The 2008 CUNY Asian American Film Festival

I saw this poster on the 5th floor of Hunter North and decided to look up on it. Considering that I am Asian American, I am going to take up this opportunity to submit a film to this festival (To see the full criteria of this festival, click here).

May 5th is the deadline so I have all of spring break to shoot and edit the film to get it ready. The script is all done and the shooting schedule/storyboard is currently in the making. If anybody is interested in helping me, please leave a comment or email me and we can discuss it. Free food and one way transportation ticket to Long Island will be provided. 

Happenings

Hi

I'm really looking forward to contributions from everyone at Hunter. Feel free to discuss any film related topic and to post links to your own films.

Happening:

Viktors Timofejevs, a Studio Art major at Hunter, hosts a dinner/movie night every Sunday downtown at a loft space called The Canal Chapter. He shows consistently good art house pictures...the past few weeks have been Performance(1970), Ken Park(2002), Un Homme et Une Femme(1966). Takes place at 343 Canal Street b/w Greene and Wooster every Sunday at 8pm;bring a small dish or some wine or beer. I'll post links for each week's film in the future.

The Technologies They Are A-Changin':

Some folks out in Lake Forest, CA have been developing the Red One camera for a few years. During the past months they've been shipping the first batch of these things out. A few Hunter graduates purchased the camera and have created a blog chronicling their experience with the groundbreaking technology...check it out: www.indie4k.com. They've posted some footage there too.

Another Goal of This Blog

I am anticipating some exciting things from this blog!

I think another goal we should keep in mind is that this blog should not be limited to just the Hunter film community, but to also unite other film-lovers in the Hunter community (who may not be film-majors). Even though I am a non-film major, I still want to contribute to a visual art which (I feel) incites and inspires. Because film is an aggregate of various aesthetic forms, we should definitely keep in mind the other creative thinkers who also want to showcase their own imaginative and innovative ideas.


Every single art form is involved in film in a way.
-Sydney Pollack

Screenings

This is an untimely post for screenings. Wong Kar-Wai's Moving Image event is sold out and was posted pretty late. We didn't exist!

There are a hell of a lot of great screenings coming up soon. It is a shame we didn't get the blog up in time to post early. There has been a J. Hoberman showcase at BAM to celebrate his 30th anniversary as head film critic for the Voice.

Apart from this, The Anthology Film Archives is doing a screening of Hoberman's own films. I wasn't even aware he was a filmmaker until I had heard about this.
The screening is set for April 11th and Hoberman will be there in person to discuss his work.

http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/schedule/?current_date=2008-04-01


Hopefully I will get a chance to log some other festivals. MOMA and Lincoln Center are in the midst of their New Directors series and Anthology is having their New York Underground Film Festival starting on April 2nd.

Hey everybody. This is my first post on this blog. Not so much to say about myself. I do hope we can stimulate some community dialogue on film or even help people network. This modest blog was made for a public/communal kind of conversation.

I originally saw myself writing up little blurbs on in theater movies.I liked the idea of a more personal review. If I (or the other admins/authors) were to post something you found absolutely wrong, you could actually counter our argument (via the site, at Hunter). The idea of a right or wrong review is a fallacy. Awareness is key.

Some thanks is due to Kristina, who while not an admin had some solid ideas about the conception and purpose of the blog.

Enjoy.

With that said... some interesting news

There was something interesting that came up during a conversation with Taylor today. As we were both thinking of things to write, he brought up events that are hosted by the Museum of the Moving Image. We went on their site and found a bunch of great ones:

April 3rd (Thursday) at 7 PM: Wong Kar-Wai (director of such films as Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, and 2046) will be paying a visit to the Times Center discuss his career and his latest film, My Blueberry Nights. There will be an introduciton by director Ang Lee. This was the event that Taylor wanted to see and got us to check the site. Sadly, this event is already sold out. If only we checked earlier! 

May 9th (Friday) at 7 PM: Michel Gondry (director of Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind) will be at the Times Center to dicuss his career as "one of the most creative contemporary directors". He also directs music videos for musical artists such as Bjork, Radiohead, and Daft Punk to name a few.

June 5th (Thursday) at 6:30 PM: Werner Herzog (director of such films as Aguirre the Wrath of God, Grizzly Man, and Rescue Dawn) will be at the Times Center to talk about his "pioneering work as a fiction and documentary filmmaker". He will also be talking about his new movie Encounters at the End of the World.

Since I am an aspiring director, I just listed the ones I wanted to see but there are a bunch of great ones. For more information about their programs and how to purchase tickets, you can click here.

The Purpose and Goals of this Blog

Well, I've been planning this out with a couple of my friends and we finally decided to take action. Considering that film is a collaborative art form and networking is very important in the industry, I think it will be useful to have a tight knit community. We don't know who will make it big and it's best to start networking as soon as possible.

Not only that, but many Hunter students are working on films or are looking for work and I think this is also a great way to stay in touch with everybody. We can get an idea of who is doing what and even make friends that could potentially help you in future projects.

So basically, our goal is to UNITE the Hunter College film community! Discuss films (whether they are ones made by Hunter students or not), the industry, film courses, professors, film schools, directors, etc, and to network. We want to keep everybody updated on what is going on and we enourage YOU, the readers, to post comments or email us (either me, Taylor, Nathan, or  Robbie) your thoughts, future or current projects, employment, whatever you want. If you want us to feature a short film you posted on youtube, we will gladly post it here. We'll also be on the lookout for films we found made by Hunter students.