Each year, the Center for Asian American Media brings us the best in contemporary cinema from Asia and the Asian diaspora. The thirty-third installment of this adventurous festival at BAM/PFA features films and documentaries from Vietnam, Japan, Iran, Cambodia, Argentina, and the United States. This spring marks the fortieth anniversary of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. To commemorate that tragic event, we present John Pirozzi’s up-tempo Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, an eye-opening glimpse of music and modernization in the more optimistic days before the reign of terror. Oakland-based pop singer Bochan, a leading proponent of the neo-Cambodian music scene, will perform a short set. CAAMFest brings great stories to light. Sunday, March 15, 2015 3:30 pm • Kumu Hina Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson (US, 2014). The renowned hula teacher, native Hawai’ian activist, and transgendered cultural leader Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu is profiled as she prepares her students for a year-end dance in this thoughtful and stirring documentary. Winner, Jury Prize for Best Documentary, Frameline Film Festival. (74 mins) 5:30 pm • La Salada Juán Martin Hsu (Argentina, 2014). Juán Martin Hsu in person. Argentina’s bustling La Salada, an enormous market outside Buenos Aires, provides the nucleus for Hsu’s understated directorial debut, which follows the friendship between a Bolivian immigrant and a Korean vendor. (92 mins) 8:00 pm • 2030 Minh Nguyen-Vo (Vietnam, 2014). (Nuoc). Minh Nguyen-Vo and Bao Nguyen in person. A woman searches for the reasons behind her husband’s death in this haunting, dystopian science-fiction thriller, set in a Vietnam where global warming has turned the country into a series of waterways and islands. A stunning rare example of Southeast Asian science fiction. (98 mins) Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:00 pm • Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll John Pirozzi (US/Cambodia, 2014). John Pirozzi in person. Live music by indie pop singer Bochan. The throbbing Cambodian rock and music scene of the 1960s is captured in Pirozzi’s tuneful documentary, which sways to the rhythms of pop, funk, soul, cha-cha-cha, and rock as it profiles some of that country’s greatest musicians, many of whom perished in the Khmer Rouge genocide. (105 mins) Pacific Film Archive Theater, Special admission prices apply. Steve Seid is Guest Curator. A presentation of the Center for Asian American Media. Special thanks to Masashi Niwano, Stephen Gong, Lin Kung, and Bochan. Program notes are adapted from the festival catalog.
Each year, the Center for Asian American Media brings us the best in contemporary cinema from Asia and the Asian diaspora. The thirty-third installment of this adventurous festival at BAM/PFA features films and documentaries from Vietnam, Japan, Iran, Cambodia, Argentina, and the United States. This spring marks the fortieth anniversary of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. To commemorate that tragic event, we present John Pirozzi’s up-tempo Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, an eye-opening glimpse of music and modernization in the more optimistic days before the reign of terror. Oakland-based pop singer Bochan, a leading proponent of the neo-Cambodian music scene, will perform a short set. CAAMFest brings great stories to light. Sunday, March 15, 2015 3:30 pm • Kumu Hina Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson (US, 2014). The renowned hula teacher, native Hawai’ian activist, and transgendered cultural leader Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu is profiled as she prepares her students for a year-end dance in this thoughtful and stirring documentary. Winner, Jury Prize for Best Documentary, Frameline Film Festival. (74 mins) 5:30 pm • La Salada Juán Martin Hsu (Argentina, 2014). Juán Martin Hsu in person. Argentina’s bustling La Salada, an enormous market outside Buenos Aires, provides the nucleus for Hsu’s understated directorial debut, which follows the friendship between a Bolivian immigrant and a Korean vendor. (92 mins) 8:00 pm • 2030 Minh Nguyen-Vo (Vietnam, 2014). (Nuoc). Minh Nguyen-Vo and Bao Nguyen in person. A woman searches for the reasons behind her husband’s death in this haunting, dystopian science-fiction thriller, set in a Vietnam where global warming has turned the country into a series of waterways and islands. A stunning rare example of Southeast Asian science fiction. (98 mins) Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:00 pm • Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll John Pirozzi (US/Cambodia, 2014). John Pirozzi in person. Live music by indie pop singer Bochan. The throbbing Cambodian rock and music scene of the 1960s is captured in Pirozzi’s tuneful documentary, which sways to the rhythms of pop, funk, soul, cha-cha-cha, and rock as it profiles some of that country’s greatest musicians, many of whom perished in the Khmer Rouge genocide. (105 mins) Pacific Film Archive Theater, Special admission prices apply. Steve Seid is Guest Curator. A presentation of the Center for Asian American Media. Special thanks to Masashi Niwano, Stephen Gong, Lin Kung, and Bochan. Program notes are adapted from the festival catalog.