2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival! They include: UNSEEN (directed by Set Hernandez), IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM (directed by Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah), LIQUOR STORE DREAMS (directed by So Yun Um), BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWN (directed by Karen Cho), and WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD (directed by Kayla Abuda Galang).

UNSEEN (Directed by Set Hernandez) – Documentary Programs
Set Hernandez, a community activist and filmmaker makes their directorial debut with their new film UNSEEN. UNSEEN follows Pedro, an aspiring social worker who happens to be blind and undocumented. Pedro faces political restrictions to obtain his college degree, secure a job in his field, and support his family. As he finally graduates, uncertainty looms over Pedro. Through experimental cinematography and sound, “unseen” reimagines the accessibility of cinema, while exploring the intersections of immigration, disability, and mental health.

UNSEEN will have its U.S PREMIERE at The Japanese American National Museum, Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 12:00 pm

IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM (directed by Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah) – Documentary Programs
The acclaimed film IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM explores the life of Alaudin Ullah, a New York actor and playwright who investigates the pasts of his Bangladeshi immigrant parents. By doing so, Ullah unearths a lost history in which South Asian Muslims, African Americans, and Puerto Ricans forged an extraordinary multiracial community in the tenements of mid- 20th century Harlem.

IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM will have its LOS ANGELES PREMIERE at The Japanese American National Museum, Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 8:30 pm

LIQUOR STORE DREAMS (directed by So Yun Um) – Documentary Programs
Award Winning Documentary, LIQUOR STORE DREAMS follows the intimate portrait of two Korean American children of liquor store owners who set out to bridge generational divides with their immigrant parents in Los Angeles. So Yun Um’s directorial debut touches on Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles, including the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins in a Korean convenience store, the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police brutality against Rodney King and ensuing looting of Korean businesses, and growing political organizing

LIQUOR STORE DREAMS will have its LOS ANGELES PREMIERE at Gardena Cinema, Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 7:30 pm
BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWN (Directed by Karen Cho) – Documentary Programs
Across the country, Chinatown communities face a looming threat of being displaced – and along with them, the rich history of a community who fought from the margins for a place to belong. Director Karen Cho takes us to the scene of the collective grassroots fight in Vancouver, New York and Chicago to save Chinatown. This timely documentary serves as a gentrification message that many communities in Southern California resonate with.

BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWNS will have its LOS ANGELES PREMIERE at the Japanese American National Museum, Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 6:00 pm

WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD (Directed Kayla Abuda Galang) – KUWENTUHAN
2023 Sundance Short Film Grand Jury Award Winner, WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD follows teenager Ly and her cousins as they get high before a boisterous family Thanksgiving at their auntie’s house in southeast San Diego in 2006.

WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD will have its LOS ANGELES PREMIERE on May 12 at 9:30 PM at Regal L.A Live as part of the KUWENTUHAN shorts program.

Your coverage as reviews/features/what to watch/mentions/festival wrap-ups for these films are encouraged. Screening links and interviews with the filmmakers are available for each of these films.

Please contact the publicists below for screening links and to set up interviews:
David Magdael & Associates, Inc.
Press Contacts
David Magdael – dmagdael@dmagpr.com
Kim Dixon – kidxon@dmagpr.com
Will Zang – wzang@dmagpr.com
Tommy Tang – ttang@dmagpr.com
Jennifer Hast – jhast@dmagpr.com

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a PAWIKAN FILMS production

UNSEEN

directed by Set Hernandez

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Screening Schedule
Japanese American National Museum
Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 12:00 pm

About the Film UNSEEN
Most people dream of a better future. Pedro, an aspiring social worker, is no different. But as a blind, undocumented immigrant, Pedro faces political restrictions to obtain his college degree, secure a job in his field, and support his family. As he finally graduates, uncertainty looms over Pedro. What starts as a journey to provide mental health care for his community ultimately transforms into Pedro’s path towards his own healing. Through experimental cinematography and sound, “unseen” reimagines the accessibility of cinema, while exploring the intersections of immigration, disability, and mental health.

Director’s Statement
Set Hernandez is a filmmaker and community organizer whose roots come from Bicol, Philippines. As a queer, undocumented immigrant, they dedicate their filmmaking to expand the portrayal of their communities on screen. Set’s past documentary work includes the award-winning short “COVER/AGE” (2019) and impact producing for “Call Her Ganda” (Tribeca, 2018). An alumnus of the Disruptors Fellowship, Set is also developing a TV comedy pilot and a feature-length screenplay. Since 2010, Set has been organizing around migrant justice issues, from deportation defense to healthcare access.They co-founded the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective which promotes equity for undocumented immigrants in the film industry. Set’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, NBCUniversal, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, among others. In their past life, Set was a published linguistics researcher, focusing in the area of bilingualism. Above all, Set is the fruit of their family’s love and their
community’s generosity.

LAAPFF Website
Film Website

Mins 88 | Language English, Spanish | Year 2023 | Country United States

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IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM
Directed by Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah
Produced by Susannah Ludwig, Vivek Bald, and Alaudin Ullah

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Screening Schedule
Japanese American National Museum
Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 8:30 pm

About the film IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM
As a teenager in 1980s Harlem, Alaudin Ullah was swept up in the revolutionary energy of early hip-hop. He rejected his working-class Bangladeshi parents and turned his back on everything South Asian and Muslim. Now, as an actor and playwright contending with the Islamophobia of post-9/11 Hollywood, Alaudin wants to tell his parents’ stories. But he has no idea who they really were, no idea of the lives they led or the struggles they faced as Muslim immigrants of an earlier era. In Search of Bengali Harlem follows Ullah from the streets of New York City to the villages of Bangladesh to uncover the pasts of his father, Habib, and mother, Mohima. Alaudin first discovers that Habib was part of an extraordinary history of mid-20th century Harlem, in which Bengali Muslim men, dodging racist Asian Exclusion laws, married into New York’s African American and Puerto Rican communities – and in which the likes of Malcolm X and Miles Davis shared space and broke bread with immigrants from the subcontinent. Then, after crossing the globe to visit the former homes of his parents, Alaudin unearths unsettling truths about his mother: about the hardships and trauma that she overcame to become one of the first women to migrate to the U.S. from rural Bangladesh. In Search of Bengali Harlem is a transformative journey, not just for Alaudin Ullah, but for our understanding of the complex histories of South Asian and Muslim Americans.

Director’s Statement
In Search of Bengali Harlem takes viewers along on this years-long journey – one that not only leads to a new understanding of Alaudin’s parents, but transforms our
understanding of South Asian migration to the United States. At a time when South Asian actors, politicians, and media figures have emerged on the American popular landscape, the film both challenges the assumption that South Asians are “new” and “recent” immigrants to the U.S. and complicates the image of South Asians as doctors, engineers, and tech CEOs welcomed, as model minorities, into the fold of a multicultural United States. Just as importantly, it tells an alternate story about the often vexed relationship between South Asians and other communities of color – a story of affinity, solidarity, and collective life-making in the past that offers a sense of what might be possible in the future. Perhaps most importantly, amid continually rising anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-Asian violence, In Search of Bengali Harlem celebrates the complex lives and deep historical roots of Bangladeshi Americans, one of the least known but fastest growing groups of Muslim migrants in the United States.

LAAPFF Website
Film Website

Mins 85 | Language English | Year 2022 | Country United States, Bangladesh

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EyeSteelFilm
Presents

BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWN
Directed by Karen Cho
Produced by Bob Moore
Executive Produced by Mila Aung-Thwin and Daniel Cross

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Screening Schedule
Japanese American National Museum
Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 6:00 pm

About the Film BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWN
BIG FIGHT IN LITTLE CHINATOWN is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.

From the construction of a Chinatown mega jail in NYC, Montreal Chinatown’s fight against predatory developers, to a Vancouver Chinatown business holding steadfast, the film reveals how Chinatown is both a stand-in for other communities who’ve been wiped off the city map, and the blueprint for inclusive and resilient neighborhoods of the future.

About Director Karen Cho
Karen Cho (曹嘉伦) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker known for her socio-political documentaries that explore themes of identity, immigration, and social justice.

A fifth-generation descendant of the “Low Wah Kiu” (Old Overseas Chinese) who came to Canada during the gold rush and railway years, Karen’s first film IN THE SHADOW OF GOLD MOUNTAIN (2004) explored the Chinese Canadian immigration experience, the legacy of the Head Tax and Exclusion act, and examined how legislated racism in Canada affected Chinese side of her family while her European ancestors were rewarded for immigrating.

The experience of making this film helped shape Karen’s vision as a documentarian committed to exploring stories from underrepresented communities and expanding the notion of Canadian identity and history. The impact the film had as a popular education tool for the Chinese-Canadian Redress movement was documented in William Dere’s 2019 book Being Chinese in Canada as well as Elaine Chang’s 2007 book Reel Asian: Asian Canada on Screen.

Karen’s other film credits include the Gemini-Nominated SEEKING REFUGE (2009) a film following asylum seekers in Canada and STATUS QUO? THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF FEMINISM IN CANADA (2012) that won Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival and launched in over 67 community screenings across the country.

Karen’s TV work has touched on subjects like art and identity, Indigenous health and wellness, Japanese Canadian internment, Quebecois cuisine, Vancouver’s downtown east side, and artist activists around the world. In 2018 Karen was nominated for a Best Directing Canadian Screen Award for her work on CBC’s Interrupt This Program .

LAAPFF Website

Film Website
@bigfightinlittlechinatown

Mins 88 | Language English, Mandarin, French w/ English subtitles | Year 2022 | Country Canada

LIQUOR STORE DREAMS
Directed by So Yun Um
Executive Produced by Diane Quon, Daniel J. Chalfen, Bearcat Content, Tanuj Chopra
Consulting Produced by Nanfu Wang

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Screening Schedule
Gardena Cinema
Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 7:30 pm

About the film LIQUOR STORE DREAMS
The debut feature of So Yun Um is a moving personal film about immigrant dreams and generational divides. It follows So and her friend Danny, both “liquor store babies,” whose Korean parents made the best of limited opportunities by running liquor stores in Black and Brown communities in Los Angeles. So explores her own dreams of a filmmaking career, a mystery to her bemused but supportive father. Danny returns from a dream job at Nike to help with his mother’s store in LA’s Skid Row, reimagining it as a resource to build bridges between Black and Korean communities. Liquor Store Dreams also places these struggles in the larger context of Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles, including the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins in a Korean convenience store, the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police brutality against Rodney King and ensuing looting of Korean businesses, and growing political organizing.

So’s appealing, thoughtful voice offers a unique window on a new generation’s efforts to respect their parents’ sacrifices while remaining true to their own aspirations and contributing to a vibrant, evolving community.–Robert C. Winn

About the filmmaker So Yun Um
So Yun Um is a Korean American Filmmaker. Her debut feature film is Liquor Store Dreams which follows two second generation Korean American children of Liquor Store owners in Los Angeles. So is a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee and CAAM 2021 fellow with mentorship support from Nanfu Wang.

LAAPFF Website
Film Website

Year 2022 | Country USA | Language English, Korean with English Subtitles| Runtime 82 mins

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WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD
A Film By Kayla Abuda Galang
Featuring Kailyn Dulay, Melissa Arcaya, Elle Rodriguez, Whitney Agustin, Gina May Gimongala, and Allan Wayne Anderson

2023 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Screening Schedule:
Regal L.A. LIVE
Friday, May 12, 2023 at 9:30 pm

About the Film WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD
Teenager Ly and her cousins get high before a boisterous family Thanksgiving at their auntie’s house in southeast San Diego in 2006.

About Director Kayla Abuda Galang
Kayla Abuda Galang is a second-generation Filipino-American filmmaker exploring themes of home, family, and belonging. Her short films, Joan on the Phone (2016) and Learning Tagalong with Kayla (2021), premiered at SXSW. The latter was an Audience Award recipient. Galang is developing two feature films, ’06-’07 and On Earth as it is in Heaven. She is based in Austin, Texas.

LAAPFF Website
Film Website

Mins 13 | Language English, Tagalog w/ subtitles | Year 2022 | Country US