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New Asian Currents

Entries in Total: 645 Films out of 63 Countries and Areas

October 6–10   [Venues] Forum 5 ‹F5›, 3 ‹F3›, 4 ‹F4›

We give you this year’s New Asian Currents program—twenty-one gems in the rough that boldly carve out new ways of expression, in addition to two Special Invitation Films, inviting you to worlds captured and imagined by the filmmakers.


New Asian Currents Special Invitation Films

Jurors:
Teddy Co (THE PHILIPPINES / Film historian, archivist)
Shiozaki Toshiko (JAPAN / Filmmaker)

        A        

- Bamseom Pirates, Seoul Inferno
KOREA / 2017 / 119 min
Director: Jung Yoon-suk

Through their music, grindcore duo Bamseom Pirates puts the spotlight on South Korea’s social issues, giving a voice to the angst felt by the young people in South Korean society today. But one day in 2012, their close friend and producer is arrested on suspicion of violating the National Security Law . . . .

Oct. 6 20:50 ‹F5› | Oct. 7 16:20 ‹F3›



        B        

- Caro Mio Ben (My Dear Beloved)
CHINA, SINGAPORE / 2017 / 118 min
Directors: Su Qing, Mina

Directors Su Qing and Mina (White Tower, YIDFF 2005 New Asian Currents) capture the vacillating and evolving emotions of girls reaching adolescence, as they go about their daily routines at a school for students with hearing and vision disabilities.

Oct. 8 13:15 ‹F5› | Oct. 9 13:10 ‹F3›



        C        

- City of Jade
TAIWAN, MYANMAR / 2016 / 99 min
Director: Midi Z

The filmmaker’s brother and his friends mine for jade as the conflict between the government’s armed forces and the Kachin Independence Army continues. The director’s monologue reveals the relationship between him and his parents, as the camera closes in on what is happening at the mining site.

Oct. 7 10:45 ‹F3› | Oct. 9 19:30 ‹F5›



        D        

- Droga!
USA, THE PHILIPPINES / 2014 / 8 min
Director: Miko Revereza

A mix of American culture and the Tagalog language, this film is one proof of the existence of Filipinos living in the U.S. We look into the director’s mind, etched onto Super 8 film.



- Disintegration 93–96
USA, THE PHILIPPINES / 2017 / 6 min
Director: Miko Revereza

Home videos taken in the 1990s, when the director and his family emigrated from the Philippines to Los Angeles, that ooze with unease and longing for home—and now. The “un-integrated” U.S.—on film, full speed ahead.



- The Beginning of Creation: Abduction / A Child
JAPAN / 2015 / 18 min
Director: Yamashiro Chikako

Dancer Kawaguchi Takao reenacts a legendary performance by the late dancer, Ohno Kazuo. The filmmaker’s gaze clings to the exposed body, looming larger than life itself.



- A Woman of the Butcher Shop
JAPAN / 2016 / 27 min
Director: Yamashiro Chikako

A woman chops up blocks of meat that have washed up on a shore that has been spared development because of the presence of a U.S. military base. Men flock to the meat she sells. The film—which switches back and forth between reality and fiction—portrays the state of Okinawa today.

Oct. 6 15:30 ‹F5› | Oct. 8 13:00 ‹F3›



        E        

- In Memory of the Chinatown
TAIWAN / 2016 / 30 min
Director: Chen Chun-Tien

Tainan City’s so-called “Chinatown,” once a bustling residential and commercial complex, is about to be torn down to make way for redevelopment. The breath of the now deserted facility can be felt resonating with the memories of its former residents.



- The Slice Room
KOREA / 2016 / 69 min
Director: Song Yun-hyeok

Redevelopment threatens the survival of the low-income housing projects known as jjok bang. Living in a jjok bang himself, the director reveals the shortcomings and hypocrisy of the South Korean welfare system.

Oct. 6 14:20 ‹F3› | Oct. 7 10:30 ‹F5›



        F        

- On to the Next Step: Lives After 3.11
JAPAN / 2015 / 180 min
Director: Tashiro Yoko

For two years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, this film painstakingly follows Yamada Farm in the Hokkaido town of Onuma, a bakery on the banks of the Toya Lake, and a fishing community in Oma, Aomori—a town on the shore opposite Onuma—all beleaguered by anxiety and fear over a nuclear power plant under construction nearby.

Oct. 7 16:40 ‹F5› | Oct. 9 19:10 ‹F3›



        G        

- Nokas
INDONESIA / 2016 / 76 min
Director: Manuel Alberto Maia

In Kupang, West Timor, dowries and other traditions threaten to interfere with a marriage between Nokas and his beloved. But with the support of his strong older sister and mother, he is inspired to go forward with his plans to marry.

Oct. 6 10:30 ‹F5› | Oct. 8 15:40 ‹F3›



        H        

- Of Cats, Dogs, Farm Animals and Sashimi
THE PHILIPPINES / 2015 / 78 min
Director: Perry Dizon

The camera captures the life of Dondon, a boy who agonizes over his family and his future, as he grows up transient, moving from one rubber plantation to another.

Oct. 6 13:00 ‹F5› | Oct. 8 10:30 ‹F3›



        I        

- Rubber Coated Steel
LEBANON, GERMANY / 2017 / 19 min
Director: Lawrence Abu Hamdan

It is 2014, and two unarmed Palestinian youth are shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. What emerges from records of the trial—which hinged on the kind of bullets used, and audio analysis of the gunshots—is silence.



- Hurrahh!
KOREA / 2011 / 75 min
Director: Jung Jae-hoon

The individual nature of any given human body erodes little by little, even while simultaneously seeking the right moment to overflow. This film portrays one man’s life as he goes back and forth between home and work: a certain uneasiness infiltrates everything, and somewhere, we hear the echoes of a scream.

Oct. 6 17:40 ‹F5› | Oct. 8 20:50 ‹F3›



        J        

- Self Portrait: Birth in 47 KM
CHINA / 2016 / 102 min
Director: Zhang Mengqi

Directed by Zhang Mengqi (Self-Portrait with Three Women, YIDFF 2011 New Asian Currents), this work incorporates performance, and features two women: one elderly and hunchbacked, veteran of a difficult life; and the other, her granddaughter.

Oct. 7 13:50 ‹F5› | Oct. 9 16:20 ‹F3›



        K        

- Starless Dreams
IRAN / 2016 / 76 min
Director: Mehrdad Oskouei

What does the outside world look like to girls greeting the New Year at a rehabilitation facility for youth who have committed crimes? Directed by Mehrdad Oskouei (My Mother’s Home, Lagoon, YIDFF 2001 New Asian Currents).

Oct. 7 20:50 ‹F5› | Oct. 9 10:45 ‹F3›



        L        

- This Little Father Obsession
LEBANON / 2016 / 103 min
Director: Selim Mourad

Using beauty and humor, director Selim Mourad (A Trip to the Barbershop, YIDFF 2011 New Asian Currents)—as a gay person who cannot sustain the family line—challenges the patriarchal tradition, and the views held by his father and his family.

Oct. 7 19:30 ‹F3› | Oct. 9 16:30 ‹F5›



        M        

- Those Who Remain
LEBANON, UAE / 2016 / 95 min
Director: Eliane Raheb

From Eliane Raheb of This is Lebanon (YIDFF 2009 New Asian Currents), comes a story about a man running a restaurant in a village in northern Lebanon by the border with Syria, remaining, as the world changes around him.

Oct. 8 18:10 ‹F3› | Oct. 9 13:45 ‹F5›



        N        

- Up Down & Sideways
INDIA / 2017 / 83 min
Directors: Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar

Songs ring out across the valley, sung by villagers at work together in Nagaland, India, near the border with Myanmar. The fields, love, friendship, and even bitter memories . . . they have always been accompanied by music.

Oct. 7 13:40 ‹F3› | Oct. 8 10:45 ‹F5›



        O        

- A Yangtze Landscape
CHINA / 2017 / 156 min
Director: Xu Xin

The camera travels the Yangtze River upstream from Shanghai to Yibin. As titles narrate the incidents that take place along the way, the lives of people living along the river are portrayed at a slow, cinematic pace against a changing landscape.

Oct. 6 18:00 ‹F3› | Oct. 8 16:30 ‹F5›



        P        

- Yellowing
HONG KONG / 2016 / 128 min
Director: Chan Tze-Woon

Taken from the viewpoint of the young people who participated in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, the film offers access to their happiness, anger, sadness, and joy—through their everyday conversations amid clashes with police.

Oct. 6 18:00 ‹F3› | Oct. 8 16:30 ‹F5›




New Asian Currents Special Invitation Films

A Filmless Festival
CHINA / 2015 / 80 min
Director: Wang Wo

The 11th Beijing Independent Film Festival, scheduled to take place in the Beijing suburb of Songzhuang in August 2014, was shut down by authorities the day before it was to begin. A record of the incident was put together using footage shot by directors and participants.

Oct. 6 15:20 ‹F4› | Oct. 10 10:30 ‹F3›



Cuts
INDONESIA / 2016 / 70 min
Director: Chairun Nissa

The film follows a director (Edwin) and producer submitting their film Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly to the Censorship Board as required by the Indonesian law, documenting what is meant to be a closed-door process.

Oct. 6 13:00 ‹F4› | Oct. 10 14:00 ‹F3›




New Asian Currents presents: Roxlee’s Yakata

Grant: The Japan Foundation Asia Center Grant Program for Promotion of Cultural Collaboration

[Venue] Yamagata Citizens’ Hall (Small Hall) ‹CS›, Old Photo Studio Nishimura

Roxlee: animator, performer, filmmaker, and much more—hailing from the Philippines. A part of YIDFF since its inception, starting with his participation in the 1989 Asia Symposium, not only through his films, but through teaser posters, title roll animations, and T-shirts. Films old and new will be screened alongside an exhibition of his work in other media, including drawings, at the time-honored studio Nishimura Shashinkan (Old Photo Studio Nishimura located in Yamagata city center).

Roxlee Special  Oct. 10 15:00 ‹CS›
Exhibition  Oct. 6–11 12:00–17:00 / Oct. 12 10:00–13:00 Old Photo Studio Nishimura