The annual San Diego Film Festival celebrates its 17th edition and bringing 140 films from 18 different countries, from November 3 through Nov. 12 across six venues throughout the county.
Presented by Pacific Art Movement, the festival is known to be the largest showcase of Asian cinema on the west coast. The movies are divided into five categories including special presentations, Asian American panorama, Asian pop, masters and discoveries. Films will bring up themes of immigration, social issues, diversity, sexuality, music, art and injustice.
Among the most expected works on this year’s festival is a documentary “Sonita,” about an Afghan female teen, whose family moved to Iran. A girl wants to become a rapper and speaks out against the oppression of women. The film will be screening on Monday, Nov. 7, 6:35 p.m. at the UltraStar Mission Valley venue.
The festival’s centerpiece film is a documentary called “AKA Seoul.” The story tells us about five Korean adoptees from around the world, who all arrive to Seoul and find the identities they were missing. The premier will be presented at the UltraStar Mission Valley venue on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 5:30 p.m. with director Jon Maxwell attending.
An immigrant comedy, “The Tiger Hunter” by Lena Khan, will open the festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. The story is about an Indian immigrant who arrives to the USA in 1979 and brings up topics such as job discrimination, raised expectations, disappointments and challenges on the way of achieving the “american dream.”
The festival artistic director Brian Hu watched all the films submitted for consideration and selected works that will be shown. According to Hu, this year festival’s theme promotes the idea of getting out of the limitation and creating new opportunities. His personal preferences include a drama that won a Golden Lion at Venice, titled “The Woman Who Left”; a thriller “Creepy” by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; Hirokazu Koreeda’s emotional family drama “After the Storm” and 2016 Cannes Film Festival winning Japanese mystery “Harmonium.” He also recommends a special screening of Abbas Kiarostami’s masterpiece ‘A Taste of Cherry” that is a tribute to the filmmaker’s late work.
The closing night will be held at Sherwood Auditorium on Friday, Nov.11 at 7 p.m. The event will feature an 80-minute documentary by Oscar-winner Steven Okazaki called “Mifune: The Last Samurai.” It is a tribute to international actor Toshiro Mifune and to the Japanese greatest contribution to the cinema’s culture “Seven Samurai” film.
According to festival founder Lee Ann Kim, the SDAFF’s mission is to promote Asian American and international films, inspire more people to filmmaking and to bring togetherness and compassion to the community.