Asian Film Festival 2022

Directed by Hsieh Sheng-Hung
20m / 2020 / Taiwan

Between Mount Kavulungan and the Gaoping River, history streams across the wilderness, coalescing the values and identities of different peoples. So begins the Pakedavai family ritual. As an 11th-generation descendant of the Pakedavai ruler family, Dabiliyan Alifu grew up in a family slate house in the Sandimen tribe. For him, the family is a constant source of education about how to live with the forest and what kind of person to become. Of Pakedavai’s 12th generation, Kang Yuan-Jin grew up in a traditional Chinese community with a Paiwan grandmother and a Chinese grandfather. Only in adulthood did he start to explore the meanings of family and personal identity. This documentary visits the Paiwan Palisian (Aboriginal family ritual), a century-old tradition. As Alifu and Yuan-Jin put on traditional dress, dance with fellow men, and sing familial songs, they ponder the faith and spirit behind the ritual. Having been raised on the same land, yet often disoriented by identities, we too are led to ask: Where are we from? Who are we, as Taiwanese people?

Screening with Far East Deep South at 1pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets

Directed and Produced by Elliott Childress, Mary Sutinis, and Mary Shuttleworth
7m / 2022 / Knoxville

This short video was made possible through the University of Tennessee, which aims to highlight the experiences of Asian immigrants in the Knoxville community. Students from the UT Cinema Studies program interviewed three Asian women of varying ages and listened to the stories of how they grew passionate about this city. They are deeply embedded in this charming and beautiful place they have chosen to call home, and they have made a great impact on the community through love, care, and dedication.

Screening with Far East Deep South at 1pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets

Directed by Larissa Lam
76m / 2020 / USA

When a Chinese-American family travels from California to Mississippi to visit the grave of their ancestors, they stumble upon surprising revelations. Along the way, they meet a diverse group of local residents and historians, who shed light on the racially complex history of the early Chinese in the segregated South. Their emotional journey also leads them to discover how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 impacted their family and how deep their roots run in America.

Screening with two short films at 1pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets

Directed by Mami Sunada
118m / 2013 / Japan

The Kingdom of Dreams & Madness provides a rare fly–on–the-wall look at the inner workings of one of the world’s most enigmatic and successful animation studios. Granted near-unfettered access to the notoriously insular Studio Ghibli, director Mami Sunada follows the three men who are the lifeblood of Ghibli – the eminent director Hayao Miyazaki, the producer Toshio Suzuki, and the elusive and influential ‘other director’ Isao Takahata – over the course of a year as the studio rushes to complete two films, Miyazaki’s Oscar nominated The Wind Rises and Takahata’s The Tale of The Princess Kaguya. The result is an insight into the dreams, passion and singular dedication of these remarkable creators.

3pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
88m / 1950 / Japan

A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, Rashomonis widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people give different accounts of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife, which director Akira Kurosawa presents with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema—and a commanding new star by the name of Toshiro Mifune—to the Western world.

5:45pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets

Directed by Bong Joon Ho
131m / 2003 / South Korea

In his breakthrough second feature, Bong Joon Ho explodes the conventions of the policier with thrillingly subversive, genre-defying results. Based on the true story of a string of serial killings that rocked a rural community in the 1980s, Memories of Murder stars New Korean Cinema icon Song Kang Ho as the local officer who reluctantly joins forces with a seasoned Seoul detective (Kim Sang Kyung) to investigate the crimes—leading each man on a wrenching, yearslong odyssey of failure and frustration that will drive him to the existential edge. Combining a gripping procedural with a vivid social portrait of the everyday absurdity of life under military rule, Bong fashions a haunting journey into ever-deepening darkness that begins as a black-comic satire and ends as a soul-shattering encounter with the abyss.

7:45pm on Saturday, August 27 – Tickets