Photos courtesy of asian film festival
ADOPTION. In “The Red String,” four unmarried moms, three of whom are Caucasian, and their adopted Asian daughters open up about intimate issues around heritage, tradition and single parenthood.
The Asia Pacific Cultural Center (APCC) is presenting its first-ever Asian Film Festival in a partnership with the Urban Studies Program at the University of Washington Tacoma (UWT) and the UWT Cultural Diversity Center. The festival features five nights of films with topics ranging from adoption, internment, immigration and assimilation, to history, civil rights and searching for one's identity. The films are documentaries that were originally produced and aired on PBS stations.
APCC Executive Director Phil Chang said the films deal with real issues that are important for people of all races and cultures who call America their home. "There are a lot of subjects that would be beneficial for the whole community," he remarked, pointing out the film "The Red String" as an example for its intimate look at adoption issues. "There are a lot of kids being adopted from Asian communities," Chang noted, including his own niece, who is from Vietnam. "She gets to visit (Vietnam) yearly and studies Vietnamese, but for some that's not the case." Chang said he hopes that showing films like "The Red String" (playing Oct. 9) will help parents and their adoptive Asian children develop ways to embrace the child's important cultural heritage.
Chang, who is third-generation Japanese raised in Hawaii, said he is most fascinated by the films about internment, "Take Me Home" and "Resettlement to Redress," both playing Oct. 23. "If you're Japanese, it's not really talked about that much. A lot of people who went through it don't really like to discuss it. Hopefully, this will get some conversations started," he said.
Chang said that while donations will be gratefully accepted, making the film festival a free event was a conscious decision. "We wanted to keep it free to the public because we don't want to limit it to people who can afford to pay, and we want it available to the college students.
"I just want people to understand that the reason for the film festival is that it meets our mission to celebrate and increase visibility and understanding of Asian cultures."
Chang said the public's response to this festival will help determine whether it will become an annual event.
All films will be shown at UWT's Carwein Hall. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and films begin at 6 p.m. For more information, call (253) 383-3900 or visit http://www.asiapacificculturalcenter.org.
