2012/13 NATIONAL FESTIVAL TOUR FIRST STOP: THE NEW YORK TIMES

On October 2nd, the 2012/13 National Festival Tour made its first stop at The New York Times. As the third annual short film festival hosted by the Asian Heritage Network, the shorts program Crossing Borders is a compilation of five short films (ODIUM, THE LAST MARBLE, BLEACHED, ONCE, and LOVE, NY) that demonstrate the power of cinema to cross geographical borders and language barriers.

Filmmakers who were in attendance included Miranda Xu (Producer of ONCE), Jess Dela Merced (Director/Writer/Actress of BLEACHED), Vincent Lin (Director/Writer of LOVE, NY), and Matthew D’Amato (Producer of LOVE, NY). The screening was coordinated by the Asian Heritage Network of The New York Times.

During the Q&A session, the panelists revealed interesting film making details and updates.

Since its upload in December, The film ONCE, has hit over 1 million views on Youkou–a Chinese video sharing website equivalent to YouTube. The attraction to the film comes from the storyline of the first love between two teen lesbians in Beijing.

Director Vincent Lin informed the audience that his past personal relationship inspired the film LOVE, NY. He had also once fallen for a woman where language was a barrier.

Jess Dela Merced’s BLEACHED was inspired by her own family experience and a Facebook face whitening application launched by an Indian skincare brand.

Featuring the year’s best independent cinema–narrative and documentary features and shorts programs–from AAIFF’12, the National Festival Tour offers institutions and organizations the rare opportunity to bring new, independent Asian and Asian American films to local communities across the country.

Visit here to to bring the National Festival Tour to a city near you!