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2017 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

Documentary Competition

This year’s Documentary Competition is distinguished by emerging artists with exciting untold stories as well as subjects which hold super-apt relevancy to our changing worldview(s) today.

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    95 And 6 To Go

    Kimi Takesue / Documentary Competition / USA / 2016 / 86 mins
    Kimi Takesue turns the camera on her resilient Japanese-American grandfather born and raised in Hawai’i. A recent widower in his 90’s, Grandpa Tom seems content to go about his routines until he shows interest in Kimi’s stalled fictional screenplay, and offers advice that is shrewd and surprising. In alternately funny and poignant discussions, Kimi’s fictional love story—and Tom’s creative revisions—soon serve as a vehicle for his past memories of love and loss to surface.
    95 AND 6 TO GO

    CGV Cinemas 2
    May 3, 2017 7:00 pm

  2. Ghost Magnet Roach Motel

    Shinpei Takeda / Documentary Competition, Programmers' Picks / Germany, Japan, Mexico / 2016 / 70 mins
    The Punk Musical by artist Shinpei Takeda follows the off-stage life of 5 artists (2 American musicians, 2 Mexican artists and 1 Japanese filmmaker) of GHOST MAGNET ROACH MOTEL, a noise punkformance unit born in Tijuana, Mexico in their process of overcoming their psychological border. With a literally crashing border between Mexico and USA as the background, the protagonists confront each individual’s addictions while searching for an answer to their existential crises.

    Preceded by: A Doll’s Hug

    GHOST MAGNET ROACH MOTEL

    CGV Cinemas 2
    May 3, 2017 9:30 pm

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    Mixed Match

    Jeff Chiba Stearns / Documentary Competition / Canada / 2016 / 96 mins
    When being mixed race is more than just an identity, it’s a matter of life of death.
    MIXED MATCH

    Downtown Independent
    April 29, 2017 2:00 pm

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    Save My Seoul

    Jason Y. Lee / Documentary Competition, Programmers' Picks / USA / 2017 / 60 mins
    SAVE MY SEOUL is an independent documentary that unveils South Korea’s rampant prostitution and sex-trafficking secret, and the young women it exploits.
    SAVE MY SEOUL

    Aratani Theatre
    April 29, 2017 5:00 pm

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    A Time To Swim

    Ashley Duong / Documentary Competition, Programmers' Picks / Canada / 2017 / 82 mins
    An exiled indigenous activist returns to his childhood village in Borneo, and struggles to navigate a complex web of interests and tensions in a race to save his culture.
    A TIME TO SWIM

    Tateuchi Democracy Forum
    April 29, 2017 4:30 pm

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    Unbroken Glass

    Dinesh Das Sabu / Documentary Competition / India, USA / 2016 / 57 mins
    When he was six-years-old, Dinesh Sabu’s parents died. Raised by his siblings, he had little idea who his parents were or where he came from. Now as an adult, Dinesh sets out on a journey to piece together their story. Uncovering a silenced family history and disturbing truths, Dinesh and his siblings must finally reconcile with the past—confronting the trauma of losing their parents, and the specter of mental illness.

    Preceded by: Sit

    UNBROKEN GLASS

    CGV Cinemas 2
    May 1, 2017 7:00 pm

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    Resistance At Tule Lake

    Konrad Aderer / LAAPFF Best of the Fest in OC, Documentary Competition / USA / 2017 / 78 mins
    RESISTANCE AT TULE LAKE tells the long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese Americans who dared to resist the U.S. government's program of mass incarceration during World War II. Branded as "disloyals" and re-imprisoned at Tule Lake Segregation Center, they continued to protest in the face of militarized violence, and thousands renounced their U.S. citizenship.
    RESISTANCE AT TULE LAKE

    Tateuchi Democracy Forum
    April 28, 2017 8:30 pm

    RESISTANCE AT TULE LAKE (ENCORE)

    CGV Buena Park
    May 6, 2017 2:00 pm

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    Who Is Arthur Chu?

    Yu Gu, Scott Drucker / LAAPFF Best of the Fest in OC, Documentary Competition / USA / 2017 / 90 mins
    WHO IS ARTHUR CHU? follows the controversial 11-time Jeopardy! winner turned Internet iconoclast, Arthur Chu, as he struggles to reform society and himself in a seminal year.
    WHO IS ARTHUR CHU?

    Downtown Independent
    May 1, 2017 9:30 pm

    WHO IS ARTHUR CHU? (ENCORE)

    CGV Buena Park
    May 6, 2017 9:30 pm

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    Mele Murals

    Tadashi Nakamura / LAAPFF Best of the Fest in OC, Documentary Competition / USA / 2016 / 65 mins
    MELE MURALS is a documentary on the transformative power of modern graffiti art and ancient Hawaiian culture for a new generation of Native Hawaiians. At the center of the story are two renowned street artists - Estria Miyashiro (aka Estria) and John Hina (aka Prime) - a group of Native Hawaiian youth, and the rural community of Waimea.
    MELE MURALS

    Tateuchi Democracy Forum
    April 30, 2017 5:00 pm

    MELE MURALS (ENCORE)

    CGV Buena Park
    May 7, 2017 1:00 pm

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    Finding Kukan

    Robin Lung / LAAPFF Best of the Fest in OC, Documentary Competition / USA / 2016 / 76 mins
    ACTRESS KELLY HU IN PERSON | A filmmaker turns detective to uncover the forgotten story of Li Ling-Ai, the un-credited female producer of KUKAN, an Academy Award-winning color documentary about World War II China that has been lost for decades.
    FINDING KUKAN

    Tateuchi Democracy Forum
    April 30, 2017 2:30 pm

    FINDING KUKAN (ENCORE)

    CGV Buena Park
    May 7, 2017 3:00 pm