Abhishek Pathak’s rural drama BOOND is part of Back to the Future Shorts Program at 2010 AAIFF
Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th St.
Clearview Chelsea Cinemas, 260 West 23rd St.
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St.
July 15-24
www.aaiff.org/2010
As regular twi-ny readers know, we can’t get enough of Asian cinema. With the Japan Cuts series finishing up at the Japan Society, part of the New York Asian Film Festival that recently concluded at Lincoln Center, it’s now time for the Asian American International Film Festival, ten days of films from the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Nepal, Thailand, Korea, Australia, and the U.S. Held at the Quad, the Clearview Chelsea, and the Museum of Chinese in America, the AAIFF, which is not quite as wild as the NYAFF, features films that examine such topics as adoption, drug addiction, the LGBT community, poverty, and the war in Iraq. But don’t worry; there are also movies about a wacky theater company, mutilated bodies, goofy romance, and a woman who really, really likes sex. Many of the screenings will be followed by Q&As with the director, star, or documentary subject. Raymond Red’s MANILA SKIES opens the festival on Thursday night; among the works that we’re looking forward to are MAO’S LAST DANCER, Bruce Beresford’s biopic of Cunxin Li; Yeon-woo Lee’s Korean action thriller RUNNING TURTLE; Xiaolu Guo’s SHE, A CHINESE, which follows a young woman who leaves the mainland China countryside seeking a better life in London; and Yuhang Ho’s Philippine drama AT THE END OF DAYBREAK, about a twenty-three-year-old man’s controversial relationship with a high school student. There will also be several programs of short films in addition to shorts preceding some of the feature films.