories and emotions. The biggest challenge for us was creating the visual language of the film. We wanted to strike a balance between being deeply specific and personal, while still being abstract enough so that the viewer could project their own journey onto the story. What do you hope to see in the future for the film industry? How do you see yourself and your work playing a role in this future? Kumar: I hope to see more representation and nuanced depictions of diasporic identity in mainstream media. As a creative practitioner that is medium agnostic, I hope to use every feasible opportunity to push for this transition through collaboration, community support, and collective action. Our production company Supernova Design, in addition to prioritizing the hiring of women and POC artists for our creative projects, sets aside resources to help non-profits and give back to organizations that help POC and minority communities. What’s next for you? Kumar: We are in development for a feature animation project and are collaborating on developing an animated series. Both projects are targeted at adult audiences and highlight South Asian voices and experiences. We were recently awarded a grant from Adobe to create an augmented reality short film titled ‘A New Normal’. This project was created during quarantine with a team of remote artists and has made us curious about exploring narrative work in the XR space. Over the next few years, we are hoping to explore different mediums and continue creating short and long-form projects that highlight the voices and stories of the South Asian diaspora. Transplant Director: Zheyu Liang Without spoiling anything, describe your film in 7 words or less. Liang: Tenacious Chinese immigrants try to find a home on alien soil. Do you have a favorite memory from making this film? Were there any challenges that you had to overcome? Liang: Being able to just stay with, observe my subjects’ daily lives, and see how they hold each other’s hands to get through the hardest time together, is definitely my favorite memory when I was filming. It’s an observational doc and I got tons of footage, so it was kind of hard when I was in post-production. It just took me a while to finish the film. What do you hope to see in the future for the film industry? How do you see yourself and your work playing a role in this future? Liang: I hope the film industry can create a free and supportive environment for our young Asian and Asian American women filmmakers and that we can get more chances to speak our own stories into the world. I will keep pursuing my passion-turned-career as a film director and making films that challenge and inspire the world with my distinctive voice and personal experience. As a young Asian woman director, I will also continue to commit to telling diverse stories of the underrepresented and bringing to the foreground the struggles of the Chinese and Asian experience in America. What’s next for you? Liang: I am currently working on my first feature documentary “Mother Love”, which is about three Chinese “only child” families. After almost a lifetime’s sacrifice and “unconditional love” for their only child, three mothers finally let go and embark on a journey of pursuing their own lives while navigating their tense mother-son relationships. Taking an observational approach, the film explores issues about expectation, loss, loneliness and pressure that have largely been hidden in plain sight. The film will uncover the underrepresented stories about how One Child Policy affected millions of families and impacted people for a lifetime.   To watch this short film program, Uncertain Movements, you can purchase access here. This program is available from November 5th

New York is the city of dreamers and Fang Sir is no different. A filmmaker who immigrated from Taiwan, “Fang Sir” is getting older and with his old age, he imagines one last hoorah – a remake of his award-winning short from 1989. In “Dream In Silence,” Directors Xin Huang and Ye Bao document the making of Fang Sir’s final film, with the help of a group of young Chinese filmmakers. Huang, Bao, Fang Sir, and Producer Fan He all join PAAFF to discuss realizing this dream together. Tell me about how did you decide to make your last film. Director, Xin Huang: Back then, I made the decision that I will leave the USA and I wanted to make a film before I left. I have known Mr. Fang for a long time and I thought he was an attractive person. He was a legend when he was in Taiwan. I found his personal experience fascinating. Therefore, I thought it would be great to make a film about him. How did Xin Huang and Ye Bao find you? How did you all start working on this film together? Producer, Fan He: We were both working for the same company, so before making the film we already knew each other very well. And we both knew Mr Fang. He is such a character. I’ve been thinking of making a film with Mr Fang for a long time. Back in 2017, I was really busy with producing TV shows and had made some money. So I decided to invest in the remake of Mr Fang’s film Reticence and encouraged him to direct again. I think it is a meaningful thing to try to help Mr. Fang realize a dream.  Xin and Ye were planning to make a documentary on Mr Fang by the time and making this remake naturally became the main storyline of the documentary.   Tell me about one of your favorite memories from working with Xin Huang, Ye Bao and the other filmmakers. Producer, Fan He: Xin and Ye are both very talented. Xin is an amazing film editor and director and Ye was a doctor in neuroscience. But both of us (including Mr. Fang) found it extremely hard to survive in the film industry. I guess one of the favorite memories of working together was to go to lunch and have meetings in those Flushing restaurants Mr Fang knew well so we could get a discount and sit very long, four struggling filmmakers from 20s to 60s, having simple dishes and talking about our struggles and dreams.  What was the process of remaking your film? What was exciting and what was challenging? Fang Sir: Firstly I asked Fan He to be the chief producer. (I’m very thankful for his initiative to provide funds), and he organized a crew.  At the same time, he asked someone to translate my revised Chinese script into English; then, the Line producer and assistant director assisted me with casting work, and then related tasks, such as location scouting, pre-production meetings, transportation & logistics  …and so on. After the various items were in place, the filming work started. (During the period, a reporter from the Chinese newspaper came to interview on site). As for what makes me excited, it’s the whole process of filming and discussing with a group of young people who have received American film school education!  At the same time, this is also a process of “challenging each other”. It is a challenge for me, for the entire crew, including the actors. What are some of the similarities and differences between the original film and the remake? Fang Sir: I am the original editor/director of this film, and what I want to see is when the actors change from Chinese to westerners, how will the performance change.  What is the difference in the context of the American dialogue? I want to see if the assistant director, who graduated from film school in the US, can shoot this film in a different style.  It turns out that there is no such thing as “re-innovation”, it’s just like changing a bottle* Tell me about your favorite scene from the film. Director, Xin Huang: My favorite scene is that Mr. Fang and producer Fan He sitting together and discussing the crew members. It shows the different reactions about the short remake. Director, Ye Bao: My favorite scene is after they wrapped up on the Silence set, Fang Sir and Fan were sitting in the van, talking that maybe all these days of preparation and filming is just a dream. It feels so poetic to me. And it’s not really wrong, we were all dreaming in this, together. Fang Sir:  As far as this documentary “Dream in silence ” is concerned, there is really no such thing as a “favorite”, but every outdoor scene of this film~ I like it very much! As far as the remake of [缄 Reticence] is concerned, the exterior location is the only part that is the most different from the original film, including the new performance of the actors, which is my favorite scene. How did you feel when you finished this film, knowing it would be your last one? Fang Sir: This question is a fake topic. Therefore, I also give a “fake answer”: I can smile and say ^_^ Die and stare** Producer, Fan He: It will be no pain.  What do you hope different audiences take from this film?  Director, Ye Bao: You know what’s the craziest thing in the world? Living in your dream. You know what’s crazier? Dreaming together. Producer, Fan He:  The road of realizing a dream is not always passionate and encouraging. It’s full of struggling, very chaotic, sometimes ironic and people feel you are ridiculous. But it’s such a different, interesting and unexpected life to live. So this film is not about success, family or friendship. It’s just an interesting way to live.   You can purchase access to watch Dream in

The 13th Annual Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival opens with a martial arts comedy for the underdogs, The Paper Tigers.  In The Paper Tigers, three teenagers endure brutal Kung Fu training under their master’s constant watch. Building up a fearsome reputation of invincibility, they are known as “The Three Tigers.” Life gets in the way, and after growing apart for twenty years, the former classmates are reunited when their master is mysteriously killed. Director Bao Tran joins PAAFF to talk about his first feature’s Seattle roots, what it means for the film to be seen in 2020, and more. As someone whose work has focused on action films, what led you to present a martial arts film through comedy?  Bao Tran: I wanted to have a fun story that reflected the values I had growing up in martial arts. And then explore the experience of falling out of love with it and whether it has any real truth for our lives anymore. Your film is described as a homage to Bruce Lee and the Seattle martial arts scene. For viewers who are unfamiliar with Seattle’s scene, could you tell us more about how the city’s martial arts are reflected in the film? Bao Tran: There’s quite a bit of historical connection. Depending on who you ask, Bruce Lee had to flee Hong Kong because of his involvement in rooftop beimo fights as a teenager. He landed first in Seattle and set down his roots here. His first group of students were incredibly racially diverse, and he really didn’t catch flack for it until he moved to California. So Seattle has this long history of deep martial arts talent and open-mindedness, and the Tigers and their relationship with their master reflect that. The three tigers consist of one Black and two Asian American characters. Throughout the film, we witness the racism the characters face in their everyday lives. Tell me about the writing process for delivering these conversations through action-comedy.  Bao Tran: The Tigers have to deal with appropriations of all kinds, whether it’s with their rival masters and the younger generation. I wanted to situate the audience with the Tigers so you can be part of their journey in dealing with all the strangeness of all these people. The real-life martial arts world can be quite an assortment of characters! Carter is an intriguing character because he represents some of the Western attitudes that Asian cultures have to deal with. His co-opting of Chinese culture is direct and recognizable to all audiences. How did you come up with the idea for this character and the presentation of his ignorance through comedy? Bao Tran: If you’ve done martial arts here in the US you’ve definitely encountered the type. It’s a very recognizable personality. You take on that which you love, with varying results of course. In a lot of ways and in this day and age, a lot of martial arts have been passed on to other countries and cultures that are not Chinese. Carter also presents how far the Tigers have fallen short of the ideal and challenges them to be better. Have this year’s injustices towards Black lives and the rise in anti-Asian sentiment influenced your film’s reception and distribution? What does it mean for this film to come out at this moment? Bao Tran: Our country is going through a painful, but much needed reckoning. If anything, our hope is to provide some respite and levity through it all. For those who understand the issues at play, we hope they can enjoy and smile and be energized by it. For those who don’t understand yet what is at stake, hopefully they see POC in our film in a different light than what they’ve ever seen or known before and there will be an aha moment of recognition and empathy. Tell me about the challenges you faced while directing your film. Bao Tran: For our little independent film, raising money was the hardest part. Getting enough supporters to believe in our film and support it either through our Kickstarter or private funding. Once we were on set, the actual filmmaking and production were challenging of course, but it was a kind of difficult that we’re used to and, strangely enough, even relish. What do you hope the audience will take away from The Paper Tigers?  Bao Tran: We’d want the audience first and foremost to have an enjoyable time; goodness knows that these days we all need a smile. But also I hope we can learn to appreciate those who paved the way for us to be where we are today. Yes, this movie is a love letter to Kung Fu movies but it is also a love letter to our teachers, be it a Kung Fu master or a mentor or a parent who pointed the way. What do you think it will take for marginalized communities to have agency over their stories? Tell me about your hopes or vision for Asian American films in the mainstream.   Bao Tran: Homegrown stories don’t come out of nowhere. I hope as we continue to tell our stories authentically from our own viewpoint, the greater API community will support our artists even more. Not just in ticket buying but also with funding and investing and sharing the message. What stories do you want to tell next? Where do you see yourself going forward?  Bao Tran: I have a lot of more ideas that I can’t wait to get out there, but there’s a lot in the air with film production and safety. So once all that is handled safely and a clear path forward, we can get to work!   The Paper Tigers will screen LIVE on November 5th at 7:00PM EST and will be followed by a live Q&A with the cast and crew. You can purchase tickets to the film here.