FILMS BY CYRUS TABAR (FEATURED ARTIST)
IT IS WHAT IT IS
TRT: 8:00
Cyrus, a first-generation American, has a photo of his grandparents holding him as an infant. The photo captures his first and last encounter with his Iranian grandparents. Wanting to understand why his father kept him away from his grandparents, Cyrus turns to home movies and photos, setting in motion a journey into the dark and nebulous corners of his family history. Fragmented and cloudy images of his family speckle his investigation as he talks to his aunt and sister, but discovers that a family’s narrative isn’t linear and that truth is elusive.
ARCHIVE//PARALLEL
TRT: 2:19
An experiment in form, Archive//Parallel represents a stepping stone in the creative process to defining a distinct style for the film that it led to, It Is What It Is.
HOME
TRT: 12:12
Made in collaboration between Cyrus and his father, Home presents a cross-generational conversation about the idea of home.
FILMS BY SHOWCASE ARTISTS
BRUCE TAKES DRAGON TOWN
EMILY CHAO, TRT: 14:38
Lost souls among us, whether ghost or corporeal, inhabit in between spaces and expand to fill what is abandoned. Director Emily Chao traces her filmmaker uncle’s steps in Taiwan during Ghost Month to find out what he left behind.
VICTORY
DIANA LI, TRT: 2:54
Wearing virtual reality goggles with the lenses exposed, Diana Li continuously walks and bumps into the closed door of Ching Lee Laundry. The closing of Ching Lee Laundry marks the historical and site-specific changes happening with technology, labor and migration in San Mateo, California.
MY EYES ADORE YOU
KATELIND IKUMA, TRT: 12:00
My Eyes Adore You is based on four vignettes by Hawaiian writer, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, entitled My Eyes Adore You, Ravine, Empty Heart, and Name Me Is. The four vignettes revolve around the first love between, Lucy and Willy Joe. The only person in Lucy’s world is Lucy until she meets Willy Joe. He leads her down a rabbit hole of love. They are young and naive and create a world where only they exist.
THE ACE HOTEL
HIEU GRAY, TRT: 1:53
The Ace Hotel - A Film Poem by Hieu Gray melds together the tradition of film and poetry to create a dark and evocative exploration of an unrelenting cycle of primal love and violence.
SOMA BARRIO FIESTA
EVELYN OBAMOS, TRT: 1:20
Pilipinos have been in the South of Market (SOMA) for over a hundred years, and the efforts to build SoMa Pilipinas has been decades in the making. In April of 2016, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation zoning out a large swath of land in San Francisco's SOMA (South of Market) area as the new Filipino Cultural Heritage District. Mabuhay! ang SOMA Pilipinas!
WE WOVE A NET: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GROWING UP ASIAN-AMERICAN IN MICHIGAN
NATASHA TAMATE WEISS, TRT: 10:52
We Wove A Net is a documentary film that explores intergenerational relationships in four Asian immigrant families. Set in Metropolitan Detroit, a landscape marked with histories of structural and racialized violence, this film explores the unspoken losses and griefs of aspirational assimilation into white suburban spaces.
LIVING IN THE SHADOWS OF EXCLUSION
ANNA ENG, TRT: 20:00
“Living in the Shadows of Exclusion” follows the lives of four longtime Asian American gay and lesbian families as they speak out on marriage and Marriage Equality in the face of California’s virulent Proposition 8 campaign.
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