UPAF 2020 will be held online between 9/5-10/11/2020. Please visit our Online Festival Site for the lineup, ticket info and more. We also had a free online streaming of some of the great films screened in the past UPAF in May-June 2020 in light of the global pandemic. This page is the archive of that event.
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In response to the worldwide pandemic crisis, Uno Port Art Films, with cooperation from participating filmmakers, shares some of its popular past films, mainly from our early years 2010-2013. Available online until June 8.
Line-up (click or scroll down for blurbs)
- Deaf Jam USA, 70min, Doc. Dir: Judy Lieff
- GFP Bunny Japan, 82min, Doc-Fiction hybrid. Dir: Yutaka Tsuchiya
- Brasslands Serbia, 99min, Doc. Prod: Meerkat Media Collective
- Owl and the Sparrow Vietnam, 97min, drama. Dir: Stephane Gauger
- Skateistan Afghanistan, 95min, documentary. Dir: Kai Sehr
- The GateKeeper of Enmyoin Japan･USA, 124min, doc. Dir: Reiko Tahara & Kozo Max Uesugi
- A Place in the Middle Hawaii, 24min, documentary. Dir: Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson
- History and Memory USA, 32min, experimental doc. Dir: Rea Tajiri
- Atlantis Unbound USA, 15min, animation. Dir: Lori Hiris.
- Bodega USA, 6.5min, comedy. Dir: Casimir Nozkowski.
https://vimeo.com/showcase/upaf
Films included in this special free exhibit (6 feature-length and 4 short films):
Deaf Jam
USA, 2010, documentary, 70min. In ASL & English w/ English subtitles and Japanese closed caption subtitles. Feature-length version Japan premiered at UPAF 2013. Special free online screening for one month only (till 5/16).
“Sign Language is who I am. Follow the rise of a young deaf slam poet who finds her voice through American Sign Language poetry”(from Independe lens site). Deaf Jam is the story of deaf teen Aneta Brodski’s bold journey into the spoken word slam scene. In a wondrous twist, Aneta, an Israeli immigrant living in the Queens section of New York City, eventually meets Tahani, a hearing Palestinian slam poet. The two women embark on a collaboration/performance duet creating a new form of slam poetry that speaks to both the hearing and the Deaf.
“Poetry, friendship and respect transcend politics…Delightful and endearing, utilizing upbeat music and clever graphics, Deaf Jam immerses us in the richness and complexity of deaf culture and gives us a unique perspective into a world so vibrant, so diverse, it may forever change the way we see the non-hearing.” Barbara Pokras, A.C.E. – Woodstock Film Festival.
U.S. broadcast premiere on the Emmy® Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, a cherished film by Deaf communities. A 49min version was broadcast on NHK BS in 2013. UPAF 2013 screening was followed by a skype Q&A with Director Judy Lieff through volunteer JSL (Japanese Sign Language) translators for Japanese deaf audience members who came across Inland Sea and other towns. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Independent Lens page (USA)
GFP Bunny
The original Japanese title: “Thallium Shojo no Dokusatsu Nikki (GFP Bunny).” Japan, 2013, drama/doc hybrid. Dir: Yutaka Tsuchiya. A sneak preview @ UPAF2012
Kuramochi Yuka plays an enquiring girl who is harshly bullied at school. Is that why she cuts open frogs, experiments with her mother’s goldfish and even administers thallium to her mother? ‘You’ve got it wrong!’ she argues. ‘It all has to do with control.’ The girl also protests when the director, who bases his film on a notorious case from 2005, states that he will experiment by moving the story to 2011 – ‘There isn’t a story at all!’ GFP Bunny, named after genetically modified fluorescent rabbits, is a kaleidoscopic mix of fiction, documentary, diary notes and internet videos. The filmmaker and his protagonist wonder what biotechnology, cosmetic surgery, surveillance, avatars, extreme piercings and new religion can mean to us. A meeting with a body artist is the prelude to an unexpected and proud finale for the girl. (text borrowed from iffr website). Official selection @ Int’l Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR); Best film in the Japanese Eyes section @ Tokyo Int’l Film Fest. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Official site (in Japanese)
Brasslands
Serbia/USA, 2012, documentary. 99min. Dir: The Meerkat Media Collective, New York. A sneak preview version. Japan-premiered in UPAF 2012.
A tiny Serbian village explodes with brass cacophony and riotous celebration as more than half a million music fans descend upon Guča, the world’s largest trumpet competition. Amidst a cast of defending Serbian champions and struggling Roma Gypsies, an unlikely brass band from New York City, Zlatne Uste, voyages to represent the United States only a decade after NATO bombs rocked Belgrade. They will be the first Americans ever to compete at Guča. Brasslands offers an intimate and sometimes unsettling portrait of how the hopes and fears of this diverse group of characters collide in their search for common ground and musical ecstasy (from the official film site). For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Official site
Owl and the Sparrow
Vietnam/USA, 2007 97min. Drama. Dir: Stephane Gauger. Screened @UPAF 2012.
Thui, a bright orphan, meets a lonely man and woman while selling flowers on the streets in Ho Chi Minh City. A gem made by a talented Vietnamese American filmmaker with a huge dose of love and independent film spirit, with a big cheer for ordinary, hard-working Vietnamese men, women, and children! Best Dramatic Festure Award @ San Francisco Int’l Asian American Film Fest, Audience Award @ Los Angeles Film Fest, nominated for John Cassavetes Award @ Independent Spirit Award.
Message from UPAF: Director Stephane Gauger was our friend. We were happy and honored that he shared this special film with our audience back in 2012. Stephane’s sudden passing in 2018 way before his time shocked the Asian American independent film community. We thank from the bottom of our hearts for Nhung Phan, Stephan’s important person who responded to my Facebook message and connected me with his sister Anh Nguyen and producer Kenneth Nguyen. They granted permission to share this film again saying that Stephane would love it if he can share his talents for good cause. RIP Stephane Gauger. You are missed.
For more info: UPAF archive page on this film
Skateistan – Four Wheels and a Board in Kabul
Afghanistan/USA/Germany, 2011, 95min, documentary. Dir: Kai Sehr, Producer: Rene Kock, Writer/Editor: Nadia Soraya Hennrich. Japan-premiered @UPAF2012.
In 2007, Oliver Percovich and Sharna Nolan arrive in Kabul with little more than a couple of skateboards. In a country where children constitute more than half the population, they soon discover that their boards draw local children like a magnetic force. The informal skateboarding sessions in an abandoned fountain, one of the few smooth surfaces in Kabul, eventually lead to the foundation of Skateistan, Afghanistan’s first co-educational skateboarding school. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Official site
The GateKeeper of Enmyoin
Japan/USA, 2008, 124min, documentary. Dir: Reiko Tahara & Kozo Max Uesugi. Screened at UPAF2010.
Teijun Ogawa, a proud and rare niso (female priest) of Japanese Shingon Buddhist Sect in Uno, Okayama, dies after telling her story to Reiko and Max, a Japanese couple based in New York [Co-organizer of UPAF!]. She told them about her desolate life since she was given to a temple at the age of seven, and her achievement of building the Enmyoin temple single-handedly. But she refused to share her view as a woman—as if the subject was a taboo. Upon hearing the arrival of a young heiress, the couple revisits Enmyoin as though guided by old Teijun. The film unexpectedly becomes an investigative experiemntal documentary about the politics of being a niso in the rural Japanese temple world. An interesting companion piece for the travelers in the region. Hawaii Int’l Film Fest, Okayama Film Fest, Time Warner Oceanic Cable broadcast. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Official Film Site
A Place in the Middle
Hawaii/USA, documentary, 24min, 2011. Dir: Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson. Japan Premiered at UPAf in 2016. The Japanese subbed version we made has been screened at LGBTQ+ film festivals in Kagawa, Aomori, and Hokkaido since then!
Eleven year old Ho’onani dreams of leading the hula troupe at her inner-city Honolulu school. The only trouble is that the group is just for boys. She’s fortunate that her teacher understands first-hand what it’s like to be ‘in the middle’ – the Hawaiian tradition of embracing both male and female spirit. Together they set out to prove that what matters most is what’s in your heart and mind (from Hawaii Int’l Film Festival). For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Official Film Site
History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige
USA, 1991, video, 32min. Dir: Rea Tajiri. Western Japan-Premiered at UPAF 2010.
One of the most important films about post-Pearl Harbor Japanese internment camps which dislocated 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. Tajiri, a third generation Japanese American filmmaker searches for a history, her family’s history for which the camera did not exist. By weaving interviews with family memebers, archival footages, and recreated images that her mother chose to forget, the film questions who decides what (hi)stories to record and tell. Special Jury Award @ San Francisco Int’l Film Fest. A classic in American Documentary Studies. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film / Women Make Movies page on this film
Atlantis Unbound
USA, 2007, 16mm, 15min, animation. Dir: Lori Hiris. Japan-Premiered at UPAF 2010.
A highly artistic animation piece loosely inspired by the utopian novel The New Atlantis, written by Sir Francis Bacon in 1627. In this novel by the philosopher of the new science of progress and technology, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, ponders the secrets of heredity. Via the metamorphosis of images, myth and history are interwoven through the act of drawing and erasing. Galton furiously writes letters to Darwin in the pursuit of discovering the truth of hereditary science. Galton’s aspirations to improve the human race lead to controversy. For more info: UPAF archive page on this film
Bodega
USA, 2007, video, 6.5min, comedy. Dir: Casimir Nozkowski. Japan-Premiered at UPAF 2011.
Get to know your friendly neighborhood Bodega! Featuring the Internets Celebrities: Dallas Penn & Rafi Kam. For more info: FB page / Official site
Watch Online UPAF
https://vimeo.com/showcase/upaf