Monday, March 10, 2008

Where I'm At

...Or rather, where I'm at this week! I've got an action packed KA/AA Pride weekend ahead of me and I hope you can join me.

First up, I'll be at Emory College in Atlanta, GA on Thursday and Friday March 13, 14 for KASCON. I'll be speaking about my favorite subject -- ME!  If you are in the ATL, come by and say hi!

KASCON XXII will take place at Emory University in Atlanta, GA from March 13 to 16, 2008.

The annual Korean American Students Conference (KASCON) is the largest ethnic students conference in the United States. Originating at Princeton University in 1987, KASCON at Emory University will be its 22nd year running.

Who attends KASCON?KASCON is open to any undergraduate student with an interest in Korean American issues and the expansion of the Korean American voice. The majority of KASCON registrants are from the U.S., Canada and occasionally South Korea.KASCON’s Goal

The ultimate purpose of KASCON is to inspire and empower its participants so that they leave with the motivation to advance the Korean American community. Through networking events, workshops, and seminars that feature active leaders, KASCON offers its participants the opportunity to learn, interact, and broaden their perspective.With this year’s theme of “Living Your Dream,” KASCON XXII hopes to encourage students to explore a wider range of opportunities by expanding the seminars, workshops, and keynote sessions to include a broader spectrum of topics, including politics, business, education, fashion, pageantry, sports, dance, the arts and much more. By doing so, it allows for a prominent presence of Korean Americans in all fields, thus expanding the Korean American voice in American society.Then on Sunday, I'll be hitting the Bay Area where my film " West 32nd" will be the Centerpiece Presentation at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.  It's an awesome honor to come back to the festival that gave my first film " The Motel" the Best Narrative Feature Award.

All you Bay Area peeps, please come and watch the movie... then join me and the cast (Yes, John Cho will be there!) for the after party at Yoshis!

Tickets for the screening are available here.

From the CAAM festival notes:

Korean American filmmaker Michael Kang won SFIAAFF’s Best Narrative Feature Award in 2005 with The Motel. He returns to the Festival with an accomplished second feature, West 32nd, a sleek and stylish Koreatown noir set in the underbelly of New York. The film marks the first foray into American production for CJ Entertainment, Korea’s largest entertainment company, and represents an exciting cross-cultural venture to bridge Asian and American filmmaking.

John Cho ( Better Luck Tomorrow, SFIAAFF ’02; Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) plays John Kim, a young and ambitious lawyer with little connection to the Korean community. But when he takes on a pro bono case to free a teenager charged with the murder of a Koreatown “room salon” manager, he finds himself attracted first to the boy’s beautiful sister Lila (Grace Park, Battlestar Galactica), and then to the seductive Korean underworld tucked deep within Manhattan. There he meets the charismatic gangster Mike Juhn (arresting newcomer Jun Kim), an equally ambitious man now in charge of the murdered manager’s club. Mike takes John under his wing and guides him through the “room salon” culture of scotch and hostesses, but soon the murder case intersects with gang politics, forcing them to question their allegiances, temptations and how far they’re willing to go for success.

With producer Teddy Zee ( Saving Face, SFIAAFF ’05; Hitch) adding to CJ Entertainment’s Korean-industry know-how, West 32nd has the look and feel of the most polished crime dramas from both Hollywood and Korea, and even features a cameo by Korean star Jun Ho Jeong ( Marrying the Mafia). But director Kang parlays this genre into a more personal exploration of the complex relationship that Korean Americans have with Korean culture. John and Mike hail from two different worlds, but beneath their drive to succeed is the yearning to find a place in society. Just as Scorsese and Coppola did for Italian Americans, Kang illuminates the immigrant-gangster milieu of New York with both panache and insight.