UC Irvine’s Film and Media Studies had a big presence Saturday May 5 at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival!
Field trip FMS students Mario Acevedo, Karina Acosta, Ebony Bell, Sarah Brandenburg, Lloyd Ea, Jane Kim, Pearl Moro, Christine Petrivelli, and Qianxun Xu gathered with Professor Desha Dauchan and Professor Fatimah Tobing Rony on a hot Saturday afternoon to enjoy the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in Little Tokyo. We were thrilled to see also present at the festival other FMS Anteaters, including last year’s field trip attendees Leatrice Ching and Yanit Mehta, as well as Tom Forte, Albert Le, Nia Jarquin, Madison McKenzie, and Angel Ochoa!
We met in Little Tokyo at one of the venues showing community work, and some of the students caught a presentation by FMS Professor Bliss Cua Lim. Our first film, screened in the East-West Players Theater, was Angkar, a documentary by French-Cambodian filmmaker Neary Adeline Hay. This experimental documentary followed Hay’s father’s journey back to Cambodia and the village where he was forced to meets again his Khmer Rouge persecutors. Our second film was a Centerpiece showcase film, In the Life of Music, directed by Caylee So, Visal Sok in the Aratani Theater with about 400 audience members there to see the first Cambodian-American feature film set during three distinct historical periods. Students were impressed by this young Chapman grad director’s mastery in this beautiful, funny, and heartbreaking film.
After dinner at the historic Mitsuru Sushi and Grill, we attended a wonderfully curated program of short hard-hitting contemporary films, The No-Spin Zone, which included a film by Professor Desha Dauchan, Xin! Professor Dauchan’s actors/producers/writers Tina Huang and Karla Mosely were also present at the screening, attended by the Field Trip students and other FMS students who came up to LA just for the show. The Downtown Independent Theater was packed and students enjoyed the Q and A, led by UCI FMS alum Elaine Dolalas (FMS ’03). Everyone also enjoyed talking to the directors afterwards.
FMS student Joanne Ducot worked as a photographer at the opening night of the film festival. Alum Sheldon Chau (FMS ’10) is the Director of Photography for the narrative feature Fish Bones, screening Tuesday May 8th at Regal LA Live at 6:45 as part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Come out and see it and congratulations Sheldon!
UC Irvine represented in a big way this year at the film fest!