Reel Asian - Toronto Asian Film Festival

SHORTS PROGRAMME: BENT
co-presented with IMAGES FESTIVAL

Friday November 29 | 7 PM | Innis Town Hall

Miwon: Awakened Warrior

Get lost in the hypnotic rush of fast cars, curious cuisine and outrageous explorations in a selection of progressively racy and raucous shorts from here and abroad.

PROFILES IN SCIENCE
Wes Kim (USA, 2002) 5 min/video/colour

CANADIAN Premiere
An hommage to high school educational films, PROFILES IN SCIENCE looks at the work of the fictional Dr. Albert Chung, an unsung pioneer in the field of time-lapse photography.

Wes Kim is the Web and Communications Manager for the Seattle Indie Network and the moderator of the Seattle Asian American Filmmaking Mailing List. PROFILES IN SCIENCE is his first film.

CANADIAN Premiere
Pyongyang, the capital of mysterious North Korea is built to impress. There’s even no need for traffic lights in the worker’s paradise. The traffic police at the main intersections rank among the most beautiful in the world. Doll-like beauties swivel mechanically while directing traffic.

CANADIAN Premiere
Can Mr. Kim keep the shop alive? Eureka! His granddaugther has a plan… (A musical)

Ann Kaneko graduated from UCLA with an MFA in Directing for Film and Television. Ann is currently in Peru where she is making a new documentary. She is also a cinematographer and has shot numerous documentaries and shorts.

CANADIAN Premiere
This short documentary shows a young Asian American woman who is immersed in the illegal auto racing scene.

James Cho is creating a triology about Asian American residents of Las Vegas. The second part of the trilogy, MY MOM’S A DEALER documents the filmmaker’s mother who works as a blackjack dealer, and the third segment is entitled OFF CENTER LAS VEGAS.

Juddi Lin is a resident of Las Vegas and she plans to open her own auto repair and maintenance shop in the fall of this year.

CANADIAN Premiere
How well do you know your neighbors? TRICK OR TREAT follows an immigrant Taiwanese man experiencing his first Halloween in New York City.

Alice Wu is a New York based writer and director. A second generation Asian-American born and raised in San Jose, California, she designed and produced CD-ROM and Internet music sites in Seattle before moving to New York to work as a freelance film editor.

THE ALL AMERICAN MEAL
Max Chan (USA, 2002) 8 min/video/colour

CANADIAN Premiere
The search for the unusual leads three teens to try the weirdest foods they can find…and eat. This is the ultimate taste test.

Max Chan is a junior at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. He lives with his parents who make him do his own laundry. Max just finished another short piece, CHAN CAN COOK where he demonstrates how to make a Chinese Chicken Salad.

HER
Kai Ling Hsueh (Canada) 10 min/video/colour

TORONTO Premiere
Memories overlap with fantasy. Isolated and closeted desires give way to a shadow play of secret passion..

Kai Ling Hsueh was born in Hualien, Taiwan and moved to Vancouver in 1997 to pursue her dream as an interdisciplinary artist. Hsueh is a third year media student at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Her work explores women’s issues, race and sexuality. Her art work have been shown around the world in Taiwan, Vancouver and Germany.

RECOVERED CASSETTE
Matthew Benett (Canada) 5 min/video/colour

WORLD Premiere
This is found footage of a single, continuous take from the point of view of one cloned human, a young Korean woman who has escaped from a research facility with her sisters. The video depicts the happy time the girls spend just after they break into an old storage warehouse.

Matthew Bennett works under the aegis of Mind Control Studios, a production company located in Toronto. He has produced a number of music videos for Detroit based electronic bands. None of them will ever play on television. He also co-directs The Efficiency Show, a Television show for Agoraphobes.

CONTROLLING ANIMALS – THE CHINKEES
Sung H. Kim (USA, 2001) 2 min/video

CANADIAN Premiere
This is a music video from ska band The Chinkees, based out of the San Francisco Bay area.

Sung Kim has completed several shorts, and music videos for The Chinkees, eE and Korea Girl. Sung is currently wrapping up post-production on his first feature, a low-budget film entitled BOOK OF RULES.

MIWON: AWAKENED WARRIOR
Susan Han (USA, 2001) 22 min/video

CANADIAN Premiere
Adopted high school student, Kirsten Thompson’s idyllic life is turned upside down when her Caucasian parents confess that she is Korean. Through various mishaps, her martial arts skills are awakened.

Susan Han graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA. Susan also works as a freelance writer, is an active board member of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and co-chaired the Second Annual New Writers Awards.