New York Asian Film Festival 2008

This month has been a crazy month for me. My pet project – a Chinese website – has just soft launched. I haven’t had much time blogging on Asian Marketing. I feel so guilty.

But I really want to share with all that the New York Asian Film Festival 2008 is up now (June 20 – July 13). See schedule at Subway Cinema.

For those interested to know more about the event, I would recommend checking out Beth Accomando’s article at About.com The 2008 New York Asian Film Festival - Highlights and Features

Enjoy the Asian movies!

Toyota’s New Matrix Site Dedicated to Asian American

Toyota dedicates a section of its Matrix Web site “The Director’s Chair” to Asian American cinema. The multimedia mini-site feature interviews with Asian stars, film reviews and events.

Toyota has been pushing Camry, Corolla and Sienna in the Asian market. I am happy to see a new entry Matrix, hoping Toyota would dive even deeper into Asian marketing. The idea of supporting Asian American is great. It is the buzz in the market, which I already wrote about.

After reviewing the sites, however, I was a little disappointed.

First, the content. The “eventS” tab includes archive of the Asian American Film Festival only. The festival certainly is not the only film event around town. What happens to the others?

How about Asian Indian Bollywood which currently produces the most films in the world? Yes, I understand Toyota has traditionally focused on Chinese and Korean markets. Asian Indian is not their core target group. But missing out Bollywood completely in an Asian American Film site doesn’t sound right, especially when the site is in English targeting Pan Asian American. It sends a negative message to the South Asian American.

If only Toyota made it clear that this was a sponsored site featuring Asian American Film Festival, it probably would be less offensive. You should not pretend to be bigger than what you are. If you are a festival site, be it; don’t claim to you could “bring the best of Asian American Cinema” to the users. The tag line is a little too ambitious and misleading.

Another turnoff is its lack of interactivities. The site is a one way communication. From what I see, the content will not grow. I wonder how you expect the audience engagement to grow in that case.

Lastly, the technology. The server needs more bandwidth. I was at some point felt like I was on a dial-up line. I also found some broken links and minor bugs. All these spoil the user experience.

I also visited Toyota’s Chinese site and was shocked to find scrabbled characters on the home page. One thing I don’t understand: why the site is in Chinese Simplified GB coding when the actual display is in Traditional Chinese? Toyota should consider using Unicode instead. It is the norm in most multilingual sites now.

Don’t get me wrong. I am really thrilled to see Toyota’s commitment to the Asian American market and its innovative ideas. I just couldn’t help to point out things that may improve the initiative. Toyota, moving forward.

Current Top Asian American Buzz

Type in "Asian American" in Google News search, here are the top four this evening…

A New Wave Of Asian Americans Makes Significant Strides In Film And Television
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/restaurants/ci_9026318?nclick_check=1

'Harold And Kumar' Push The Limits Of Multiculturalism
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ethnic24apr24,0,454272.story

Asian American Women Filmmakers Are in the Spotlight at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
Sun Herald
http://www.sunherald.com/447/story/508639.html

DisOrient festival to showcase Asian-American films
Oregon Daily Emerald
http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2008/04/23/News/Disorient.Festival.To.Showcase.AsianAmerican.Films-3342270.shtml

Notice all of them are about films. I think this is the Asian American buzz now, at least for the media.

Daniel Wu's 吳彥祖 AliveNotDead.com and Hollywood Stories

I've just found from the SFIAAF (San Francisco's International Asian American Film Festival) about the great artist community site Alive Not Dead (http://www.alivenotdead.com/), which was found by Daniel Wu 吳彥祖, Conroy Chan 陳子聰, Andrew Lin 連凱 and Terence Yin 尹子維.

AnD is dedicated to strengthen and connect the artist communities worldwide. The site provides artists a platform to connect with their audience as well as other artists. Artists can share their creative works, and seek opportunities to collaborate with each other.

In the AnD spotlight today, I learned that Anthony Ng who is a former child actor in Hong Kong graduated from NYU Film School. His award winning short films helped him secure grants for his first feature film "212" that premiered at Sundance… And Anthony is just one of many great talents (many are Chinese) I found from the site. I am so excited!

In the SFIAAF panel discussion, Daniel Wu told us how "turned off" he was about the Hollywood productions years ago. He remembered people were not as interested in him after they found out he was an American born Chinese and therefore not really from "the Orient". Then, in the production of Around the World in 80 Days, he was asked to speak in English with Chinese accents – the caricaturized version of it. I could imagine how he felt.

But situation has changed. Since the turn of millennium, China's global economy share has increased from 1/3 to 1/2 of the US. Bollywood now produces more films and has more audience than Hollywood. US filmmakers finally recognize Asia as the untapped market. Many of them are educating themselves about Asian market and artists.

Things are heading to the right direction. Keep it going that way!

Asian American Films

In the past 3-5 years, we have seen increasing number of Asian stars being featured in Hollywood movies. Meanwhile, Asian production companies are also starting to take an interest in Asian American filmmakers and Asian American projects. It perhaps began with Korea and its Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), a financing forum where filmmakers can pitch their projects to Korean financers. Grace Lee's American Zombie, Gina Kim's Never Forever, and Michael Kang's West 32nd that are all co-produced by Korean production companies.

Ted Kim, executive VP of CJ Entertainment, Korea's largest media conglomerate which co-produced Michael Kang's West 32nd talked about the trend at the SFIAAF (San Francisco's International Asian American Film Festival).

He believed this natural flow came from PPP and the Asian American filmmakers who could speak the language, identify with the production companies, and have that ease of dialogue.

In fact, Korean has a very clear mindset about Korean films. For films that are mostly in English, they would be considered as a foreign film in the local market even if they are Korean American films. Such productions are not great commercial endeavors and Kim believed filmmakers noticed it. He stated, "I don't think you go into English-speaking, Asian-dominant films because you think you're going to make a lot of money. It's really to see the market, grow the market, and then hopefully be right there when it lifts off, and then you can ride along with the wave."

Tracing back the history and growth of the African American film industry, there were very similar stories and situations. These Korean companies are trying to accomplish a proven path by giving Korean American filmmakers opportunities to work on their craft.

"Young filmmakers need guidance," said Kim, "You have to go through the process once or twice to really know what you're doing from an efficiency standpoint. So that's what I am worried about. I just worry that these organizations will not be able to hit their benchmark and won't be able to find their success. And if they don't see the quality of film that they're looking for, will they become discouraged? I hope not."

Neither do I. Please support the Asian and Asian American film industries.