Taiwan entries included in S.D. Asian Film Festival

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By Dan Bloom​
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Danny Bloom
Danny Bloom

​CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — The 16th San Diego Asian Film Festival gets underway on Thursday, November 5, and features great movies during its 10-day run.

Presented by Pacific Arts Movement, the SDAFF is the largest showcase of Asian cinema on the West Coast with more than 130 films and programs from 20 countries.

​This year a few films caught my attention here in Taiwan, where I always try to keep an eye out for news items related to Taiwan and its people. Two films  on offer at the festival have connections to Taiwan, but before I get into that I want to talk about a powerful documentary that will be screened titled Missing People and helmed by Jewish director David Shapiro.
I asked Shapiro in a recent email how his Jewish origins played into his interest in making this movie.
“​I was raised as a secular Jew,” he said, “and I inherited from my mother and father an appreciation of art and artists, a curiosity about and openness toward people whose experiences and backgrounds were markedly different than my own. I was taught to fight intolerance with acts of kindness and protest, to be armed with information, and to treat ‘official’ history with a healthy dose of skepticism. I think these are common denominators shared by many secular Jews.”
As for the movie itself, the director told San Diego Jewish World that he was drawn to the principal characters in Missing People — Martina Batan and Roy Ferdinand — for different reasons. The movie tells the story of two families who suffered the violent loss of a sibling, one in New York, the other in New Orleans.
Shapiro’s first movie since  Keep the River on Your Right” some 15 years ago, this new documentary is sure to engross film-goers with its riveting character study.

From Taiwan, there’s Zinnia Flower by Taiwanese director Tom Lin, an Asian film with English subtitles where the director gets personal by using the movie to deal with his grief over the 2012 death of his wife. It is based on a true story.”The film eschews elegiac cliches, but doesn’t evade pain and heartache,” the English-language Taipei Times newspaper said in a recent review of the movie. “It tugs at the heartstrings with honesty, tenderness and intimacy. Karena Lam and Chin-hang Shih , the film’s two leads, deliver heartfelt performances.”

Zinnia Flower addresses themes that are often ignored by Taiwanese movies, according to Taiwanese film critic Ho Yi, since most films made here ”stay on the light, fun and emotionally frivolous side.” But Lin’s new movie probes new ground and it’s been well-received by audiences in Taiwan.

Another movie at the SDAFF,  titled It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, is a romance that was directed by a Taiwanese woman named Emily Ting. Filmed in Hong Kong last year, the movie stars the up-and-coming Jewish actor Bryan Greenberg and his up-and-coming Korean-American actress wife Jamie Chung as American expats “lost in translation.” It’s a totally fun and colorful movie, what the director calls a romantic walk-and-talk movie. Enjoy.

All three of these films will play at the UltraStar Mission Valley in the Hazard Center in San Diego. Tickets are available for purchase online or tickets can be purchased at the Ultrastar Mission Valley box office (Member $9| General $12) starting October 30. Student/Military/Senior and Group discounts are available at the door. Limited All-Fest Passes are available for $250.

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Bloom is a Taiwan-based correspondent and inveterate internet surfer.  He may be contacted via dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com

1 thought on “Taiwan entries included in S.D. Asian Film Festival”

  1. Pat Feldman

    Dear Mr. Bloom,

    It is with pleasure that I send you this email thanking you for your most informative review of Taiwan films included in SD Asian Film Festival.

    Reading San Diego Jewish World, every morning, always brings me a gift. This morning I received two gifts! The new knowledge that most films made in Taiwan “stay on the light, fun and emotionally frivolous side”. You also added a new word to my vocabulary, elegiac.

    Thank you,
    Pat Feldman Solana Beach

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