10/20 7:00PM Dealing with Dad (Opening Night) Preceded by ‘Reyna’ SOLD OUT
In-person Q&A with Dir. Tom Huang
10/21 5:30PM Crossings
In-person Q&A with Dir. Deann Borshay Liem
10/21 8:30PM Dawning Preceded by ‘A Father’s Son’
In-person Q&A with Dir. Young Min Kim & Dir. Patrick Chen
10/22 5:30PM In Search of Bengali Harlem
In-person Q&A with Dir. Vivek Bald & Alaudin Ullah
10/22 8:30PM Queer & Here (Shorts Program) In-Person and Virtual Q&A with filmmakers
10/23 2:00PM Golden Delicious Virtual Q&A with Dir. Jason Karman
10/27 7:00PM Bright Lights: Free Chol Soo Lee [Free Screening]
10/20-10/31 Virtual Shorts Programs available on-demand
Directed by Tom Huang | Narrative | Drama/Comedy | 106 mins | USA
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. Cambridge, MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
MARGARET CHANG is rocked from her perfect alpha-mom-corporate-manager life when she has to go back to her hometown to deal with her overbearing dad, JIALUO. Her dad is kind of an outspoken jerk but is now despondent and won’t leave the house. Since she can’t deal with her parents by herself, she drags along her older sad sack brother, ROY to help her.
(Preceding ‘Dealing with Dad’)
Directed by Jenielle Ramos Salarda | Short Film | Animated | 6 mins | USA
Reyna is a 2D animated short film about Vina, this year’s lead Queen in the Santacruzan festival, who struggles to get ready after members in the community make negative comments about her appearance. Joy, Vina’s supportive sister, helps her to get ready and encourages Vina to embrace herself as she is by discussing the historical context and origin of these harmful comments before leading the festivities.
Documentary | 94 mins | USA
Directed by Deann Borshay Liem
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
In CROSSINGS, a group of international women peacemakers sets out on a risky journey across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, calling for an end to a 70-year war that has divided the Korean peninsula and its people. The groundbreaking mission of Women Cross DMZ is captured in an intimate cinema vérité style, framed with historic newsreels of the Korean War and punctuated with dramatic contemporary news coverage. Undeterred, Women Cross DMZ expands their global campaign to educate and advocate for a peace treaty. Thousands join worldwide as they forge a path with their Korean sisters toward peace and reconciliation.
Narrative | Horror Drama | 74 mins | USA
Directed by Young Min Kim
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
A trauma therapist, Haejin Park, is forced to face her family’s darkest past after she returns to her childhood countryside-farm to console her heartbroken younger sister.
During Haejin’s visit, the family farm’s familiarity and haunting past begins to conjure up the trauma that she had repressed for years. A Korean-English spoken drama/psychological thriller that explores mental health, family trauma, abuse and familial responsibilities.
(Preceding ‘Dawning’)
Directed by Patrick Chen | Short Film | Crime thriller | 28 mins | USA
A story-spinoff based on author Henry Chang’s crime novel series of NYPD Detective Jack Yu. Set in the early ’90s when local street gangs terrorized Manhattan’s Chinatown, our story centers on Jack Yu investigating the murder of a teenage boy involved in a turf war. Amidst the broad distrust and racial divide between the Chinatown community and NYPD, our lone lawman searches for a nondescript immigrant family to deliver a shattering message that also brings forth his own conflicted relationship with Jack’s father.
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
Art, Community and Boston Chinatown by Xinyan Fu
Dear Corky by Curtis Chin, produced by Kenneth Eng
Convergent Waves: Boston by Lenora Lee
Wise Words from an Old Friend by Kenneth Eng
Documentary | 85 mins | USA
Directed by Vivek Bald
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
As a teenager in 1980s Harlem, Alaudin Ullah was swept up in the revolutionary energy of early hip-hop. He rejected his working-class Bangladeshi parents and turned his back on everything South Asian and Muslim. Now, as an actor and playwright in post-9/11 America, Alaudin wants to tell his parents’ stories, but has no idea of the lives they led as Muslim immigrants of an earlier era. In Search of Bengali Harlem follows Ullah from the streets of New York City to the villages of Bangladesh to uncover the pasts of his father, Habib, and mother, Mohima. Alaudin discovers that Habib was part of a rich lost history of mid-20th century Harlem, in which Bengali Muslim men, dodging racist Asian Exclusion laws, married into New York’s African American and Puerto Rican communities.
Shorts Program | 81 mins
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmaker.
A staple every BAAFF season, Queer and Here is self-expression and identity beyond orientation.
This year, the Queer and Here shorts block will both be shown in-person on Saturday, October 22 at 8:30pm and run as video-on-demand from October 20, 12:00AM until Monday, October 31, 2022, 10:00PM ET.
Hotter Up Close by Leland Montgomery
Skin Can Breathe by Chheangkea leng
Danse Macabre by Randal Lee Kamradt and Maria Luna Kamradt
Maneki by Brandon Okumura
I Can’t Forget Him by Kevin Kai Wing Yiu
All I Want Is Everything by Alexandra Cuerdo
Narrative | 120 mins | USA
Directed by Jason Karman
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers.
When basketball-obsessed Aleks moves in across the street, Asian-Canadian teen Jake finds himself trying out for the basketball team to get his attention in this classic coming-of-age drama set in the digital age.
Documentary | 100 mins | USA
Directed by David Siev
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A with filmmakers and a closing night reception.
After leaving NYC for his rural hometown of Bad Axe, MI at the start of the pandemic, an Asian-American filmmaker documents his family’s struggles to keep their restaurant open. As fears of the virus grow, deep generational scars dating back to the Cambodian Killing Fields unearth between the family’s patriarch, Chun, and his daughter, Jaclyn. When the BLM movement takes center stage in America, the family uses their voice to speak out in their town where Trumpism runs deep. What unfolds is a real-time portrait of 2020 through the lens of this multicultural family’s fight to keep their American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and the trauma of having survived a genocide.
Documentary | 83 mins | USA
Directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi
Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, 559 Washington St. Boston MA
Followed by Q&A Panel discussion.
In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Sentenced to life, he spends years fighting to survive until investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented push for social action that would unite Asian Americans and inspire a new generation of activists.
Nearly five decades later, award-winning journalists Julie Ha and Eugene Yi excavate this largely unknown yet essential history in their riveting Sundance selection Free Chol Soo Lee. Combining rich archival footage, firsthand accounts, and narration drawn from personal writings, this poignant documentary paints an intimate portrait of the complex man at the center of a movement and serves as an urgent reminder that his legacy is more relevant than ever.
$15 Special Presentations (Opening, Centerpiece, Closing Film)
$12 Features Films* (excludes Opening, Centerpiece, Closing Film)
$12 Shorts Programs
$150 All-Access Festival Pass (All 2022 Film Programs)
$40 Shorts Pass (All 5 Shorts Programs)
$8 Student/Senior Discount
20% off for group sales of 10+, please call 617-824-8400 or email [email protected] for more information.
All Shorts Program available on-demand in the U.S. from October 20, 12:00AM until Monday, October 31, 2022, 10:00PM ET. The content must be started within the designated viewing window. Once started, you have up to 24 hrs to finish playing the content or until the end of the viewing window – whichever comes first.
Shorts Pass: All 5 Shorts Programs for only $40!
Content Advisory – Age 13+
The Phoenix by Regina Pigsley
Biased by Andrea Lwin
Meantal Health Girls by Tess Paras
Eyes on Me by Andy Nguyen Zhao
Big Trouble in Little America by Qiyue Sun
A Father’s Son by Patrick Chen
74 mins | Filmmakers show us their vision of what our malleable realities can become and what possibilities we may evoke. After Dark sets no barriers as it takes a look at the dark side of those realities.
Content Advisory – Age 13+
Hotter Up Close by Leland Montgomery
Skin Can Breathe by Chheangkea leng
Danse Macabre by Randal Lee Kamradt and Maria Luna Kamradt
Maneki by Brandon Okumura
I Can’t Forget Him by Kevin Kai Wing Yiu
All I Want Is Everything by Alexandra Cuerdo
79 mins | A staple every BAAFF season, Queer and Here is self-Expression and identity beyond orientation.
Content Advisory – Age 13+
Reyna by Jenielle Ramos Salarda
DEFY by Jon Jon Augustavo
Found by Reena Dutt
w(HO) by Candace Ho
de Closin Night by Shicong Zhu
SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW by Faroukh Virani
Gem & Shaz by Chloe Hung
74 mins | Navigating through childhood innocence to teenage angst to adulthood responsibilities, these series of shorts explore the journey to self-expression and self-discovery.
See individual films for content advisory
A Lonely Afternoon by Kyle Credo
Power Forward by Allison Dayne
Joss Lotuses to Grandma by Stefie Gan
My Mother’s Daughter by Flo Singer
Gai Mou Sou Rap* by Clara Hsu
Super Duper by Allan Zhang Tran
JOOK by Olivia Stark
Wei Lai by Robin Wang
71 mins | Family Ties is a family friendly exploration that traverses continents, languages, and cultures to connect us all.
*film with a content advisory
Content Advisory – Age 13+
The Fourth March by Robert Shoji
Ka-hoi: the Return by Mitchel Merrick
EUREKA by Miida Chu
1992 by Kuan Cao
MINK! by Ben Proudfoot
78 mins | The past informs our future. Take a look back through the lens of both short documentaries and narrative dramas as we contemplate tomorrow’s potential.
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