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2017 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

Feature Articles

  1. Q&A with Ghost Magnet Roach Motel’s Shinpei Takeda

    Posted April 26th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    By Martin Wong of Save Music in Chinatown In my past life, I’ve supported attended film festivals as a writer, judge, and participant. And now I just go for fun. I love independent, underground, and international movies–not to mention pretty much every trashy genre flick and a handful of arty ones–and how cool is it to […]

  2. Miles From Nowhere: Reflecting on THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

    Posted April 25th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    by Ashley Lin In THE ROAD TO MANDALAY, Midi Z offers an honest glimpse of the difficult path for migrant workers. Traveling from Burma, young protagonists and at first strangers, Lianqing and Guo, enter Thailand with few contacts and the same goal to find work. As they toil through the hardships of an unfamiliar environment […]

  3. Short & Sweet: Overcoming the Hardest Obstacles

    Posted April 24th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    by Reynaldo Culannay In “Coin Boy,” fourth grader Tai faces rejection when using coins to cover the expenses of trying to pay for a school camping fee. Feeling frustrated about the situation, Tai meets with his father to do his daily routine of overseeing his claw machines where they both restock stuffed animals and collect […]

  4. “White Tunnel” & “Dots”: You Don’t Need Eyes to “See”

    Posted April 24th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    by Erika Vazquez “White Tunnel” is a unique animated piece that challenges the idea that we have absolute control of our lives. As it turns out in the film, our future path is actually determined by other factors. The realization that reality is like the process of walking through a “white tunnel;” it is creation that prompts […]

  5. Huang Hui-Chen’s SMALL TALK is an Important Conversation

    Posted April 24th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    by Ngoc Anh Ha SMALL TALK (日常對話) is a Taiwanese documentary that packs a punch while exploring the identity of a lesbian mother’s past and extraordinary relationship with her filmmaker daughter Hui-Chen Huang. Expertly crafted with long cinematic takes to truly convey the depth of topics discussed, this piece of cinema covers Asian family ties […]

  6. “Itsy Bitsy Shorts” Program Back at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival!

    Posted April 23rd, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    by Erika Vazquez The “Itsy Bitsy Shorts” program on Saturday, April 29th showcases films for children who love film. After a brief hiatus of the program, programmers Gena Hamamoto, Michelle Ko, Juli Kang, Helen Kim, and Azusa Oda have worked together to bring it back to the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The program is filled with […]

  7. Urban Rambles – Exploring Bronzeville

    Posted April 19th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    By Eric Brightwell 2017 is my tenth year of exploring and writing about Los Angeles communities. In 2007 I explored Granada Hills, Montebello, and Alhambra, and titled my series California Fool’s Gold in homage to Huell Howser‘s California’s Gold (1991-2012). In 2014 I spun of a related series, Urban Rambles, in which I undertake short, small, loosely structured walks of various corners […]

  8. BETTER LUCK TOMORROW: Here and back again

    Posted April 18th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    By Abraham Ferrer   I hadn’t done a #throwback in such a long time, but seeing how dropping bombs is a recurring theme today, I thought I’d drop a bomb of my own: back in early 2001, filmmaker Justin Lin and Linda Mabalot, our former Executive Director at Visual Communications, struck a modest deal to let VC serve […]

  9. Gidra & the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising

    Posted April 11th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

      by Jazz Kiang   Ashes and dust sweep the streets as thousands of Angelenos march loudly. From sidewalks and rooftops, LAPD and National Guard members observe with angst. Banners demanding a peaceful resolution juxtapose memories of semi-automatic weapons firing just hours beforehand. After three days of chaos, much of the city’s hearts and minds—hoping […]

  10. Bronzeville, Little Tokyo – A Threshold in Time and Place

    Posted April 4th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    By Maya Santos Interviews by Joel Quizon Executive Order 9066, the nation-wide deportation of people of Japanese ancestry during WWII resulted in 30,000 people losing their homes and businesses in Little Tokyo in 1942. Bronzeville, a name for towns across the country where African-Americans filled the war defense industry’s labor shortage while migrating from the […]

  11. LAAPFF is an Academy Award®-qualifying Festival for the Short Film Awards

    Posted March 29th, 2017 by Visual Communications in Feature Articles

    By Jazz Kiang   Ever been a part of something before the rest of the world realized how dope it was? Some of us may have. Despite the telecast mishap, Academy Award®-winner MOONLIGHT is a terrific example of quality and hype converging in a snowball phenomenon. I was lucky to have watched MOONLIGHT during its first round […]