ID Film Fest

Next weekend is the ID Film Fest ( www.idfilmfest.com ) which is a festival by filmmakers and for filmmakers who create Asian American content and/or of Asian descent. The festival runs for three days next weekend October 8th - 10th. The film I am most interested in seeing is Air Doll by Hirokazu Koreeda, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and is having its LA premiere screening at 10pm on October 9th.

"The movie is about a middle-aged man whose closest friend is a life-sized doll. This isn’t just any sex doll though; it was made with a heart. So when the man goes to work during the day, the doll goes out and explores the world. This film portrays the loneliness and lack of human connection in not only Japan but all industrialized big cities around the world." — Koji Steven Sakai

For all filmmakers interested in getting some free insight into the business there is going to be a Filmmaker Crash Course on Sunday from 10am - 2pm. Which will be a rapid fire pandemonium of short seven to ten minute presentations on everything you need to know about filmmaking from development to marketing.

I will be participating in the Asian American (and secretly Pacific) Independent Feature Conference. I will be there meeting people and developing more interest in the feature film I am working on with Greg Cahill called Two Shadows. I will let you all know how things went after next weekend.

All events will be taking place at the Los Angeles' National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N. Central Ave.

Townhall on the state of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Mental Health in California

Here is the internet video series I have cut together from California Assemblymember Mike Eng's November 18th, 2009 townhall meeting on the state of mental health in the AANHPI community in California. This townhall is a continuation of the work that Assemblymember Eng has been doing to help disaggregate data on Asian and Pacific Islander sub-groubs.

This is an album of some of Mike Eng's opening comments, a few community members, and excerpts from all of the panel members who spoke that day.