Short Films Get New Life At Asian American Film Festival

Short films are supposed to be a dead art form. Multiplexes rarely show them, and the Motion Picture Academy recently attempted to eliminate Oscars in that category.

Yet I can't remember a time when I've watched so many new shorts in so brief a period as I have over the past couple of months. Bumbershoot had four full days of them, last week's Latin Film Festival was dominated by them and the Asian American Film Festival, which opens Thursday, is made up mostly of shorts.

The opening program in the festival's new Pacific Rim Showcase will be devoted mostly to the work of an aboriginal group, "Creative Nation," that makes shorts with the help of the Australian Film Commission. Two programs are made up of gay and lesbian shorts, while others are built around feminist issues and moral dilemmas in history.

Still, there's room here for features as well. Renee Tajima-Pena will attend opening-night ceremonies Thursday for the first local prime-time showing of her prize-winning "My America . . . Or Honk If You Love Buddha" (it was previously shown only at a weekday matinee at the Seattle International Film Festival in June).

Another notable returnee from SIFF, "The Journey," is on the schedule, along with three features that are having their Seattle premieres: Michael Idemoto's "Sunsets," Quentin Lee and Justin Lin's "Shopping for Fangs" and the closing-night movie, "Yellow." Its director, Chris Chan Lee, will attend the screening and the closing party.

Once more, the festival's veteran curator, Bill Blauvelt, has put together a series that covers a wide range of styles and topics. There's even a "trash-o-rama" Friday midnight show that includes the uncut version of a censored PBS-funded soap opera, "Terminal USA."

The archival special this year is Teinosuke Kinugasa's 1926 silent classic, "A Page of Madness," which will be presented with a live score performed by the music group Aono Jikken.

Most programs will play the Broadway Performance Hall. Midnight shows are at the Speakeasy Cafe in Belltown. Here's the lineup:

"My America . . . or Honk If You Love Buddha," 7 p.m. Thursday. Renee Tajima-Pena's delightful 90-minute memoir/road movie is partly a documentary about the career of veteran San Francisco actor Victor Wong, who appeared in "The Last Emperor" and talks about his rebellious past as a son and father. It won a prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival for best cinematography of a documentary. A reception for the director will follow at 9 p.m. at the General Petroleum Museum. It's included with the $12 opening-night ticket fee.

"A Man's Man's World," 7 p.m. Friday. A collection of movies about the male psyche, including David Knupp's "Remote," a sobering dissection of the influence of "Rambo" movies and other media phenomenon on current perceptions of the Vietnam War, and Valerie Soe's hilarious "Beyond Asiaphilia," in which a devoted fan admits her obsession with Hong Kong action star Chow Yun-Fat. The program also includes Michael Arago's "Silencio," about a Filipino who passes for white in the 1950s, and Oscar-winner Jessica Yu's "Better Late," in which preparations for an important date lead to a most unexpected punchline.

"Sunsets," 9:30 p.m. Friday. Michael Idemoto's contribution to the Generation X genre is this 98-minute feature about three friends and their last summer together.

"Edge, Cult & Camp IV," midnight Friday. In addition to "Terminal USA," the program includes a collection of sick-and-twisted shorts, among them Alvin Ecarma's "My Dog Has a Cyst" and Koh Yamamoto's "Slave No. 13."

Panel Discussion, noon Saturday. The only free program in the festival will feature independent filmmakers from around the country.

"From Sand to Celluloid: Aboriginal Filmmakers," 2 p.m. Saturday. Another passing-for-white film set in the 1950s, Darlene Johnson's "Two Bob Mermaid" is part of this Australian collection, which also includes Warwick Thornton's black-and-white prison tale, "Payback," and a revival of Tracy Moffat's "Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy."

"There Is No Name for This," 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Ming-Yuen S. Ma and Cinna Pamintuan Stewart co-directed this hour-long nonfiction film about Asian gays and bisexuals who are stumped by the coming-out process. Partly shot in Seattle, it demonstrates that Ang Lee's "The Wedding Banquet" could almost have been a documentary. Filling out the program are eight gay shorts, including Hoang Tan Nguyen's "Forever Linda!" and Eliza Barrios' "Not Obsessive . . . Nor Resolved."

"A Woman's Work Is . . . ," 7 p.m. Saturday. Sandra Oh, who visited last year's festival for the premiere of "The Diary of Evelyn Lau," stars in "Cowgirl," Sunny Lee's sad and funny half-hour tale of a Korean American obsessed with the Wild West and a distant Caucasian man who fits her stereotype of a modern cowboy. Also on the program are Yuri Makino's "Umeboshi," the unsettling story of a rootless girl, her activist mother and estranged father, and Tagifhoff's equally wrenching "The Visitor," in which an Indian woman watches her son-in-law repeat the family's history of abusive behavior with her daughter.

"Shopping for Fangs," 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Directed by Quentin Lee and Justin Lin, this 90-minute feature plays like a werewolf comedy mixed with one of Gregg Araki's tales of lost California youth.

"A Page of Madness," midnight Saturday. Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabat worked on the script of this 1926 story of a retired sailor who works in a mental asylum and begins to lose his sanity. The live score by Aono Jikken will mix traditional instruments with instruments made of kelp, metal and found objects.

"The Journey," 2 p.m. next Sunday. Harish Salujah's charming if weakly structured American comedy-drama about a retired teacher from India (the wonderful Roshan Seth) who visits his son, granddaughter and daughter-in-law in the U.S. The best moments recall Satyajit Ray's final film, "The Stranger." It had its world premiere in May at the Seattle International Film Festival.

"Another Time, Another Place," 4:30 p.m. next Sunday. One of the most satisfying collections in the festival includes Chris Tashima's "Visas and Virtue," a true story that plays like the Japanese version of "Schindler's List," and S. Yin You's "Bo Soot," in which Tony winner B.D. Wong overcomes a bad makeup job to play an Asian-American Stepin Fetchit (self-described as "the national Oriental") who recalls his hushed-up affair with a Caucasian movie star in the 1940s. Also part of this program: nonfiction prize winner Arthur Dong's only dramatic film, "Lotus," about foot-binding in early 20th-century China, and Christine Yoo's "Yellow Belle," about racial tensions in mid-1980s Nashville.

"Yellow," 7 p.m. next Sunday. Chris Chan Lee's provocative new film is a Generation X movie with a difference: the characters are Korean-American teenagers, estranged from their parents, who form a close-knit group. When one of them appears to go off the deep end after his family's grocery store is robbed, the others unite to replace the stolen money - trying to make a bank withdrawal (the film's comic high point), resorting to credit cards, even committing another robbery (a truly horrific moment). A closing-night reception will be held at the Broadway Performance Hall. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Film festival tickets

Opening and closing nights are $12; other programs are $7. For ticket information, call 206-525-0892 or write to SAAFF Ticket Office, 5551 Seward Park Ave. S., Seattle WA 98118.