San Diego Asian Film Festival turns 25

Founded in 2000, the San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) celebrates a quarter-century of celebrating Asian and Asian American Cinema.

Looking back

It is hard to believe that 25 years ago Lee Ann Kim had the idea to give San Diego an Asian film festival. Kim was a force of nature, and she did not let anything get in her way. She asked me to help with the inaugural festival since I had worked as a projectionist. But there was a problem. The beautiful theater that the University of San Diego had offered for free, had no projector. And since most of the films were shown on 35mm, that meant the new festival had to come up with an additional $20,000 to rent a projector, screen and portable fireproof booth to meet the fire code.

Kim had a gift for fundraising and secured the money. Because of that fierce determination, San Diego has one of the best Asian film festivals in the country.

I served as the international film programmer that first year because I had a passion for Asian cinema (my grandfather was Chinese and loved movies). I programmed Hou Hsiao Hsien’s “The Flowers of Shanghai,” Mabel Cheung’s “The Soong Sisters,” Ringo Lam’s “Full Alert,” and a pair of admittedly insane but spectacular films from Seijun Suzuki, “Branded to Kill” and “Tokyo Drifter.” But my film taste was wildly different from Kim's so I only lasted a year as programmer.

But I was thrilled when Brian Hu came on board as artistic director and boldly programmed five-hour long Filipino melodramas, a nine-hour Chinese documentary, and some insanely extreme works of Japanese cinema. He did not ignore more mainstream titles or warm and fuzzy crowd-pleasers, but he was always willing to take risks.

In his years with the festival, Hu has seen some significant changes in the festival landscape.

"During those years, YouTube came out," Hu said. "Twenty-five years ago, people were coming out to see Asian and Asian American films because there was literally no place to watch these accessibly. So we've really seen filmmakers have to adjust to build audiences. We have to find people for whom just being represented is not enough. We have to entertain them, we have to thrill them, we have to seduce them. And we've been working with these filmmakers and so that's one big thing that we've seen, on top of a pandemic and the conversion to digital and fighting against streaming and all that."

Programming highlights

I know little girls should not grow up idolizing women who go around picking fights and snapping men's backs like twigs, but I idolized Tura Satana's Varla in Russ Meyer's "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" She was a tornado of anger, ferocity and raw power. The ads described her as "Belted! Buckled! And Booted!" With her severe black bangs, plunging neckline and all-black attire, she cut an imposing figure on the screen and that image has been indelibly imprinted on pop culture.

Hu had been chasing the documentary "Tura!" for years and will finally be screening it this Saturday.

"Tura Satana is such a legend of cult cinema, of independent film in the United States," Hu said. "I grew up watching this film, but I never thought of the lead actress as an Asian American person. And later on I discovered that and it made me want to know more. But so little has been talked about her, let alone as an Asian American person but just as who is she behind this legendary character? And then once we found out in this documentary, my jaw dropped, because what is off screen is just as thrilling as what's on screen."

SDAFF

I'll be moderating the Q&A after the screening on Saturday.

Another documentary, "Mistress Dispeller," offers a window into China that is completely unexpected.

"In China, there is the figure of the 'Mistress Dispeller,' a new job that has sprouted out in sort of the economy of romance," Hu explained. "So if you suspect, in this case, that your husband is cheating on you, you can hire a mistress dispeller, and that person will go undercover as the friend of a friend, hang out with the husband, and maybe try to figure out what's going on, and then maybe befriend the mistress with the hope of getting more information and then maybe breaking it up, maybe trying to get the original couple back together. But wow, if you're a documentarian, how do you capture this? And I watched this movie just in total awe of what an accomplishment this movie is. How did director Elizabeth Lo get scenes where you had this mistress and this Mistress Dispeller talking in front of a camera? It's quite good."

Once again Hu is programming a four-hour-plus Lav Diaz film from the Philippines. I know four hours sounds daunting, but Diaz's films are remarkable, gorgeously shot in black and white and often mesmerizing and haunting. This year's offering is "Phantosmia."

"'Phantosmia' refers to the affliction that the lead character has," Hu stated. "He used to work in the military, he's seen the worst of humanity. And years later he has this like phantom smell in his nose that he can't get rid of this odor. And his psychiatrist says, you need to immerse yourself back in the horrors that you experienced. So he decides to work at this penal colony where he discovers that while we may not be in the same kind of wartime now, but there are all kinds of fascistic horrors right below the surface."

The wild diversity of the festival is highlighted by the fact that in contrast to this art house film you can also find a Filipino grindhouse film from the 1970s produced by Roger Corman and directed by Eddie Romero. The film is "Beast of the Yellow Night."

The eclectic programming is what makes SDAFF great. You can also find a Taiwanese showcase, a Vietnamese classic from the 1980s, a Studio Ghibli-style animated film from Pakistan and, of course, my annual favorite, Mystery Kung Fu Theater.

"We're gonna play a martial arts film. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, when it's from, what language it's in," Hu teased. "And you just have to trust us."

I trust Hu implicitly to program an exciting lineup of films with something for everyone.

The 25th San Diego Asian Film Festival runs from Nov. 7–16 at select cinemas across San Diego County.