TGIF FEATURE: A film fest for us, about us

IF YOU LOVE movies, here's treat for you if you live in the NYC metropolitan area. The 38th Asian American International Film Festival is offering a week of movies from Asia and the United States. It starts tonight until August 1. Here's a complete schedule.

The organizers have had to downsize their ambitions. Stephen Dypiangco, co-founder of the National Film Society, maintains that festivals like AAIFF are crucial in connecting audiences with filmmakers, and sustaining the artistic stories from within the community.

"They give viewers the rare chance to see stories from our community, which are often ignored in the mainstream, on a big screen" said Dypiangco, who is also behind the new film Awesome Asian Bad Guys now available on iTunes and Amazon. "These communal spaces can lead to beautiful and profound conversations, ideas, and collaborations that can take on a life of their own."

To rebuild and preserve authenticity, the fanfare surrounding the festival has been toned down for 2015. 

 You don't need the glitz and glamor. It's all about the movies and the stories they tell, the lands they take you to and the characters you meet on your journey.

And most of the offerings are free. FREE!

Have a great weekend!

Making its New York debut as AAIFF 2015’s Centerpiece presentation, SEOUL SEARCHING is a fun coming-of-age feature, chronicling the shenanigans and personal journeys of a group of international Korean teens sent to a government-sponsored summer camp for a crash course in Korean culture. Directed by award-winning Korean American filmmaker Benson Lee, and starring Justin Chon  and Jessica Van, this John Hughes-inspired dramedy delivers a pitch-perfect tale of teenage angst, modernized with a stellar Asian and Asian American cast.