There is no doubt that Los Angeles is one of the most popular and hot cities in terms of movies. A few days ago, from May 2 – May 10, The Los Angeles Asia Pacific Film had opened around Little Tokyo Area in Downtown and there are so many symposiums, screen previews, various parties, conferences, and award ceremonies.
This festival has been presented and planned by Visual Communication. This group has been actively working on various cultural media and movies. It is organized by numerous artists, critics, and directors. With the purpose of building a more ideal world through media art, this group has been working for 40 years.
At this Festival, there were about 140 movies competing in sessions such as narrative and short features, long and short documentaries. Also, there were seminars on cinema music, a conference for creative content (C3), and a special ceremony.
This festival has been working as a bridge to the USA market for Asian countries. The winners of the Golden Reel Awards on a short movie and short animation can be nominated for the OSCAR competition.
This Time, 3 Korean directors/movies participated: Justin Chon(Director) <Ms. Purple>, Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee(Director) <Happy Cleaners> and Kim Bora(Director) <House of Humming Bird>. They will compete in International Narrative Feature and Short movies.
Director Justin Chon, who was awarded at SUNDANCE 2 years ago with <Gook>, returned to this festival and presented ‘Ms. Purple’. This movie will be previewed as Centerpiece Gala. It shows family trauma through the estranged families. <Happy Cleaners> directed by Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee describes the life of hardship that Korean Americans experience.
The movie of Director Kim Bora, <House of Humming Bird> is a story of 14 years old young girl during an unexpected situation that happened by collapsing of Seongsu bridge in 1994. In this situation, she tries to find sweetness and deliver a warm human story. Already this movie was awarded at Berlin Film Festival with highly praised. There was a special event for the first Korean sitcom comedian Margarett Cho, celebrating his 25th anniversary. The sitcom, <All American Girl> is one of a big hit for long years.
During Festival days, there were many conferences called C3(Conference for Creative Content). One of C3 conferences was opened at Korean Culture Center organized by Korean Cinema Development Institute. In there, many discussions and opinions were suggested about producing independent movies in a time of digital distribution.
Finally, just one day before closing day, the Awards ceremony was held on May 9th and as we expected, and Korean movies acquired good results.
First, The Grand Jury best award was taken on narrative feature <Yellow Rose> by Director Diane Paragas. Ante Cheng from <Ms. Purple> won Special Award of Cinematography. Actress Award to Maya Erskin on the movie ‘Plus One’ and Award for Breakthrough Performance turned to Eva Noble Zada on <Yellow Rose>. Grand Jury Award (International) Narrative Feature was acquired by KIM Bora (director) of <House of Humming Bird>.
This year, LAAFF established The Inaugural Emerging Filmmaker Award, and Korean directors Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee from ‘Happy Cleaners’won this prize. Also, this year, Golden Reel Award was given to the short documentary ‘All In the Family’ directed by Hao Wu and the short animation movie ‘Speak Easy B’directed by Becca Park and Jun Shimizu.
Awarding Ceremony, Francis Gullado (executive manager) said that all participating Artists and Movies were so excellent and the best ones will be one of the symbols of change which will approach in the near future. And here, we are standing together on this front line. And she said “very grateful for all artists are creating new cultures which can connect to each society as a connecting ring.”
In the future, I heartily wish our movies and more talented artist are getting more opportunities of introducing our cultures to the world.
* 《쿨투라》 2019년 6월호(통권 60호) *
