Austin Asian-American Film Festival Day 1 in Texas

I’m in Austin, Texas ya’ll!!! I’m currently at the Austin Asian-American Film Festival, if ya’ll in the area, come by Saturday for my film’s Texas premier.

It is now day two of the AAAFF, and I sit here awake at 7:30am still suffering the lingering effects left by Arthur Dong’s Hollywood Chinese, a feature documentary about the history of Asian-American filmmakers/actors from early Hollywood to today. I highly recommend this film for anyone.

The scene I can’t get out of head from this documentary is crowd’s reaction against Justin Linand Better Luck Tomorrow crew Q&A session at Sundance film festival when one gentleman shared with the audience his distaste for the film due to racism(my own opinion) by saying the film degraded Asians, and I applaud Roger Ebert for coming to stand up for the Asian-American filmmakers by literally standing on his chair and screaming “You wouldn’t say that to a white filmmaker”. My first reaction was “WTF?”; how could someone who was not Asian-American judge what degrades our own culture and identity? That guy was VERY lucky it wasn’t me there at the Q&A because I would’ve shredded him and embarrassed the hell out of him. I don’t think the dude would be saying the same stuff at a Spike Lee’s Bamboozled premier in New York? No, because he’d THINK there’d be a ton of black gangsters waiting to beat his ass since blacks are suppose to be violent, right? And supposedly, he can do what he did to Asian-Americans because we’re suppose to be soft, right? please…  I thought we were beyond that.

What bothered me was not the fact that this non-Asian American ignoranus would come out and say Lin embarrassed Asian-Americans by making BLT; what both bothered & surprised(maybe even SHOCK) me was the crowd’s reaction in support of the man after his comments. People were applauding and agreeing with him in an effort to embarrass Lin and the crew who were all standing in the front shell-shocked not knowing how to react. Let me ask again: Do you think he would be doing the same thing with Spike Lee’s? At a Jungle Fever premier today? I don’t think so…

It is during times like these that we see the true colors of a lot of people. Seeing all those noding head, clapping hands, “YEAH!” yelling supporters lead me to believe they were doing so NOT because they agreed with the man’s base-less argument; but because of racism. Or maybe I am wrong, and all the people agreed because they also wanted to HELP another culture by discerning FOR US what is right and wrong… Hmm… What do you think? On my account, maybe I’m dilussional, but I thought I saw some faces filled with sheer joy and satisfaction who were salivating to see the kind of reaction Justin Lin and BLT crew would give back. I personally would have liked to see the response from Lin and company(hopefully it was going to be a good one), but I’ll take Roger Ebert’s support anyday!  I think out in Cali, we take for granted how diverse everyone is while there are still pompous ignoranuses out there.

haha. Ok, enough with the hating, let’s see some pictures:

WTF?

This movie theatre serves food INSIDE THE THEATRE!!! While you watch, people come and take your order and bring it to you! GENIUS! Infront of every row is a long table for food. DINNER AND A MOVIE at a movie theatre! We gotta bring this to Cali

This is you if you mess with me, hahaha