Asian Pacific Filmmakers Experience Returns to NYC for Fifth Time

Recognizing AANHPI Filmmakers at the 2024 Tribeca Festival

On Sunday, June 9, 2024, the Asian Pacific Filmmakers Experience (APFE), in partnership with Asian CineVision, a grassroots AANHPI-serving organization based in New York City, hosted its fifth filmmaker reception during the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Held at the Asian-owned Sugar Mouse in the East Village, New York City, the packed event (nearly 300 in attendance!) featured an engaging panel discussion with  filmmakers with projects at the Tribeca Festival, followed by a networking mixer, with food from local AANHPI vendors, and libations flowing from the  hosted bar. 

Founding APFE member and award-winning publicist David Magdael welcomed guests by restating the importance of gatherings like this, “We pull all this together so you guys can all come together, so we can all come together, so the community of filmmakers and creatives can all come together. Because we need to know who our people are that are making our art, both in front of the camera, behind the camera… We need to know who we need to support as we go on. This is like a moment in time for all of us. I’ve been doing this forever, it feels like, and we’ve been in the trenches for the longest time. This is a moment we need to celebrate, but we also need to support everybody. This panel that we put together is people who have films here at Tribeca that we all have to support. There’s a number of other Asian Pacific filmmakers that are also in this festival.”

The filmmaker panel spotlighted these Tribeca filmmakers, including:

• Elizabeth Ai – Director, Writer and Producer of the documentary “New Wave,” – Elizabeth’s feisty exploration into her Vietnamese music culture – specifically, her examination of “new wave, “ the popular 1980’s musical phenomenon that featured Vietnamese artists and singers with big hairstyles, defiant attitudes and joyful, infectious vibes. Elizabeth was swept up by the vivacious “new wave” throughout her childhood, while being raised by her aunt Myra amidst a strained relationship with her mother. Discussing her documentary, “New Wave,” Elizabeth stated, “I started to delve into New Wave music in my community, the Vietnamese diaspora in the 1980s. I had teen uncles and aunties who were Viet refugees in the 1980s that loved this music, and so when I was pregnant with my daughter back in 2018, I was like, ‘What kind of story would I tell her about my people?’ Because I didn’t have parents; I had these uncles and aunties that raised me. So all of my childhood memories were anchored in this music in that time.” Elizabeth added, “And so as the process went along, and we’ll get into that a little bit more, but I got sucked into the film and it became much more than a historical look back, but it became a personal journey of excavation through my family history.”
  
• Farah Jabir – Director and Screenwriter of the short film “Kasbi,” which centers on a middle-aged Pakistani housewife who in search of herself, hires a young, self-assured sex worker to keep her company for the night. For her short, Farah said, “My film deals a lot with infidelity and sexuality, and when we think about women, particularly brown women and how they’re represented in American mainstream cinema… how can we show this with nuance? How can you talk about an older woman and her sex life without it being so scandalous or like mocking or humorous in any way?” Farah added, “I think that’s what I was really trying to do with my film. And then aside from that, I’m so tired of women who are older and just women in general, not being allowed to misbehave on screen – that still feels like such a like white male dude thing. We all misbehave with or without consequence.”
  
• Yen Tan – Director and Writer of the narrative feature “All That We Love,” starring Margaret Cho, which tells the story of Emma (Cho), who, upon the loss of her beloved dog, faces an empty nest and renewed feelings for her estranged ex-husband (Kenneth Choi), as she navigates the joy and sorrow of starting anew. During the panel, Yen said, “I think I’m still doing this weird thing where the way I have made my films is that I always sort of come from a personal filmmaking standpoint. But I’m always filtering it through other people who are unlike me. In the past it was always like my feelings were channeled into white people, you know? And then, now it’s like getting closer–It’s like now I’m at least channeling it through a woman <laugh>, but she’s Asian? It’s like maybe the next one I can actually channel it to a gay Asian man. So that’s how it’s gonna slowly evolve.” Yen added, “I think one of the things I consciously wanted to do with “All That We Love” was that it doesn’t really specifically address Asianness or the Asian American experience because I think all the characters are just the way that they are. And I feel like it really reflects my life because I don’t really think about Asianness that much. And it’s kind of like things just are.”

The panel was moderated by Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir, and Executive Producer/Advisor “New Wave”.

Participating panelists all had films at Tribeca led by women or were centered on women, plus, all had Southeast Asian roots (Elizabeth Ai is Chinese-Vietnamese American, Yen Tan is Malaysian-born Chinese American filmmaker, and Farah Jabir is a South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Arab filmmaker from Malaysia). In addition, correlating to June’s Pride Month, two of the filmmakers are from the LGBTQ+ community. 

Click to see all photos here!
Photo Credit: Melanie Hyde & Lia Chang

Thank you to our partners, The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), Warner Bros. Discovery Access, and NBCUniversal LAUNCH – without which none of this would be possible.

Thank you to the entire APFE team — David Magdael, Minji Chang, Laarni Rosca Dacanay, Abe Ferrer, Michelle Sugihara, Milton Liu, Rhian Moore, Jes Vu, and Grace Kao — for your tireless efforts. Thank you to our local partners at Asian CineVision, including Kayla Wong, David Rances, Tiffany Bai, and Young Chen, for your continued support and (volunteer) work. Thank you Jakarta Munch, Lucky King Bakery and Nom Wah Nolita for allowing us to serve and highlight your delicious food. Thank you Melanie Hyde, Raymond Tisch, and Lia Chang for capturing the moments so beautifully. And, thank you to Sugar Mouse owner Aaron Ho, manager Tom Cheng, and the staff for the hospitality.

Learn more about the Asian Pacific Filmmakers Experience and how it all began in 2002.

Next stop, the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, in partnership with the Reel Asian International Film Festival! 

Be sure to follow APFE (@apfexp) on Instagram for more updates.