VIRUS, XENOPHOBIA CHALLENGES FOR ASIAN FILM FEST
This year’s event will be mostly virtual, with 2 movies shown in drive-in format
This year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival, which is celebrating its 21st year and will run Oct. 23-31, has seen a few unexpected challenges. Like just about everyone else in the United States, says festival executive director Kent Lee, he hoped and expected that, by October, the country’s COVID-19 situation would be more under control.
“When the pandemic first hit, we were actually planning our Spring Showcase, which is a much smaller production,” says Lee, who is also executive director of the Pacific Arts Movement, which sponsors the festival.
“As the months went on, everyone was asking: ‘Is this a temporary thing? Is it going to be the new normal?’ And I think we had to decide early on that we would choose to move it to a virtual format, rather than committing to any venue,” he says. Lee says that the decision for the fest to go entirely virtual has proved to be a good one and that they’ve seen “an extreme amount of support.”
For Lee and his team, the main task in going virtual was deciding what the experience would look like. They wondered how, if people can’t physically gather in an engaging space, the festival would get them to stick around.
The first answer, Lee says, was to consult a technology partner that had worked on the fest’s website for years. Local company Filmbot created a thenproprietary on-demand film viewing system, which it has since made available to the general public. The result of onboarding a successful system meant that the festival ended up with 125 films from 24 countries representing 34 languages, which is shy of the festival’s usual “170-something,” says Lee, but surpasses what he
expected for such a strange year. He also added that because the festival is virtual, many more directors and performers were able to participate in Q&As this year, so there is a glut of additional content that normally wouldn’t be present at an in-person festival.
In addition to volume, Filmbot’s platform allows for synchronous screenings. This f lies in direct opposition to in-person festival formats, which follow a linear structure of a film showing followed by a Q&A before moving to the next film on the schedule. With synchronous screenings, attendees are able to plot out their own schedules and view at their leisure, including extras like directors’ post-discussions. Lee says that the “vast majority” of films are able to be viewed this way but, to preserve some of the traditional festival format, certain films are shown only at certain times or are available to view for only 24 hours.
Aside from the wide selection and screening format, which are two draws, Lee adds that it’s been a difficult year for the wider Asian and AsianAmerican communities.
This is in part thanks to COVID-19, as well, which has inspired increased racism and xenophobia targeted toward Asians and Asian-Americans owing to misguided blame for the
virus’s origins and eventual proliferation.
“I think part of our role (in the community) has always been to help showcase and share stories from here, from around the
world, that that have faces and storylines and cultures and whatnot that resemble people’s varied backgrounds,” Lee says.
“I think in this year, especially with COVID-19 having an impact on Asian communities, not just from a health standpoint, but also with increased racism, that that sort of came up as a result of it,” he says. “I think it’s even more important that people have a chance to see stories from people who might be different and, through it, hopefully, develop a sense of compassion and understanding that you really can’t get without seeing it and feeling it. Film always has sort of this capacity or capability to evoke deeper emotions in terms of getting people to connect to things. And so I think that’s more important than ever for us.”
The films
The opening night film, which directly deals with COVID-19, is called “76 Days” and takes place in Wuhan, China, during the city’s now-infamous lockdown. “There’s no way to see that and not think about the fact that we’re (in the United States) still right in the midst of it,” Lee says.
Another notable film being shown is called “Down a Dark Stairwell.” The film is about a ChineseAmerican police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man in 2014 and the protests and activism, in both the Black and Chinese-American communities, that followed.
Two films, “Get the Hell Out” and “Be Water,” will be shown in drive-in format at Zion Market in Clairemont Mesa.