Preview: Pac-Arts Spring Showcase

ANCHOR INTRO: Pac Arts kicks off it’s 4th Annual Spring Showcase today. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando provides a preview of the film line up. PACARTS (ba).wav 1:20 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, How to fight in Six Inch Heels, Mystery Kung Fu Theater… That’s right it’s time to immerse yourself in Asian cinema courtesy of Pac Arts. CLIP Kung Fu SFX Let’s start with the novelty of Mystery Kung Fu Theater where you have to place absolute trust in the programmer because you don’t know what the film will be. All you know is it’ll be old school, it’s not available on DVD, and after the film you will not be allowed to reveal what you saw online or in print, though you can write it down in a secret scroll that you pass on to your descendants. Hey that’s their description not mine. I’ve attended one before and its an experience you don’t want to miss. But if you want something a little more quantifiable, there’s the documentary To Be Takei about the 76-year-old social media superstar probably best known as Sulu on Star Trek. GEORGE TAKEI: A starship out in space with a multi-ethnic crew and I desperately wanted that role. If George Takei represents everything classy at the festival, Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell is a perfect example of a film designed to shock and offend. CLIP Gun shots But Sono does so with such gusto and bravado that you can’t help but revel in his extreme vision. Needless to say, there’s plenty to choose from at this year’s Pac Arts Spring Showcase. It runs through April 24 at the UltraStar Mission Valley Theaters. Beth Accomando, KPBS News.

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is KPBS Midday Edition, I am Maureen Cavanaugh. Ten films, nine countries and one live comedy act. That is how the San Diego Asian Spring film showcase describes itself. The showcase kicks off tonight with the documentary about pop culture icon George Takei. Among the number of films being shown of the next week is the story of an SDSU alumnus who traveled to Korea to find his birth family and meet a twin brother he knew nothing about. I would like to welcome my guests, Brian Hu, artistic director of the San Diego Asian film Festival. Brian, welcome back to the program. BRIAN HU: Thank you for having me in. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And also on the line is Dan Matthews, hip-hop artist and director of the documentary AKA Dan. Dan, welcome. DAN MATTHEWS: Hi, happy to be here. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Brian, before we start talking about the film specifically, tell us a little bit about Spring showcase. The San Diego Asian Film Festival takes place in November, what is the focus of the spring showcase? BRIAN HU: We're best known for the San Diego Asian film Festival and we were discovered after seven or eight years of doing it. There is so much demand out there for Asian films, especially here in San Diego and where happy about that. And we decided to do a mini festival every spring, and we call it the spring showcase. It's much more scaled-back, is only ten films of the ideas that is a gateway into the film festival of ever been in. These feature films are a little more mainstream, and a little more accessible and we think we can convert any kind of audience. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Opening night tonight you are expecting a special guest to help start the showcase, tell us about that. BRIAN HU: George Takei, best known as being Sulu on Star Trek, but in recent years ñ MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: He's best known for being George Takei. BRIAN HU: Yeah, these days he is a pop culture icon, he is one of the celebrities on social media and as well as a really exciting activist for LGBT rights within Hollywood. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Now, one of the most fascinating stories being told in this showcase is a film that is the story of AKA Dan, Daniel Matthews. Dan, you document your trip to meet your birth family in Korea, what you know about them before you started the trip? DAN MATTHEWS: I actually did not know very much, it took me about three months, actually not until maybe about a month before moving out there I actually did not know, I thought it was just my biological mother. A month before we went out I found out I had an identical twin brother, and my father and my sister were still in the picture, it was all very shocking. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And there is a moment in the film AKA Dan, when you find out that you have an identical twin brother. And you are stunned, let's hear a clip from the film. [ AUDIO FILE PLAYING ] [ LAUGHTER ] MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I think it's fair to say, you were surprised. DAN MATTHEWS: I was very surprised yes. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: What was going through your mind? Did you even wrap your mind around it when you learn that fact? DAN MATTHEWS: I think I'm still in shock that this is happening, it's all very recent too, everything that happened this last summer, I think I'm still kind of going through the motions right now. Understanding what all this means. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: You grew up in Southern California and as I said you went to San Diego State University, you were adopted when you were only eight months old. Did your adoptive family talk about your family in Korea? DAN MATTHEWS: No, we talked about me being adopted, but we just didn't have a lot of information about any of that. The information that we did have was a very small amount. There really wasn't a lot of conversation that we could have. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: So would lead you to want to inquire about your birth family? DAN MATTHEWS: Long story short we will just say is going back to Korea this past summer for an adoptee conference. I was going after the conference and I did not have any wanting to meet my biological family, but I think this might be the last time I would go to Korea for a very long time, if I did not do it now I might never do it. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And you did meet your birth family in Korea, was that meeting like? DAN MATTHEWS: What was it like meeting my family for the first time? It was very stunning, seeing someone who looks like you for the very first time. It was really interesting to see these people who are blood to you. My biological father and brother looked very much like me, so it was very cool to see how I might look if I grew up in Korea, or how I might look in forty years. [ LAUGHTER ] MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Now Dan, you are a hip-hop artist and performer, you documented this meeting on film, so you're a film maker too. Was it difficult not to perform for the camera and have real moments with your Korean family? DAN MATTHEWS: It was really difficult because I, we had a really amazing team and so we did have a number of people that went out with me, and there was a director for the film, that kind of peace everything together. I had a producer and camera people that came with me, so it did not necessarily had to think. The biggest thing they wanted to make sure to that I was not thinking too hard about the experience, and that I was acting authentic on camera. So I worried about that a little in the beginning, but I think the more they filmed me ñ and they filmed a lot, I have a lot of footage. But the more and more they filmed me, the more comfortable I was, and this is the first time I've ever done anything like this? And obviously for anybody was doing anything like this for the first time, it might be kind of difficult but I opened up. And I think that we have some really incredible footage. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is a little difficult, but did you ask your birth parents why they gave you up for adoption? DAN MATTHEWS: Yes, they had written me in the letter which revealed at the beginning of the film, I read a letter from them talking about why they give me up for adoption, essentially the family was very poor and my biological mother was really sick. And my brother and I were really sick, we're premature babies. He got better and I did not get better, and they thought it would be better to put me into the hands of the government or the adoption agency to help me get better. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I see, now even growing up apart, did you find that you and your twin brother are actually pretty identical? Do you have similar tastes? DAN MATTHEWS: We do, it's really incredible to see that we both are really interested in hip-hop, our sense of style is very similar, we do have really crazy hair, he still has crazy hair and I don't really anymore, but it's interesting to see how similar you are. There are a lot of differences and I'm discovering that more that I talked to him, but I think it has to do with a lot that we have grown up in different cultures. But it's really interesting to see that two people who were raised in completely different places, for us to be as similar as we are. It's very fascinating to me. There needs to be tests done on this. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: You are both rappers? DAN MATTHEWS: We're both rappers and you can't relate, there has to be something in our DNA, I don't know if we have a rap gene, it's really fascinating to hear that he raps as well. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Now Brian, how would you characterize Dan's documentary? Is it a heartwarming, comedy, drama, what is it? BRIAN HU: Well what I love about it, it's unlike so many of the other adoption documentaries we have shown. Part of the experience in our community is the existence of a lot of people adopted from Asia, but Dan is one of the first people shown from the perspective of the adoptee, rather than from the perspective of the person doing the adoption or an outside observer. It's very useful, alive, and hip. You can tell that he is a performer, because he loves the camera. And the sense of discovery of a young person not only discovering his family, but a culture that is familiar but not familiar, it's the perspective that is different and that we are most excited about. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Is a documentary, is it similar in theme to other films in the festival? BRIAN HU: Yes, I'm often asked if there is a theme in the festival and this era notice a lot of films about unusual families in Dan's story is one of them. Our closing film is a film from Japan called "Like Father, Like Son," which is about a married couple that has a six-year-old son and they discover after six years of raising him that he was switched at birth. And they meet the real son and the family that has been raising him, and it's about what happens and these decisions that they make afterwards. A lot of parallels to Dan's story, actually. But it's interesting to me in a place like Asia which puts so much emphasis on the Confucian ethics of family, that they are thinking how do we make sense of new versions of family as a result of globalization or accidents at a hospital. And had you reconcile that with these institutions and values. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: That is interesting. And you have non-film events tied to this, the comedy show, tell us about that. BRIAN HU: This the first time we've done anything like this. And we have done live events in the past, including musical performances. We're hosting the San Diego premiere of the comedy troupe "18 Mighty Mountain Warriors." They are based in San Francisco, since the 1990s they have been considered the premier Asian sketch comedy group in the country, and is also one of the best groups of any ethnicity in the Bay Area. They are very irreverent, nothing is safe from their criticism and parody. They poke issues at what is like to be of Asian descent, as well of a lot of the media representation of Asians, they mock everything. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: When will they be performing? BRIAN HU: Three times, twice on Friday and a matinee on Sunday. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: There is also a free pastry reception that is associated with the film, tell us about that. BRIAN HU: Yes, it's one of those things where I was actually on a flight, I did some research and there was a movie called 27∞C Loaf Rocks. I did not know what the title meant, I watched the film and by the end I noticed that I had been crying. I was also very hungry because the movie is about a pastry chef ñ [ LAUGHTER ] MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: That happens. BRIAN HU: Yes, the tears and the hunger. [ LAUGHTER ] BRIAN HU: It's about a pastry chef in Taiwan who comes from the countryside and decides he will become the best pastry chef in the world. And he goes ahead and does that, he wins a huge competition in Paris and it's about what inspired him. Along the way we see him making a lot of delicious pastries. So we decided, if we're going to show this, we don't want to be too cruel to our audience, so we decided to find a Taiwanese bakery to help sponsor some pastries for the audience. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: So that people will come running out of the screening and dive into these pastries! [ LAUGHTER ] BRIAN HU: And for us is a great way to highlight a local business and use these films to activate things locally. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Can you tell us about some of the movies that you are especially looking forward to screening during the showcase? BRIAN HU: There's another one about the unusual family, called Miss Granny. I think we've been talking about kind of serious issues with relations to family, but this is one where does it Korean comedy about a seventy something-year-old grandmother who suddenly ñ through a magical Photo Booth ñ becomes a twenty-something again. In the Korean world that means that she will live out her Korean pop star fantasies ñ [ LAUGHTER ] BRIAN HU: ñ and fend off people like her grandson, who does not know it's her and is hitting on her. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Oh, I see, complications. [ LAUGHTER ] BRIAN HU: Yes, so another kind of quirky family, I suppose. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Dan, you're still on the line? DAN MATTHEWS: Yeah. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Will you be coming for the screening for AKA Dan on Saturday? DAN MATTHEWS: I will, yeah, I'm looking forward to being there. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And is this one of the first times you have been back since you graduated? Do you come here often? DAN MATTHEWS: I come to San Diego, I love San Diego. I consider it my home. It has been a while since I've been in San Diego, several months, three or four. I look for to being down there again. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I wonder, Brian do you look for San Diego films in order to showcase along with the other Asian films? Do you look for things that are made here, or made by people who came from San Diego? Where does San Diego tie in? BRIAN HU: Yeah, definitely. We are often asked why do Asian film festivals in San Diego? For us it's because we live on the Pacific Rim and there are a lot of Asian people, and an increasing number. It is important for us to show the connection between Asia and San Diego, because we don't want to perpetuate the idea that Asia is a foreign, exotic place. In fact, it's part of what makes San Diego, San Diego. Whenever there are film makers locally, Asian or not, who are interested in these kinds of subjects we're welcoming to that. Our mission ultimately is to create conversation not just about Asia, but about our community, and how do we be neighbors using films from Asia as a reason to do so. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: The films will be screened at the Mission Valley Theater. For a full schedule of the Asian spring films showcase which begins tonight, you can go to their website at PAC-arts. I have been speaking with Brian Hu, artistic director of the San Diego Asian Films Festival, and Dan Matthews, filmmaker of the documentary AKA Dan, thank you both so much. BRIAN HU: Thank you Maureen. DAN MATTHEWS: Thank you so much.