NWAAFF, Asian American Film Festival Opening Night

This year, the Northwest Asian American Film Festival fell between 1/24 and 1/28 from Thursday to Sunday. We went on Thursday, the opening night; and this is our second time to come to a NWAAFF event.

There was no long lines trailing outside of the Theatre Off Jackson when we got there a bit later than 7:30pm, which is the starting time stated on the schedule. Compared to the Seattle International Film Festival, understandably, this is a much smaller event, hence the smaller crowd.

The Theatre is small and cozy. It was two-thirds full by the time when we sat down. After brief opening remarks, acknowledgement of sponsors and a few lucky draws of ticket giveaways to a few performances around the town - we didn't have the lucky numbers, we were shown a collage of snippets from different films to be shown in the next few days.

It's quite a varied collection of movies by Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and other Asian American artists. In mainstream films, Asian Americans are still a rare sight. A film festival as such gives Asian Americans an opportunity to explore what it is to be an Asian American, and to refute some of the stereotypes associated with Asian American women -obedient, secretive, dragon lady - and men - asexual, rigid, humorless.

During the break, before the audience were invited back in for CineOke, Cinema version of Karaoke, the small hallway was filled with audience who had eyes on plates laden with yummy foods donated by different restaurants and stores including Wild Ginger, Trader Joe's, to name a couple. M ran into someone he knows. We chatted with him and his wife. Later, a Chinese American guy, David, chatted up with us. He is from Philadelphia, and had been in Seattle for a few month and currently looking for a place to buy. He complained about how expensive the properties are in Seattle...

In spite of an American passport, I don't consider myself Asian American, I think I'm really a transplant that doesn't fall under that category. Watching these films give me a sense what my kids might experience in search of their own identity.

Coming out of the theatre, right around the corner, we ran into Jim, who runs a Subway store near where I work, he is the one who always gives me a free cookie whenever I buy sandwich there. What a coincidence! I haven't gone there for almost 3 months!