CAAMFest 2014

3/14/14 to 3/21/14

Each year, the Center for Asian American Media brings us the best in contemporary cinema from Asia and the Asian diaspora. This year's edition of CAAMFest at BAM/PFA feature films and documentaries from Singapore, Japan, India, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, the United States, and more.

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Past Films

  • The Missing Picture

    • Tuesday, March 17 7 PM

    Rithy Panh (Cambodia/France, 2013). Winner of the 2013 Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, this latest film from renowned director Rithy Panh is a testament to the special place of cinema in giving form to phantom pains caused by unthinkable trauma. Clay figures, archival footage, and spoken words weave a stunningly vivid picture of the filmmaker's and Cambodia's past. (90 mins)

  • Jazz in Love

    • Friday, March 21 7pm

    Baby Ruth Villarama (Philippines, 2013). Jazz and his German fiancé Theo struggle against culture, family, and tradition as well as the thousands of miles that lie between them. The film follows Theo's visit to the Philippines to ask for Jazz's hand in marriage from reluctant in-laws-but can their relationship survive their differences? (75 mins)

  • Jadoo

    • Friday, March 21 8:45pm

    Amit Gupta (U.K., 2013). In this lighthearted family story, Shalini returns home to Leicester to announce her engagement. She wants the perfect Indian wedding, and for her uncle and father-both chefs-to create the menu for it. But it has been two decades since they have spoken to one another. Will Shalini's wedding bring the family together again? (84 mins)

  • Bringing Tibet Home

    • Wednesday, March 19 7pm

    Tenzin Tsetan Choklay (U.S./Nepal/India/South Korea, 2013). Artist Tenzing Rigdol navigates various international borders to bring more than twenty tons of Tibetan soil to Dharamshala, India, to satisfy his father's dying wish to set foot in Tibet one last time before he passed away. An insightful and extremely touching film about the contemporary Tibetan psyche. (82 mins)

  • Karaoke Girl

    • Wednesday, March 19 9pm

    Visra Vichit-Vadakan (Thailand, 2012). A compassionate look at the life of a karaoke girl in Bangkok, where poverty, gender, and desires tangle to create intractable situations that leave the heroine suffering, yet sometimes hopeful. Part documentary, part fictionalized narrative, this film is sure to touch your heart. (77 mins)

  • The Great Passage

    • Sunday, March 16 3:30pm

    Yuya Ishii (Japan, 2013). Majime can barely muster the confidence to speak, but when he's recruited to work on an ambitious new dictionary, his life finally begins to bloom. In Japan's quirky 2013 Oscar submission, the dictionary forms the backbone not only of human communication, but for any number of life's most powerful transitions. (133)

  • The Sun Behind the Clouds

    • Sunday, March 16 6:10pm

    Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam (India/U.K., 2009). Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in person. 2008 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the takeover of Tibet, prompting uprisings and the biggest upheaval in decades in Lhasa and other cities. This documentary chronicles the Tibetan struggle for freedom. Screening in our Committed Cinema series. (79 mins)

  • The Way We Dance

    • Sunday, March 16 8:15pm

    Adam Wong (Hong Kong, 2013). When a tofu shop worker joins her college's hip-hop dance team, she becomes a rising star. But her star is in danger of falling when her fellow team members, a rival dance team, and romance all get in the way. (110 mins)

  • Lordville

    • Saturday, March 15 4:45pm

    Rea Tajiri (U.S., 2013). Asking what it means to own land, the acclaimed director of History and Memory (SFIAAFF '91) harnesses unusual stories buried within the everyday-powerful floods, ancestral secrets, and colonial violence-to expose traces of a town's history. Her cinematic probing compels us to ponder our relationship to place. (65 mins)

  • Ilo Ilo

    • Saturday, March 15 6:30pm

    Anthony Chen (Singapore, 2013). Winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes, this riveting quasi-autobiographical first feature is against the backdrop of the 1990s Asian financial crisis. The film slowly reveals a family on the brink, watching desperately as self-control slips from their grip.(99 mins)

  • Innocent Blood

    • Saturday, March 15 8:30pm

    D. J. Holloway, Sun Kim (U.S., 2013). In this taut and impeccably filmed thriller set against the backdrop of L.A.'s Koreatown, James Park (Jun-seong Kim) navigates the city's dark and gritty underbelly to find his abducted son A bold morality play where deception, control, and revenge reign supreme. (100 mins)

  • Farah Goes Bang

    • Friday, March 14 7pm

    Meera Menon (U.S., 2013). Farah Mahtab's sex life is a litany of awkward encounters, and this twentysomething is eager to shake the unwanted moniker of “virgin.” Will a cross-country roadtrip with her best friends to stump for presidential nominee John Kerry provide the sweet release she craves? A raunchy, feminist reexamination of the road trip genre. (93 mins)

  • Pee Mak

    • Friday, March 14 9:15pm

    Banjong Pisanthanakun (Thailand, 2013). Ace physical comedy and bone-chilling scares collide in Shutter co-director Banjong Pisanthanakun's hilarious send-up of one of Thailand's most enduring and widely filmed ghost stories, the story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong. Pee Mak decimated Thailand's domestic box office in 2013 to become the country's biggest draw ever. (115 mins)