LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL 2009

A scene from Lala's Gun, a highly recommended film.

LAAPFF 2009 is here

By Don Simpson

The 25th Anniversary Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) launches the celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month (which would be May). LAAPFF 2009 will showcase 181 films -- 35 feature films and 146 shorts and videos -- from both Asian Pacific American and Asian international directors representing 26 countries. The festival also features several seminars (open to the public).

LAAPFF will run from April 30 thru May 7, 2009 at the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theatres, Downtown Independent Theatre, The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, and the Aratani/Japan America Theatre.

Here’s a taste of what LAAPFF 2009 has to offer:

Jay –- There are actually two Jays in Jay. We meet the first Jay, a gay Filipino school teacher, just after he was brutally murdered. We then meet the second Jay (Baron Geisler), the host of a television reality show, as he coerces the deceased Jay’s family to participate in his program. The film bounces fleetingly between reality and the television reality show – and as the film progresses reality turns into fiction. Director Francis Xavier Pasio gives a frank and brutal portrayal of reality television in the Philippines but the criticisms translate worldwide. Recommended.

Kolorette –- Structurally, Kolorette is challenging, as it has more in common with surrealist art films than traditional narratives. There is a play and there are songs. There is a lot of deceit, lust and envy. But to be perfectly honest, I did not quite understand everything director Ruelo Lozendo is attempting to convey in this film; yet in my world that can be interpreted as a compliment. One might suspect that a film titled Kolorette would most likely be in color. That suspicion would be wrong.

Lala’s Gun -- The Miao tribe has lived in the forests of south-eastern China for over 2,000 years, still respecting the traditions of their forefathers. Boys become adults at the age of 15, at which time they are typically given a gun by their father. Lala’s (Wang Jishuai) adulthood initiation ceremony is approaching, but because his father abandoned him at birth so he has no one to give him a gun. Lala decides the best solution would be to aimlessly wander across south-eastern China in search of the father he has never known or seen. Highly recommended.

Love Exposure –- Clocking in just shy of four hours, Love Exposure spends a good deal of time building the back-story of the film’s protagonist, Yu (Takahiro Nishijima)…and gratuitously focusing on panty shots…but I’ll get back to that later. Yu’s mother dies while he is just a child. Before she dies, Yu’s mother gives him a statue of the Virgin Mary. Yu’s father becomes a Catholic priest, but then his fancy is tickled by another woman. Overburdened by the guilt of his own actions, Yu’s father forces Yu to confess on a daily basis. Yu’s dilemma is that he is a good person with little or nothing to confess. At first he makes up sins, but his father sees through him; so Yu is forced to find sins to commit, hence Yu falls in with a questionable crowd. Yu is taught by his new friends how to steal, fight and take stealth photographs up women’s skirts. Yu promptly becomes a skilled panty shot photographer; he is considered to be a pervert, but he never gets off from the photos. Eventually Yu meets the girl of his dreams (his Virgin Mary) – he knows this because glancing at her panties makes him erect. And that’s just the first 45 minutes! Highly recommended for recovering Catholics with a penchant for peeking at panties.

The Rainbow Troops –- At least ten pupils must attend Muslimah (Cut Mini Theo) and Harfan’s (Ikranagara) decrepit Islamic primary school located on a tiny Indonesian island, otherwise the school must close. It is quite obvious that ten students will eventually show up. Inspired by Andrea Hirata's 2005 novel, Rainbow Warriors, director Riri Riza revisits the ten students’ adventurous, yet motivational and educational, schooldays in one long flashback told from the point of view of one of the students who has returned home as an adult. .Recommended.

Shiro’s Head -– Vince Flores (Don Muna) is our humble narrator. Let’s just say that Vince has some issues to deal with involving his own questionable past as well as his family’s history of secrets. Vince was left crippled and guilt-wrecked after the death of his father. Vince is now attempting to reconcile his guilty conscience, but his checkered past and family’s secrets promptly catches up to him. Noah (Matt Ladmirault), Vince’s doppelganger, returns to Guam to visit his best friend Jacob (Julian Santos). Jacob, Vince’s half-brother, is murdered by a mohawk-ed assassin (Dion Lizama) forcing Vince and Noah to form an alliance to avenge Jacob’s death.

Winds of September -– Boys will be boys. In the case of Winds of September, we are talking about a tight-knit group of high school boys that enjoy baseball, girls and beer. The boys find it difficult to stay out of trouble, just as their favorite baseball team gets into some trouble of their own. Eventually, the trouble gets the best (or worst) of all parties in this Neorealist-cum-New Wave gem. Highly recommended.

Yamagata Scream –- Directed by and starring Naoto Takenaka, Yamagata Scream is a hyper-stylized visual trip into a crazed Japanese fantasyland chockfull of vengeful zombie samurais, circus-like townspeople and cute Japanese high school girls on a history field trip.


For more information, please visit http://www.vconline.org/festival/