23rd SAN FRANCISCO 
INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL 
MARCH 10-20, 2005 IN SAN FRANCISCO, BERKELEY, AND SAN JOSE

Big musical extravaganzas on the screen and on the stage, 
plus fifth anniversary edition of DIRECTIONS IN SOUND

A lively Film Festival component is music—movies about music, movies with fantastic soundtracks, or live music performances—and this year's Festival has them all. With more than 130 films and videos the 23rd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) offers the largest and most prestigious showcase of movies by and about Asians and Asian Americans. The SFIAAFF unspools March 10-20 in San Francisco (AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres and Castro Theatre), Berkeley (Pacific Film Archive), and San Jose (Camera 12 Cinemas).

Centerpiece Presentation with avant-garde pianist Margaret Leng Tan

The Festival is pleased to offer as its Centerpiece Presentation the United States premiere of Evans Chan's documentary look at Margaret Leng Tan, SORCERESS OF THE NEW PIANO. Hailed by The New Yorker as "the diva of avant-garde pianism," Singapore-born, New York-based artist Margaret Leng Tan may be one of the most important, yet under-appreciated, figures in contemporary music. Tan's life and contributions—and her famous toy pianos—finally take center stage in an engrossing documentary that invites the viewer to literally get inside the piano and discover the sublime sonic universe conjured by this musical force of nature. Through remarkably candid interviews with Tan, music critics and composers, and with extensive footage of Tan's riveting performances and the experimentations that culminated in her becoming the world's first professional toy pianist, Chan records a woman with an irrepressible enthusiasm for pushing the boundaries of sound. Stick around after the screening when Margaret Leng Tan will step off the screen and onto the stage for a live performance with her celebrated toy pianos.

More movies and music mix with DIRECTIONS IN SOUND program

Celebrating its fifth year as a delightful musical sidebar, DIRECTIONS IN SOUND returns with two nights of live music and phonography to encourage movie lovers to get out of their seats and into the club. The first night, Friday, March 11 at San Francisco's Cafˇ du Nord (2170 Market Street, San Francisco) offers an amazing evening of electronic and indie pop, with live performances from Olympia, Washington's famed duo IQU, renown for their ethereal, theremin-infused electronic confection; Oakland's critically-lauded indie pop combo Citizens Here And Abroad; and from Los Angeles, the loungy, sci-fi psychedelica of Seksu Roba, whose music the LA Times calls "part lush European film score, part intergalactic roller-disco."


Night two, Saturday, March 12 at StudioZ (314 11th Street, San Francisco) mixes a world-wide blend of Hip-hop, dub, dancehall, old school R&B and nu soul in live sets from DJs Vinroc (5th Platoon) and Apollo (Invisibl Skratch Piklz) from the world-famous Triple Threat DJs; San Francisco's Mike Nice (Word Life Promotions); Panty RobBer and Proof from the Bay Area's singular music promoter and record label Massive Selector, and a live hip hop set from Kero One, courtesy the Plug Label.

If recorded music is more your bag, then don't miss "MUSIC VIDEO ASIA," a collection of 23 new eye-popping music videos from all points of the globe. San Francisco's MC-laureate Lyrics Born dishes out hip-hop genius, and the return of legendary Bay Area metal band Death Angel is an occasion to celebrate in itself. The perfect pop of Oakland's Citizens Here And Abroad sends a bridge over the Atlantic where Sweden's best rock'n'roll band Empire Dogs reside, and the UK's Sri Lankan-born M.I.A. will no doubt astound with her dub-inspired activism. Across the other ocean, the sleazy rock'n'roll insanity of Japan's Guitar Wolf provides a perfect counterpoint to the breezy indiepop of Manila's Rivermaya and Taipei's post-rocking Tin Pin Alley. 

Opening Night Gala party features Dan The Automator and more

At the Festival's Opening Night Gala, held at the Asian Art Museum on Thursday, March 10, attendees will be treated to a very lively soundsystem provided by some of the Bay Area's most acclaimed musical acts. Headlining the evening will be a live DJ set from famed hip hop producer and San Francisco native, Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, best known for his work with Dr. Octogaon, Deltron 3030, gorillaz and Handsome Boy Modeling School. Also in the mix will be sets from local South Asian electronic collective, Dhamaal, who combine Indian classical music with dance beats, San Francisco’s DJ King Kong who will spin old school hip hop, and the Brazilian samba meets Japanese taiko group, SambAsia, led by percussionist Jimmy Biala.

A few more musical moments

The Festival is pleased to present the North American premiere of Junji Sakamoto's OUT OF THIS WORLD. With his 13th feature, filmmaker Sakamoto (FACE, MY HOUSE) offers a sweeping look at the American Occupation period in Japan when chaos reined, cultures clashed, and jazz—banned as enemy music during the war—became a beacon of hope for some. Five young musicians—each harboring painful memories—are assembled to entertain American soldiers at an Enlisted Men's Club. Tensions emerge between the tenor saxophonist (Masato Hagiwara), a disillusioned ex-soldier, and a bitter GI (Shea Whigham) whose brother was killed in the war. And when the band plays the prohibited "Danny Boy" during a birthday bash for a sergeant (Peter Mullan) whose son Danny had died a year ago, everyone must confront a past they'd rather forget.

Also offered will be a revival screening of Steven Okazaki's LIVING ON TOKYO TIME. Long before the term "slacker" entered the national vocabulary, there was the 1987 indie hit LIVING ON TOKYO TIME. Okazaki's first fiction film is a winsome romantic comedy about Ken, an introverted Asian American garage-band guitarist, basically a slacker, involved with Kyoko, a Japanese girl whose expired visa won’t halt her desire to remain in the U.S. Despite his Japanese heritage and her diligent efforts to learn English, the two can barely communicate before they've tied the knot. Of course, the hilarious love-and-marriage advice Ken gets from his rocker friends is mainly based on the damage women have wreaked on famous musicians or on bizarre interpretations of pop songs. LIVING ON TOKYO TIME screens as part of a tribute to Steven Okazaki.

From the creators of BETTER LUCK TOMORROW (SFIAAFF ‘02 Opening Night), comes the short film SPOTLIGHTING, a brief look at the Sunspots, a Filipino American band performing in a Las Vegas lounge. This entertaining documentary—fueled by the band members’ antics—underlines the struggles of Asian American artists in a white-dominated entertainment industry. SPOTLIGHTING makes its world premiere in the “BROTHERHOOD BEST” shorts program.

Prompted by the death of punk icon Joey Ramone in 2001, filmmaker Roddy Bogawa began a reflection on punk music and its impact on him as an artist. The result is I WAS BORN, BUT..., a sumptuously photographed, minimalist feature-length documentary, which expands the portrait of a Japanese American punk rocker into a story of race, assimilation and cultural memory. Bogawa traverses personal and political history, from his formative years in Los Angeles to his life today in New York, from his parents' memories of Hawaii during the Pearl Harbor bombing to his own of New York on September 11, 2001.

The SFIAAFF gratefully acknowledges its sponsors

The 23rd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, presented by NAATA and Asia Street on International Channel is supported in part by the Asian Art Museum, Canadian Consulate Trade Office, Comcast, Grants for the Arts, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Noon, Oscar Printing, Procter & Gamble, Radisson Miyako Hotel, San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and Wells Fargo. NAATA is supported with major funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, runs March 10-17, 2005 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post Street, and the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco; and the Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way in Berkeley and March 18-20 at the Camera 12 Cinemas, 201 South Second Street in San Jose. For more information, please telephone (415) 865-1588 or visit www.naatanet.org/festival on the Internet.