Part 2

The Sundance Film Festival is likely the most

prestigious independent film festival in the United States, having gone from a

scrappy bastion of independent cinema in the early '80s to a major Hollywood

event in the '90s through 2010s, the launchpad of countless careers and a breeding

ground for often successful new talent. A number of well known Asian American

filmmakers also got their start at Sundance, including True Detective Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Victoria Para China (short), 2004; Sin Nombre, 2009), Justin Lin (Better

Luck Tomorrow, 2002; Finishing The

Game, 2007), Tze Chun (Children of

Invention, 2009), So Yong Kim (In Between Days, 2006), Benson Lee (Miss Monday, 1998), Jennifer Phang (Half-Life, 2008; Advantageous, 2015), Tony Bui (Three Seasons, 1999), Timothy Bui (Green Dragon, 2001), Bertha Bay-Sa Pan (Face, 2002), Michael Kang (The Motel, 2003), Alice Wu (Saving Face, 2005), Tanuj Chopra (Punching at the Sun, 2006), Ham Tran

(Journey from the Fall, 2006), Andrew Ahn (Dol

(First Birthday) (short), 2012), Evan Jackson Leong (Linsanity, 2013) and others.

Compiled below is a survey of such

offerings, an encouraging indicator of the state of Asian American cinema in

this day and age, and hopefully a sign of what to expect in the future. The

festival spans from Thursday, January 22nd to Monday February 2nd, 2015.

Feature

Narrative Films

Seoul Searching

(Dir. Benson Lee 2015) -- 105 minutes (Premieres)

Described as a homage to the John Hughes dramedies

of the 1980s, Seoul Searching is

based on Director Benson Lee’s own experiences as a teenager participating in a

government-sponsored summer program where high schoolers of Korean descent

converge from all over the world -- the U.S., Germany, Mexico and London. The

setting of Seoul of 1986 is a blender where the film’s vast array of colorful

characters crash and mix: punk rocker teen Sid Park (Justin Chon) has a crush

on Grace Park (Jessika Van), who channels Madonna. Sergio (Esteban Ahn) is a

latin lover prototype hailing from Mexico, and Klaus (Teo Yoo) comes from

Germany and has a German girlfriend back in Hamburg, characters that are entirely different than the ones you would typically expect in Asian American films.

Sources such as The

Hollywood Reporter and Variety

have already praised the 80s era costume design from Shirley Kurata, the visual

style, and the soundtrack, which includes songs from The Clash, The Go-Gos,

Culture Club, and The Cars.

99 Homes (Dir. Raman

Bahrani) -- 110 minutes (Spotlight)

Iranian American filmmaker Raman Bahrani has been

called “the director of the decade” by Roger Ebert, and his previous film, At

Any Price, which reflects on the competitive world of modern agriculture, stands

current with his trend on examining compelling modern themes -- his current

film, 99 Homes, being no different as a meditation on the occasional dark side

of the homeowning business, and possibly the housing crash of 2006-2007.

Starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon and Laura Dern, the film has already

won a “Best Film” award from Venice by the Young Jury Members and was a SIGNIS

Award Honorable Mention at the same festival.

Advantageous (Dir.

Jennifer Phang) -- 97 minutes (U.S. Dramatic Competition)

San Francisco-based filmmaker Jennifer Phang has

turned her award winning and critically acclaimed short film, also named Advantageous (initially made for

Futurestates.tv and PBS.org), into her third feature film, a story that

reflects on a futuristic society where education becomes unaffordable and where

humanity has gained the ability to transfer their minds and memories into

younger, more durable bodies. How these developments strain the relationship of

a mother and daughter are examined through the course of the film, which stars

Jacqueline Kim (also the other co-writer with Phang and one of the producers),

James Urbaniak, Ken Jeong, Freya Adams, Rex Lee and others.

Zipper (Dir. Mora Stephens) --

112 minutes (Premieres)

Zipper is a political thriller having similar themes

consistent with Director/Writer Mora Stephens’ previous Independent Spirit

Award winning comedy, Conventioneers.

The film follows a politically ambitious prosecutor (Patrick Ellis) eyeing a

U.S. Senate seat who becomes slowly consumed by a continual tryst with a

high-class escort that threatens to unravel everything he has built up to this

moment, including the relationship with his wife (Lena Headley). John Cho also

stars in the film.

Songs My

Brothers Taught Me (Dir. Chloé Zhao) -- 98 minutes (U.S. Dramatic

Competition)

Chloé Zhao’s second feature film focuses on a young

generation of Lakotas living on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The story revolves around

a high school senior named Johnny who has to decide whether to leave the

reservation due to the death of his rodeo-cowboy father, or stay and take care

of his 13-year old sister, Jashuan. Zhao directs non-professional actors to

tell a deep narrative featuring genuine and complex emotion, while

cinematographer Joshua James Richards captures stark footage of the South

Dakota/Nebraska border. The film is also produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina

Yang Bongiovi (who are behind another 2015 Sundance selection, Dope, and

previous 2013 Sundance hit, Fruitvale Station).

Umrika (Dir. Prashant Nair) --

100 minutes (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)

Director Prashant Nair’s second feature (and

Bollywood debut as a Hindi language movie) is a 1980s-set film anchored by the

performance of Life of Pi star Surraj

Sharma. We follow Sharma as the protagonist Ramakant, who journeys out for

Bombay while tracing the path of his brother, Udai, who writes inspiring

letters of questionable authenticity describing his adventures in America, or

“Umrika.”

Ivy (Dir. Tolga Karaçelik) --

104 minutes (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)

Ivy

is Turkish writer/director Tolga Karaçelik’s second feature, and is DP’d by

legendary cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki (Winter

Sleep, Once Upon A Time in Anatolia). Ivy

tells the tale of the varied, disgruntled crew of a Turkish cargo ship, who

arrive in an Egyptian port only to learn that the port authority plans to

foreclose on them, forcing them to maintain their vessel until its owner’s

debts are paid. Slowly, tensions rise until the ship’s men start to take out

their frustrations on each other.

Feature

Documentaries

Meru (Dirs. Jimmy Chin &

E. Chai Vasarhelyi) -- 92 minutes (U.S. Documentary Competition)

MERU Official Trailer

Meru is a breathtaking documentary about the

magnificent Shark’s Fin of Mount Meru, a 21,000-foot peak rising above the

headwaters of the Ganges River in Northern India and a monumental challenge for

the world’s finest mountain climbers, many who have failed to summit its peaks.

The documentary focuses on three elite American climbers -- Conrad Anker, Jimmy

Chin (co-director) and Renan Ozturke as they brave sub-zero temperatures and 19

days of violent storms. Featuring incredible footage shot in death-defying

conditions, Meru is the ultimate mountain climbing documentary.

In Football We

Trust (Dirs. Tony Vainuku & Erika Cohn) -- 87 minutes (Doc Premieres)

Filmed over four years, In Football We Trust follows

the journeys of four talented Polynesian high school football players as they

practice, play and strive to achieve their ultimate dreams of professional

recruitment in the NFL.

Timothy Tau is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His short story, The Understudy, won the Hyphen Asian American Short Story Contest (sponsored by the Asian American Writer's Workshop) and appears in the Winter 2011 issue of Hyphen Magazine, the Survival Issue. He is currently working on a film project about Asian American cinema pioneers set in the 60s, 70s and 80s.