This year, at the third year anniversary of UPAF, we are excited to show you four great films from "New American Filmmakers Series," one of Hawaii International Film Festival's original programs funded by Vilcek Foundation of New York. The program celebrates and encourages foreign-born filmmakers and their films. (for more info, go to: http://newamericanfilmmakers.org/about/ ) The GateKeeper [Read more...]
Synopsis NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY is an urban love story about the soul of a mother, the heart of a fighter, and the faith of a child. JUDE is a single mother who descends from a long line of Jamaican caregivers. SILENCE is a ‘past his prime’ boxer who fights illegally to survive. CIEL is a boy who delves into music, conjuring dreams for his mother. During the last week of summer, a late-night [Read more...]
Red Balloon & White Mane Albert Lamorisse’s films talk directly to our hearts with beautiful pictures and little words. Behind the simplest stories, these post-WWII films (featuring the director’s own son Pascal and stunning Alain Emery) contain the director’s complex feelings about the war, good vs evil, and the future that the post-war children had to rebuild. In 2011, the hardest [Read more...]
Necropolis Dir. Craig Scheihing, Zack Auron, David Fieman, Jacob Shanks Kindlon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 9’43”, 2009 Action! Adventure! Romance! ZOMBIES! A sad love story featuring zombies. Zombies have their own world in which they have their favorite foods and fall in love. But their world is shattered… Dir. Bio: Craig [Read more...]
"Hibakusha & My Journey" Dir. Takashi Kunimoto, 64 min, color, 2008 Synopsis "In his documentary film 'Traveling with Hibakusha: Across Generations,' Takashi Kunimoto focuses on the 'younger A-bomb survivors' who experienced the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they were babies or small children and so don't hold clear memories of their ordeal. The film is a record of a [Read more...]
UPAF 2011 Film #4 (Youth Program): "My Anthem" by MC NAM, 2010, Video. 4.5min. It is a music video for a song by a Vietnamese rapper MC NAM from Kobe, Japan. It is a cry of his soul about what it means to grow up as a Vietnamese in Japan, unknown facts of how his grandparents came to Japan... Shot on location in Nagata where he grew up. Camera by another Vietnamese high schooler in Japan. Edited [Read more...]
Duckling What is “Family”? What is “me”? As Japan’s communal family system collapses and families become more nuclear, the relationship between “me” and “family” shifts. We hear about so many incidents around the world every day, but the relationship between “me” and “my family” seems the most common problem. The massacre in Akihabara, the fatal stabbing of a father in Kawaguchi City by his [Read more...]
2009 Vancouver International Film Festival - Dragons and Tigers Award 2009 Hong Kong International Film Festival - Golden Digital Prize the 65th Venice Film Festival Directed by Emily Tang produced by Chow Keung, Jia Zhangke, Li Xiudong Synopsis: Two women cross paths at a turning point in their lives. Strangers and very different, yet somehow their pasts and futures may [Read more...]
Shot, Written, and Directed by Luciana Burlamaqui 150min. (Pt 1 & 2), Color, documentary, Brazil, 2009, In portguese w/ English & Japanese subtitles Festivals (Selected): 2010 International Cinema Festival in Guadalajara (Mexico)- The Best Latin American Feature Documentary 2009 The 4th Cinema and Human Rights in Latin America Show (16 cities in Brazil)- Audience Award for Best Feature [Read more...]
Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945 Dir. Erik Barnouw Camera: Akira Iwasaki, 16min. B&W, 1945/1970, 16mm film The earliest (and the only) film record of the immediate atomic bomb devastation was shot in September 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Japan Film Co., but was later confiscated by the U.S. Occupation Army. It was kept as a top-secret file until 1967, then for some bureaucratic [Read more...]