Sundance film festival spotlights Asian & Asian/American filmmakers

John Cho in the feature film 'Search'

YOU WON'T FIND blockbusters with superheroes and tons of special effects at the Sundance Film Festival. Events like Sundance give independent filmmakers a chance to expose their movies to potential distributors.

Artistically, Asian and Asian/American movie makers did pretty well but whether that will translate into a distribution deal, only time will tell.

One of the movies picked up by a distributor is Search, starring John Cho and Debra Messing. Search, a taut thriller directed by Aneesh Chaganty, won the Audience Award. Sony reportedly paid $5-million for distribution rights, according to Variety.

Cho said it was “exciting” to play a member of an all Asian-American family in the movie. “I’m usually paired with someone who is not Asian, which is progressive in its own sense,” he said. 

 "I wanted to put this family on screen. I wanted to see a loving family, a family that wasn't dysfunctional,"

“But I thought to have a complete family that was all Asian-American was an interesting thing. It wasn’t what it was about, but it was a part of it, and I like that.”

Sundance has been kind to Cho. His last movie, the indie film Columbus, also debuted at the Utah venue featuring a 3-dimensional, subdued but perfect performance by the actor. The movie directed by Kogonada has been well received by critics and one of the few films with an Asian/American lead who wasn't a martial artist or a computer geek.

Computers and the Internet is central to Search, as Cho plays David, a father searching for his daughter by going through her social media accounts trying to find out what happened to her. While a helpful detective searches for Margot out in the real world, David grasps at rediscovering his daughter in an unfamiliar online landscape as he searches through the traces she left behind on her laptop.

Besides Search other documentaries and features by Asian and Asian/American filmmakers received notice at the festival's awards ceremony.

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award:

Christina Choe for Nancy, which she also directed. An aspiring writer confuses fact and fiction when she finds a couple she believes are her real parents.

Special Jury Award – Social Impact Filmmaking:

Stephen Maing for directing Crime + Punishment.  A group of minority whistleblower officers who risk everything to expose racially discriminatory policing practices and smash the blue wall of silence. 

Special Jury Award – Breakthrough Filmmaking:

Bing Liu for directing Minding the Gap (Diane Quon producing), A documentary follows Bing, who at age 24, returns home and reconnects with his friends Zack and Keire, whom he’s been skateboarding with since childhood.

Special Jury Award – Cinematography:

Genesis 2.0 to Das Peter Indergand and Maxim Arbugaev (also director). A documentary on two competing groups who hunt for mammoth tusks for entirely different reasons.

Dead Pigs

Special Jury Prize – Ensemble Acting:

Dead Pigs directed by Cathy Yan. A feature giving a glimpse of modern China through the intersection of a seemingly unconnected group of diverse people.

Best Directing for a Documentary:

Sandi Tan for Shirkers. A Chinese novelist searches for the man who stole the raw footage of her first attempt to make a movie.

Not all of these features and documentaries found a distributor. The ones that did find a distributor, such as Search, will probably get shown in local art houses or regional film festivals. Also, check the listings of your PBS station who might show them this May during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
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