USA202182 minEnglish, Chinese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereDocumentary
At a top-ranking educational institution like Lowell High School in San Francisco, seniors are emotionally exhausted as they prepare for the rigorous application process to get accepted to one of their dream Ivy League universities. With opaque and reductive college admission criteria, the students navigate every aspect of their merits, ranging from extracurricular activities, comparing grades with their peers, and even reflecting on their own racial or class identities.
Debbie Lum's sophomore feature film is a disarmingly humorous deconstruction of overachievers trying to find their way through an agonizing and fastidious selection system. Torn between personal, filial, and societal responsibilities, this documentary humanizes and channels a lighthearted encounter with five of the gifted students at Lowell. As charming and well rounded the film's approach is, the narrative is also a sharp commentary, aiming at the persisting issues of race, stereotypes, and privilege in America’s exclusive schools.
- Rolando Basmayor
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Sundance Film Festival, 2021
CAAMFest Opening Night Presentation, 2021
AFI Docs, 2021
AWARDS
Audience Award, San Diego Asian Film Festival, 2021
Best Documentary (Family), Doc Edge, 2021
Debbie Lum
Debbie Lum is an award-winning San Francisco-based filmmaker whose projects give voice to the Asian American experience and other unsung stories. Seeking Asian Female (Reel Asian 2012), her feature-length directing debut premiered at SXSW, aired on PBS’ Independent Lens and won awards, including Best of Fest (Silverdocs), Best Feature Documentary (CAAMFest) and Outstanding Director (Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival).
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
GA
This presentation has closed captions.
This presentation has English subtitles.
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If it had to be summed up, Code Name: Nagasaki is a documentary shot by Fredrik S. Hana, following his close friend and film protagonist Marius Lunde on his journey to connect with his estranged mother, who cut ties with the family when Lunde was a child, and relocated to Japan. The experience of watching the film, however, far exceeds this tidy storyline.
Monica (Sujata Day), a former spelling-bee champion, lives at home with her ailing mother and tutors young spelling-bee hopefuls whose parents hover around, in hopes that their children will follow in her footsteps. When she is offered a dream job in another city, she considers accepting it, until her estranged brother Sonny (Ritish Rajan) shows up unexpectedly, opening up old wounds and familial tensions.
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian, Asian diasporic, and Asian Canadian artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
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