Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Archives | Otaku No Culture

Delving into What Makes LAAPFF’s Pacific Cinewaves Shorts Unique

How to Catch a Taotaomona

Playing at the
Regal L.A. LIVE: A Barco Innovation Center
1000 W Olympic Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA

Saturday | September 25, 2021
3:30 pm

The Pacific Cinewaves Program at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival is my go to for kick starting this event. It’s free / pay what you can, because there’s no reason not to miss all the messages being delivered about how to preserve the ancient world of Polynesia.

The various pieces offer a delightful, supernatural and meditative exploration on what makes this part of the world unique. I say this with mixed feelings, because not all the countries in this vast region are represented. We have Guam, and a beautifully family oriented tale about how to reconnect with one’s faith in How to Catch a Taotaomona.

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Genre Picks of the 37th L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival

Runs Sept 23 to Oct 2, 2021
Tickets are available to purchase starting Sept 13, 2021 at 12:00pm PT.

The 37th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is back as both an online and in-person event! Some films will be available across the nation to view and others geo-locked to this municipality.

One work to take note of is the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary Wuhan Wuhan. This film examines the global health issue as it unfolded from February and March of last year and instead of a dire warning, Yung Chang’s (Up the Yangtze) direction offers a humanitarian message. Anyone wanting a fresh look at the situation may well want to consider this documentary as part of their viewing schedule.

Although much of the California state is not under lockdown, attendees are asked to still observe safety protocols. The in person events are likely to be attendance capped, and no matter what happens as the world enters the Autumn season, the organizers are committed to recognizing talents who are making an impact in the community as, so the saying goes, “navigate strange times.”

On that note, the genre picks for this year include:

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LAAPFF 2020 The Chef on Tolerance in Ethnic Places

This narrative has a simple premise of showing how a master trains a synthetic apprentice in a Chinese restaurant. The line cooks are not happy, and they fear losing their jobs.

The Chef / Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2019(SSFF & ASIA 2019) By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from Oct 1 at 12pm PT to Oct 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Click here to watch the film on Eventive.

Hao Zheng‘s short film, The Chef is eerie in the sense that we are already replacing workers with robots. The documentaries I’ve looked at earlier this year show how they can be helpful in various situations. From therapy to companionship, just where is the line drawn? Writers Ithaca Deng and Leqi Vanessa Kong can easily take a page out of Star Trek: Picard (or vice versa, when considering the original release date) if they wanted to expanded on the idea.

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LAAPFF 2020 Basurero is Cabiling’s answer to Sicario!

The Philippine word Basurero translates to Dump, and Filipina-American filmmaker Eileen Cabiling’s short takes this title and explores the meaning in context of the problems that still occur in her native country.

Basurero

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from Oc 1, 2020 at 12pm PT to Oct 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Click here to watch the film on Eventive.

The Philippine word Basurero translates to ‘Dump,’ and Filipina-American filmmaker Eileen Cabiling‘s short takes this title and explores the meaning in context of the problems that still occur in her native country. Although her work is fiction, the real-world connections are heavy since it’s more than just another short film about feeling trapped. It’s a character study on Bong (Jericho Rosales), a fisherman in Manila struggling to make ends meet. He’s like a cat on a hot tin roof.

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LAAPFF 2020 Animated Shorts Spotlight

The works that are available range from experimental to enduring, and of those that are available, I’m glad to report that a few will eventually make it to online distribution.

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from October 1, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Click here to find listings on Eventive.

In addition to the previous animated works which I have looked at playing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, there’s plenty more. The works that are available range from experimental to enduring, and of those that are available, I’m glad to report that one on my list has world-wide distribution.

The following are my favourites:

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Exploring Horimono: Japan’s Tattoo Pilgrimage at LAAAPFF 2020

The Japanese word Horimono (彫刻) does not necessarily translate to defining the same art form which the English term tattoo expresses. The mini-documentary, Horimono: Japan’s Tattoo Pilgrimage, shows that this country’s older generation sees a difference in how to express themselves through full body modification.

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from October 1, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Click here to watch the film on Eventive.

The Japanese word Horimono (彫物) does not necessarily translate to defining the same art form which the English term tattoo expresses. The mini-documentary, Horimono: Japan’s Tattoo Pilgrimage, shows that this country’s older generation sees a difference in how to express themselves through full body art modification. Some conflict exists. The media in Asia stereotyped the image of what it means to have a pattern on their skin–they are historically labelled a criminal. This belief dates back to the 4th Century.

This mini documentary aims to correct all the misconceptions.

The soundtrack is just as entrancing. The English definition includes how the word can signal the beat of a drum at night to tell soldiers it’s time to go to their quarters. We see it played at a temple in Oyama during a ritual of purification. The mountain shrine welcomes not only the artists who still practice the ancient art but also the men, whose body is fully covered in imagery from the Edo period (1603 – 1868). They wear it like a suit–a badge of honour.

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