Film fest celebrates 10th anniversary

Boulder Asian Film Festival showcases variety of Asian and Asian-American cinema

By Monica Ly, staff writer

Aug. 27, 2007

Cultural Festival | Film Festival | Winners and Washouts | Photo Gallery

Photo by Joe Nguyen Greg Cahill, director of "The Golden Voice," talks about his film at the Boulder Asian Film Festival Aug. 18 at the Boulder Theater.

BOULDER – For the 10th consecutive year, the Boulder Asian Pacific Alliance showcased a variety of cinema at its annual Boulder Asian Film Festival Aug. 17-19 at the Boulder Theater.

Himalayan Restaurant, Wahoo Fish Tacos and 8 Island Hawaiian BBQ provided a tasty treat before beginning a weekend long marathon of movies produced, written, directed and acted by people of Asian descent.

Members and volunteers of the Boulder Asian Pacific Alliance have brought about the Boulder Asian Film Festival for the past 10 years.

“I was actually the founder of the Asian Film Festival and Alan [O’Hashi] is now the director of it,” BAPA member Clay Fong said. “It’s an opportunity for our particular Asian group to share our culture, our food, our arts, basically, with the broader community.”

Since longer feature movies ended each of the many themed sections, shorter movies supplied the entertainment for the remainder of the time. “Gold Digger,” the first movie for the theme “General Audience,” was adapted and directed by O’Hashi.

“We have a screenplay contest and last year, the winner was Margaret Kerrison. She entered the contest and we made it a movie,” O’Hashi said. “The whole idea is to shoot them in Boulder or Denver, so we get screenplays that are adaptable to our area. For instance, this one was set in the middle of LA in the summer. We had to re-write it so that it would be in Colorado in the dead of winter.”

The local support of O’Hashi’s movie included those starring in the movie and family members of the actors and actresses who came to watch the performance.

“I really enjoyed (“The Cats of Mirikatani”). I mean the little I knew about the camps and so forth, really, I didn’t know enough,” festivalgoer Michael Palmer said. “I enjoyed the short pieces as well, and I must admit the one that I liked the best was the one my wife was in.”

Monica Ly is a staff writer for AsiaXpress.com. Monica can be contacted via e-mail at Monica.Ly@asiaxpress.com.