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FILMS BY JAPANESE AMERICANS, AS WELL AS FILMS FROM JAPAN AND ITS DIASPORA

22nd SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL, MARCH 4-11, 2004 IN SAN FRANCISCO AND BERKELEY, AND MARCH 19-21, 2004 IN SAN JOSE

The 22nd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) offers more than 23 films and videos from Japanese and Japanese American filmmakers. The Festival unspools March 4-11 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres and the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and March 19-21 at the Camera 3 Cinemas in San Jose. For more information or tickets please telephone (415) 856-1588 or visit www.naatanet.org/festival on the internet.

Always crowd-pleasers are feature films from Japanese filmmakers. This year is no exception, with a program highlighted by Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest, BRIGHT FUTURE (a Special Presentation of the Festival) and Takeshi Kitano's tenth feature, DOLLS. With BRIGHT FUTURE, Kurosawa leaves behind his atmospheric chillers and offers a character study of alienated Japanese youth. DOLLS has Kitano leaving behind his portraits of violence to explore the cruelty of love and death with an omnibus of three interlocking tales of doomed lovers. Noriaki Tsuchimoto, the great postwar Japanese documentary filmmaker, is renowned for his political activism and committed cinema. The Festival will be screening two lyrical and rarely seen gems from Tsuchimoto, both traffic safety films the director made in the Sixties—ON THE ROAD: A DOCUMENT and AN ENGINEER'S ASSISTANT.

Japanese American feature-length filmmakers also top the bill. Hot off a hugely popular outdoor screening at the Hawaii International Film Festival, Nathan Kurosawa's directorial debut, THE RIDE, tells of a superstar wave-rider who travels back in time to meet the real life father of surfing, Duke Kahanamoku.

Also popular are documentaries about the experiences of the Japanese Diaspora. This year's slate includes Jari Osborne's SLEEPING TIGERS: THE ASAHI BASEBALL STORY. Blending together rarely seen archival footage, dramatic recreations and interviews with the few remaining Asahi team members, the film offers a look at a successful Japanese Canadian baseball team and their untimely demise. SLEEPING TIGERS: THE ASAHI BASEBALL STORY screens with Oscar-winning filmmaker Chris Tashima's (VISAS AND VIRTUES/SFIAAFF 1996) DAY OF INDEPENDENCE, a short dramatic work about the teen star pitcher of a Japanese American internment camp ball team.

The Festival is pleased to present "Tokyo Stories," a selection of short works that offer an array of fresh stories from the land of the rising sun. Included in the program are Chris Eska's DOKI-DOKI, Koji Yamamura's Academy Award-nominated MT. HEAD, Junji Kojima's ROOM SERVICE, Alison Reiko Loader's SHOWA SHINZAN, Yuri Makino's TOKYO EQUINOX, and Tadasu Takamine's GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Additional short works include Koji Hayasaki's LEANG'S JOURNEY, in the "Call Me Ms." shorts program; Steven K. Tsuchida's A NINJA PAYS HALF MY RENT and Nobu Adilman's PRIX FIXE, both in the "My Nina For Your Nun" shorts program; and Darrell Y. Hamamoto's YELLOCAUST: A PATRIOT ACT, screening with James Hou's feature MASTERS OF THE PILLOW. Other short works include the music videos for Rhymester's "Gennama ni Karada o Hare," Tommy February's "Love Is Forever," Syd Garan and Eric Henry's promo for Dan The Automator's "Bear Witness" and two by Masaru Ishiura for Cube Juice songs—"Flying Fish" and "III."

Also of interest is Li Ying's DREAM CUISINE, a loving look at a septuagenarian restaurateuring couple in Japan. Hatsue, 78, and Koroku, 72, are growing old together. They run Jinan House, a traditional Chinese restaurant. Since the Cultural Revolution destroyed much of China's gourmet cuisine heritage, the restaurant is considered one of the few remaining outposts of traditional Shandong cooking, and it is in Tokyo.

The 22nd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is supported in part by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Asian Art Museum, California Arts Council, Community Technology Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Grants for the Arts, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, NOON, San Francisco Film and Video Arts Commission, and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation.

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, runs March 4-11, 2004 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post Street, and the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco and at the Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way in Berkeley, and March 19-21 at the Camera 3 Cinemas, Second and Carlos Street in San Jose. For more information, please telephone (415) 865-1588 or visit www.naatanet.org/festival on the internet.