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Documentary Program: Prison Food

Reading Terminal Market 12th & Arch Streets, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening Director: Aditya Thayi 44 mins | Documentary | Philippines, Indonesia | Indonesian, Tagalog Who says prison food needs to be boring? In this series, Filipino-American Chef Johneric Concordia heads to some of Asia’s most notorious prisons to see what’s cooking behind bars. He meets inmates running the prison kitchens and discovers a hotbed of human ingenuity with food. After exploring the inner workings of the prison and its kitchen, Johneric cooks a meal for the inmates from the limited resources available to him in an attempt to bring a different flavor to prison food. But will he succeed in liberating the taste buds of hardened criminals? Chef Demo to follow.

Free

Music of Asian America Workshop: Word To Your Motherland

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

A Hip-Hop Exploration of South Asian American Identity with Seti X CHAIR: Annar Desai-Stephens (Eastman School of Music) Join Los Angeles born, South Asian American Sikh Recording Artist SETI X for this workshop exploring Hip-Hop Culture and its relationship with South Asian American youth and their development of self-identity. As a co-founder of India’s First All Hip-Hop Collective, SETI X has travelled the world representing South Asian American Hip-Hop for the last 10 years. Participants will be able to hear music and watch videos of the development of this scene from the early 80’s onwards. In this workshop we will explore the trajectory of artists who have pioneered this space, as well as the current musical landscapes of South Asian American artists reclaiming their culture and expressing themselves through Hip-Hop Music. We will explore influences that have crossed over from the “Asian Underground” Movement in the UK, as well as explore ideas of cultural pollination across the world from the US to India.

Free

In the Life of Music

Lightbox Film Center 3701 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Opening Night Film, Narrative Program OPENING RECEPTION 9-11:00pm | Lightbox Film Center Director: Caylee So and Sok Visal 92 mins | Drama | Cambodia | Khmer, English Get Tickets The Life of Music is a story told in three chapters. It tells the story of how one song, “Champa Battambang,” a song made famous by Sinn Sisamuth (the King of Khmer Music), plays a role in the lives of three different generations. It is a powerful intergenerational tale that explores love and war as it depicts the lives of people whose world is inevitably transformed by the emergence of the Khmer Rouge. Watch Trailer Director Caylee So, Co-Producer praCh Ly, and other members of the Cast & Crew are expected in attendance for a post-film Q&A.

Music of Asian American Conference: Asian Musics, Transplanted

12 Gates Art Gallery 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. Check guide listing for location information since the conference will be traveling between venues. CHAIR: Jennifer Jones Wilson (Westminster Choir College) The musical traditions of Asia survive, thrive and are transformed in the United States for a wide variety of reasons.  This panel explores the journeys that Indonesian, South Indian and Chinese musics have taken when they entered the halls of academia, were employed as a part of youth identity formation, or became a site of memory and entertainment for seniors. PANELISTS: Elizabeth Clendinning (Wake Forest University) Gamelan Chameleon: Cultural Representation and Academic Asian American Ensembles The Indonesian American community is small; however, Indonesian gamelan (percussion orchestra) ensembles have gained an outsized presence within American academic music programs in the past six decades since the first two academic gamelan ensembles were founded at the University of California-Los Angeles. Based on nearly a decade of research within American gamelan communities, this paper examines how gamelan communities have approached the task of representation. Rachel Schuck (University of Miami) Carnatic Music Transplanted to America:  Innovations of Youth in “Sustaining Sampradaya” As Carnatic music’s education system shifts and develops, performance practices and live venues reflect the impact of this music’s migration to the U.S. In this paper, drawing on ethnographic observations of the 2018 Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival and interviews with organizers and participants, I demonstrate that the performance spaces and community accessibility provided through the festival’s education program reveal the globalization of this tradition and contribute to the re-formation of South Asian identity in American education and music performance contexts. Lydia Huang (Temple University) Songs of China(town): Music, Memory, and Identity This paper examines the musical practices of Chinese seniors (age 60 and over) in weekly singing classes in Chinatown, Philadelphia. These seniors are a special group within the Chinese diasporic community, as many have lived under Mao’s regime and through the reform era. In turn, they have experienced periods where music was used as an educational tool, as a political weapon, and as products for consumption. Given their varied experiences with music, what does music making look like for them in Philadelphia?

Music of Asian American Conference: Militarism & the music of Asian America

12 Gates Art Gallery 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. CHAIR: Ricky Punzalan (University of Maryland) From the annexation of Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines to the Asian theater in World War II and subsequent Japanese occupation, and from the Korean War to the Vietnam war and the illegal, covert bombings of Cambodia and Laos, U.S. military policy has—since the late 19th century—changed the fates of Asians along the Pacific Rim, and led many to immigrate to North America. This panel explores how U.S. militarism has affected the creation, dissemination and reception of the music of Asian America. PANELISTS: Christine Bacareza Balance (Cornell University): We are Here Because You Were There:  U.S. Militarism & the Musics of Asian America While social and cultural histories of the early Asian American movement account for its simultaneously domestic and transnational concerns—the wars in Southeast Asia as well as the civil rights struggles fought “at home”—what has not yet been addressed in a direct or sustained manner is how “Asian American music” has been constituted by over 100 years of militarized relations between the U.S. and its Asian counterparts. My paper addresses the role of U.S. militarism by listening in on primary musical examples and surveying secondary sources that evidence how U.S. war, occupation, and military bases in the Asia/Pacific are the conditions of possibility for what we can call “Asian American music.” Elaine Kathryn Andres (UC Irvine) Typical Finesse: Bruno Mars and the Training of Race in U.S. Empire No stranger to charges of cultural appropriation, Filipino Puerto Rican American pop star, Bruno Mars is a key subject in debates on blackness and the mainstream. This paper examines Mars’ racialized reception to ask how the Asian American performing body mediates perceptions of race, place, and the political in U.S. popular music. Specifically, I examine Mars’ training and labor as an Elvis impersonator to trace the contours of the militourism entertainment complex in the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and to situate his framing as an unthreatening and apolitical multicultural figure in U.S. popular music within deflected processes of U.S. militarism and the tourism industry’s coeval logics of imperial amnesia.

Music of Asian American Conference: Tour of “American Peril”

12 Gates Art Gallery 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. Rob Buscher (Exhibit Curator and PAAFF Festival Director) “American Peril: Imagining the Foreign Threat” displays more than 40 original prints of anti-Asian propaganda in the United States from the 1870s to the present day. It is in four sections: (1) Chinese Exclusion and Propaganda Supporting the Annexation of the Philippines, (2) Anti- Japanese Propaganda during WWII, (3) Japan Bashing in the 1970s and 1980s, and (4) Anti-Muslim and Post-9/11 Islamophobia. This exhibit and the associated programming aim to educate the public about the complex history of Anti-Asian racism in the US and encourage audiences to think critically about contemporary political rhetoric.  By placing prints from close to a 150-year span together, we hope to show both continuities and changes in U.S. racial politics. The audience will recognize how the exclusion logic, which was first applied to people of Chinese descent, came to be employed for people of Japanese descent in the early-mid 20th century and people of Middle Eastern origins in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. They will also realize how malleable the concept of an “inassimilable alien” is, as they will see the term applied to everything from “coolies” to “model minorities” and from Buddhists to Muslims.

Free

Narrative Program: Moving Parts

Lightbox Film Center 3701 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Philadelphia Premiere Director: Emilie Upczak 77 mins | Drama | Trinidad and Tobago | English After the death of her father, Zhenzhen leaves China to be with her brother, who works construction on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Although she gets a job at a restaurant, she is forced into a compromising position when the smuggler demands more cash. Her brother promises to pay her debt, but he is unsuccessful in getting an advance from his employer, leaving Zhenzhen desperate. She asks her boss for the money. He agrees but makes Zhenzhen promise she will work it off. Help comes unexpectedly from Evelyn, who runs an art gallery in the neighborhood. But the contrast between the dark rooms above the restaurant and the blindingly white gallery calls everyone’s innocence into question. Get Tickets

Documentary Program: Surviving Bokator

Lightbox Film Center 3701 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

US Premiere Director: Mark Bochsler 91 mins | Documentary | Cambodia | Central Khmer, English What started as a genocide survivor’s dream to revive an ancient sport becomes an inspiring mission to heal a nation. Surviving Bokator is a heartfelt story about reclaiming cultural identity and building bridges between generations. Filmed over five years, the film is told through the struggle of an elder genocide survivor to resurrect the ancient Cambodian martial art of Bokator and preserve it in the nation’s youth. Through their journey, the film reaches the very core of the generational fracture happening in Cambodian communities around the world today—a fracture between genocide survivors determined to revive and maintain traditional ways and Cambodia’s youth looking to forge ahead. Filmmakers are expected in attendance for a post-film Q&A. Get Tickets

Musical Showcase: Traditional & Hip Hop

Lightbox Film Center 3701 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Live Performance In this showcase we will be exploring the connections between traditional and contemporary, showing how the lineage of musical practice within multiple generations of diasporic communities has helped create innovative approaches to the wholly American genre of hip hop. As we struggle to define what Asian American music is, what better way of understanding the rich variety of sounds and styles than juxtoposing these seemingly different, yet interrelated musical genres. Swarthmore Chinese Music Ensemble Co-directed by Guowei Wang and Lei Ouyang Bryant, the Chinese Music Ensemble performs traditional and contemporary music from different regions of China and the Chinese Diaspora. Students perform on traditional Chinese instruments including the guzheng (zither), erhu (bowed fiddle), pipa (plucked lute), yangqin (hammered dulcimer), dizi (flute), and percussion. Seti X Otherwise known as Mandeep Sethi, SETI X is a Los Angeles based emcee building bridges between California and India. A veteran of rocking the microphone and raising consciousness, SETI X is a versatile artist whose global reach has only strenthened over time. Most recently he opened up for Prophets of Rage, and when he isn’t on stage SETI X works as a teaching artist in LA County Juvenile Detention system. praCh Ly praCh Ly is a critically acclaimed artist whose music not only entertains, but also educates. Outside of his music, praCh serves as the Co-Founder and Director of Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach California. A published author and lecturer at many institutions, praCh recently made his debut as a feature film producer with PAAFF opening night film In the Life of Music. This is praCh’s second time at PAAFF, having performed in the 2016 Hip Hop Showcase. Get Tickets

Music of Asian America:  History, Activism, and Collaborations

University of Pennsylvania, ARCH Arch Building, 3601 Locust Walk, Room 108, Philadelphia, PA, United States

November 10 – 11, 2018 Co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival and the Music of Asian America Research Center What is “Asian American music”?  This is a question that Asian American musicians and others have asked since the 1970s.  Some argue that “Asian American music” is not only a useful political and heuristic device, but also a beneficial term for building a community of artists.  Others, however, have posited that we should not use this term because there is no distinctive musical style in music made by Asian Americans. The 2018 Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival will highlight the music of Asian Americans.  It will include live concerts, screenings of music-oriented films, and a two-day conference on Asian American music on Nov. 10-11, 2018.  Presentations will occur on the University of Pennsylvania campus, and screenings on the conference days will either be on the University of Pennsylvania campus, or at the Lightbox Film Center in nearby International House Philadelphia. For the conference, we invite scholars and performers to submit a 250-word abstract on any aspect of music created by Asian Americans.  Presentations can be individual research papers (30 minutes including discussion period), workshops (30 or 45 minutes), or roundtables (30 or 45 minutes).  Research on the music of Southeast and South Asian Americans is particularly welcome. Please be aware that the audience will be a mix of (ethno)musicologists, performers, media scholars, filmmakers, and the general public. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: Has “Asian American music” been a useful and meaningful term in the past?  What about the present and the future? What role does activism play in music created by Asian America? What new perspectives have we gained on the music of the early Asian American Movement or Asian American jazz of the 1980s? How has Afro-Asian musical collaboration changed over the past four decades? What roles have traditional and folk musicians and University-based world music ensembles played in Asian American communities and Asian American activism?   How have Asian American musicians participated in discussions of cultural appropriation? Any research on music created by Asian Americans before the 1970s. Submissions and questions about the conference should be sent to [email protected].  The deadline for submission is July 15, 2018, and notifications will be sent in early August.  Presenters will receive free conference registration, and a pass for all PAAFF 2018 events.

Music of Asian America Conference: What is Asian American Music?

University of Pennsylvania, ARCH Arch Building, 3601 Locust Walk, Room 108, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. CHAIR: Brian Sengdala (Rutgers University) What is “Asian American music”?  Some argue that it is not only a useful political and heuristic device, but also a beneficial term for building a community of artists.  Others, however, have posited that we should not use this term because there is no distinctive musical style in music made by Asian Americans.  This panel explores how Asian American musicians participating in different genres use style to contend with stereotypes and the North American racial landscape.    PANELISTS: Dan Wang (University of Pittsburgh) What is an Asian American style?  Superorganism in the Assimilated Public What do we desire when we desire the existence of an Asian American music?  What would be achieved by identifying a musical style as Asian American? Style, I argue, can allow members of a minority to recognize one another and thereby form communities (i.e. punk style, queer style), but at the cost of a public language that can be commodified, appropriated, and used to limit that very group’s expressive options. This paper engages with the indie band Superorganism, and in particular its lead singer Orono Noguchi. Peng Liu (University of Texas, Austin) From Learn Chinese to Chinese New Year:  A Journey of Voicing Authenticity in MC Jin’s Rap Music The obstacles that Asian Americans’ racial identity incurs become ever manifest when they aim to survive in rap music, a genre that has dominantly been perceived as a cultural signifier of blackness. The first Asian American rapper with a legitimate chance to find mainstream success did not appear until the early 2000s when Chinese American MC Jin gained his fame out of BET’s 106 and Park freestyle battle competition. Jin’s increasing popularity makes his “inauthentic” race ever apparent. Drawing on scholarships in Asian American studies (Ancheta 2006; Fong 2008) and rap music studies (Wang 2007), this paper aims to discuss the issue by offering a close reading of two rap tracks by Jin—“Learn Chinese” (2004) and “Chinese New Year” (2014). Toru Momii (Columbia University) Performing While Asian: Yuja Wang, Sarah Chang, and Asian (American) Embodiment in Western Art Music My paper considers how performance analysis can illuminate the ways in which Asian and Asian American performers of Western art music have operated within and responded to racialized narratives of difference. I first explore how Asian and Asian American performers are faced with a conflicting narrative of inclusion and exclusion in American society. I then argue that these narratives have challenged Asian and Asian American performers to renegotiate their identities vis-à-vis the hegemony of whiteness in Western art music. Joseph Small (Swarthmore College) Looking Back: Spall Fragments: Taiko Drumming-Dance Action-Adventure for the 21st Century! For the past fifty years, taiko drumming has served as a popular vehicle for Asian Americans to express self-identity and empowerment, embody ancestral memory, and combat stereotyping. Spall Fragments, my original, evening-length stage production, mixes taiko, dance, and serio-comic theatre, as a critical response to the explosion of problematic issues surrounding Asian American taiko practice. Supported by media samples of the performances, through critical discussion of Spall Fragments’ creative processes, I will outline the intricate landscape of contemporary Asian American taiko before concluding on how a new wave of taiko practitioners navigate these persistent issues.

Documentary Program: Drawn Together

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity, and Stereotypes Director: Harleen Singh 40 mins | Documentary | USA | English Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity and Stereotypes follows the journey of three talented artists as they use comics and cartoons to challenge racial, religious, and gender stereotypes and inspire others to breakthrough socially and self-imposed limitations. Keith is an African-American syndicated comic writer who tackles police brutality and racial injustice with satire. Vish is a Sikh-American who proudly wears his turban and beard with the Captain America uniform to challenge our idea of what a superhero should look like. Eileen is a white woman who confronts gender bias and traditional norms of femininity with strong female characters. Drawn Together film taps into the public’s endless appetite for superhero stories to refocus common comic themes of justice and doing good for the community in order to open a deeper and more inclusive social dialogue about identity, respect, and representation. By channeling questions about how we view ourselves and others through a creative medium, the viewer is able to confront prejudice and stereotype in a low-risk way.

Documentary Program: Futbolistas 4 Life

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening Director: Jun Stinson 40 mins | Documentary | USA | English Futbolistas 4 Life is about Oakland teens from Latinx immigrant families and the healing power of soccer. The film takes you into the lives of two high schoolers: one is a college hopeful and DACA applicant navigating the reality of his immigration status, and the other is an American citizen afraid that her undocumented parents may be deported. These youth take solace in the game of soccer, which lets them put their worries on the sidelines, if only for a moment. Futbolistas 4 Life sheds light on the overwhelming stress experienced by immigrant youth living in communities with high rates of poverty and violence, communities increasingly in the crosshairs of federal immigration policies. The film captivates viewers with its compelling characters, cinematic footage, carefully crafted animations, and beautiful score by Grammy Award winner Adrian Quesada. Associate Producer Jess Ramirez expected in attendance.

Shorts Program: Musical Shorts

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening 75 mins What do a street dancer, violin virtuoso, keeper of sacred tradition, and femme-forward hip hop artist-activist all have in common? Their love of music. This mixed block of two narrative and two doc shorts explores a few of the many different relationships that people have with music, and the impact it has on our lives. Filmmakers expected in attendance for post-film Q&A. Dancing Shoes Director: Benedict Chiu | 10 mins | USA A young street dancer’s life is changed forever when his mom gives him a magical pair of shoes. Besieged Director: Mengchen Niu | 28 mins | USA Two Chinese immigrant half-brothers audition for the same prestigious film role. In a vicious effort to win the role, the elder brother stealthily sabotages the younger throughout their audition process. Besieged vividly depicts the darkness of jealousy threaded within sibling rivalry. Dancing the Divine Director: Madhusmita Bora | 12 mins | India This short documentary captures the essence and spirit of Sattriya - a five-hundred-year-old living dance tradition from the Vaishnav monasteries and the story of Assamese monks that live on the river island of Majuli. Nothing on US: Pinays Rising Director: Evelyn Obamos  | 25 mins | USA This behind-the-scenes documentary records Pinay Rapper Ruby Ibarra as she makes her directorial debut for the music video of “US”. Working through logistical nightmares and corralling a crowdsourced all-Pinay cast of 200, the film shows how she executed an ambitious vision to create a compelling multi-dimensional narrative about resistance, solidarity, and female empowerment.  

Music of Asian America Workshop: No-No Boy

University of Pennsylvania, ARCH Arch Building, 3601 Locust Walk, Room 108, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. Storytelling History & Identity Through Art Chair:  Michelle Myers (Yellow Rage) No-No Boy is a multimedia concert performed by Julian Saporiti and Erin Aoyama, doctoral students at Brown University. The No-No Boy workshop will focus on a close examination of the power of storytelling through recovery and curation of archival imagery, specifically about questions of immigration, identity, incarceration, migration, and refugees across Asian America. Saporiti and Aoyama, as researchers and artists, will discuss with participants the ways in which they utilize archival visuals to create an added visual dimension to their storytelling and music. The duo will break down their process of combining songwriting, scholarship, and film editing to create their work, inviting participants to think about how the intersection of historical research and personal identity exploration might serve their own art making processes. Together, we will think about our identities and histories as sources for  storytelling inspiration, exploring the meaning of these two words, “identity” and “history,” and have a conversation about potential work which might come from these personal and historical archives.

Documentary Program: Havana Divas

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening Director: S. Louisa Wei 90 mins | Documentary | Hong Kong | Chinese Caridad Amaran and Georgina Wong learned the art of Cantonese opera in 1930s Havana. Caridad’s mentor was her foster father, Julian Fong, who immigrated to Cuba in the 1920s after his family forbade him from performing opera. Georgina’s father was a famous tailor in Chinatown, who encouraged her to learn Kungfu and lion dance. Although each was an only child, they formed a sisterhood on stage. Throughout the 1940s, Caridad toured cities with Chinese communities all over Cuba as one of the lead actresses of the opera troupe. Georgina quit opera to attend college, but her study was interrupted by Castro’s 1959 revolution and her required military service. Eventually, she went on to become a diplomat. After retirement and well into their sixties, the two “sisters” are trying to perform Cantonese opera again. Will they find a stage? Will they find an audience? Film will be introduced by Nancy Yunhwa Rao of Rutgers University. Get Tickets

Shorts Program: Never Again is Now

University of Pennsylvania, ARCH Arch Building, 3601 Locust Walk, Room 108, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Free Screening This mixed program of doc and narrative shorts explores the similarities and differences between anti-Japanese sentiment that led to the community’s mass incarceration during WWII and Islamophobic bigotry in the post-9/11 and Trump Era. The block of six shorts is evenly split between Japanese American and Muslim/Sikh/South Asian stories for an evocative program meant to provoke conversation about these startling parallels Filmmakers expected in attendance for post-film Q&A. Moving Walls Director: Sharon Yamato | 25 mins | USA What happened to the scores of barracks used to house 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII? At one camp built on government land in a remote area in Wyoming, they were sold for a dollar apiece to GI homesteaders settling the West after the war. This short doc delves into the intersection of mass incarceration and homesteading farmers as one group’s American nightmare became part of the American dream for another. The Crystal City Director: Kenya Gillespie | 13 mins | USA Combining present-day and archival footage, this short doc explores the physical remains of the Crystal City Incarceration Camp and the memories of its Japanese American survivors. Five O’Clock Shadow Director: Sangeeta Agrawal | 7 mins | USA An Indian American mother experiences racial abuse, causing her worst fears to rise to the surface. For the first time ever, she asks the question – do we really belong here? Pagg Director: Nardeep Khurmi | 17 mins | USA In the aftermath of a hate crime, a Sikh American man grapples with his fears and anxieties as he attempts to celebrate the 4th of July with his wife and infant son. As tensions rise through various microaggressions and racially charged encounters, he makes a tragic decision that changes his identity forever. Three Boys in Manzanar Director: Preeti Deb | 7 mins | USA This short doc tells the story of three Japanese American men from an iconic photo taken at Manzanar Incarceration Camp in their boyhood, reuniting 70-years later. Surviving Surveillance Director: Sarah Khan | 9 mins | USA Since 9/11 Muslim Americans have been mapped, surveilled, and entrapped by the NYPD. This short doc provides insight into the struggles of one family impacted by these questionable policing practices.

Music of Asian America Workshop: Sining Kapuluan

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

In partnership with Music of Asian America Research Center and University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, we present the third annual PAAFF Conference. This year’s three-day conference explores the Music of Asian America through a series of paper presentations and interactive workshops that will run parallel to festival film programming, punctuated by two live musical showcases on Friday and Saturday nights during Opening Weekend. Bringing together filmmakers, academics, and other creatives - the PAAFF Conference presentations include many of the leading scholars on these subjects and top performing artists in their field. All conference programs are FREE and open to the public, RSVP advised due to limited seating capacity. Chair:  Micaela Bottari How can Non-Western music and dance be preserved and practiced in a way that honors social-politico-historical contexts and cultural identity?  Should we avoid transactional learning experiences when music and dance is traditionally part of the lifestyle, not a performance? When can “cultural art” enter the Western realms of “high art”? Does the meaning of traditional music and dance change when practiced by diaspora and outsiders? These are all questions Sining Kapuluan, a Brooklyn-based educational arts group, focuses on when learning and performing music and dance inspired by traditional Filipino culture. The Philippines in particular has a complicated history of colonialism, war, and political unrest. Yet, her culture is rich with beauty. In a country consisting of over 7,000 islands, there are areas with music and dance practices that have survived the many changes and continue to be practiced today. A growing community of Filipinos and Filipino diaspora want to keep these traditions alive—including Sining Kapuluan. Sining Kapuluan traces their roots to 2nd and 3rd generation Filipino and Filipino American artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who have learned directly from masters in Maguindanao and Cotabato. The group’s repertoire incorporates kulintang, dabakan, gandingan, malong, pangalay, and much more. Sining Kapuluan will share their distinct learning process, and talk about their individual journeys in the arts and identity exploration.

Centerpiece Narrative: Fiction and Other Realities

Lightbox Film Center 3701 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Philadelphia Premiere Director: Bobby Choy and Steve Lee 85 mins | Drama | South Korea, USA | Korean, English Get Tickets Fiction and Other Realities is the story of Bobby Choy, a 20-something Korean American residing in New York City who feels like a stranger in the country in which he was born. After his father’s death, he starts writing sad songs but does not perform them very often. Mostly, he sings softly in his bathtub. Because of the thin walls of his apartment, his friend Billy—lead singer of the band Paper Kings—hears him and offers him a job as a roadie for the band’s upcoming tour, which includes a stop in Seoul. At first Bobby is hesitant, as he would be away from the only society he truly knows. But after mulling over the pros and cons, he decides to seize the opportunity to learn about his parents’ homeland. There he meets Ina, a young graduate student who performs for fun. Watch Trailer Bobby Choy is expected in attendance for a post-film Q&A and will be performing during the Musical Showcase to follow.

Music of Asian America Conference: Militarism, Masculinity, and the Music of Asian America

Institute of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

CHAIR: Mandi Magnuson-Hung (Wells Fargo History Museum) One of the most enduring stereotypes in North America is the emasculated Asian male. Created in the late 19th century, this belief arose partly because early Chinese immigrants often had queues and wore silk gowns, and partly because they were forced to take jobs doing what many White Americans considered “women’s work.”  As several recent polls and Steve Harvey’s putdown of Asian men demonstrate, this stereotype is still alive and well today.  This panel explores how Asian American musicians and the World War II Museum in New Orleans have dealt with issues of Asian masculinity.     PANELISTS: Alan Parkes (New York University) Asian American Hardcore: Defying Inveterate Conservatism in Subculture The economic and social conditions of the 1980s offer insight into the era’s youth cultures. The ways in which these conditions affected race and how this was mirrored among youth unveils the influence of prevailing conservative principles on youth cultures, particularly within hardcore punk and its largely white membership, in which purported opposition to larger social structures alternatively turned to subcultural conservative representation. Limited Asian American participation in hardcore stems from this representation. Employing oral histories from Asian American hardcore members, this paper emphasizes their participation in the music scene, how they defied the racial makeup of the subculture, and consequently its adherence to conservatism. Dan Blim (Denison University) Music for the Pacific Theater: Scoring Asian Identities at the WWII Museum In this paper, I consider how three spaces in the World War II Museum in New Orleans continually recast visitors’ understanding of the Japanese and Japanese Americans - drawing on exhibition theory, fieldwork at the museum, and interviews with the museum and audio installation staff. Comparing these three spaces together illuminates both the broader challenges museums face when tackling legacies of race and violence and how sound specifically works to meet those challenges. Donna Kwon (University of Kentucky) Empathetic Asian American Queer Masculinity, Juxtaposed Narratives, and Double Consciousness in the Music of St. Lenox In this paper, I focus on singer-songwriter Andrew Choi, who goes by the moniker St. Lenox. Through video analysis, I hone in on his prominent use of juxtaposed extra-lyrical narrative and horizontal split-screen video production. I posit that these techniques reinforce a sense of “double consciousness” (Du Bois) often experienced by many “hyphenated” Americans.  By drawing on performance observations and interviews, I will examine Choi’s double-ness (or other potential hyphenations) in light of his immigrant experiences and queer identity.

Free