8/3 AAIFF45 2022 Award Nominees

AAIFF45
Asian American International Film Festival presented by CITI
2022 Award Nominees

AAIFF45 is pleased to announce the nominees for 2022 Jury Awards.

EMERGING DIRECTOR – NARRATIVE FEATURE 

NO NEW WAVE, Ziwei Yao, Singapore/USA/China/Taiwan
Ginny tries to find her path via different ways of life, but none of them delivers her to a pier of desirable future.

BIRDS WATCHING, Kohei Inoue, Japan
Tsugumi invites Ayame to go on a trip to a lake shore retreat so she can meet Hayato, the friend of Tsugumi’s boyfriend, Kota.

WE DON’T DANCE FOR NOTHING, Stefanos Tai, Hong Kong, Philippines
A photomontage love letter to the Filipina domestic workers of Hong Kong.

EMERGING DIRECTOR – DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

SINGING IN THE WILDERNESS, Dongnan Chen, China
The Miao took deep pride in singing for nature and spirituality, which is also their only oral history.

THERAPY DOGS, Ethan Eng, Canada
Ethan and his best friend Justin are students trying to make sense of their high school existence.

A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING, Payal Kapadia, India
A vital tapestry of the personal and the political, an essential document of contemporary India and a nostalgic look at youth fighting the injustice of their time.

EXCELLENCE IN SHORT FILMMAKING – NARRATIVE

BON VOYAGE, Jiawen Li, China
A journey behind the wheel, driving down memory lane, through an unexpected perspective.

DE CLOSIN NIGHT, Shicong Zhu, USA
A Chinese theater student tries to get rid of her accent to land a college performance. But as she tries harder, the line between the skill set and her self-identity gets blurred.

MIDNIGHT RHYTHMS, Quincy Woo, USA
A young gay man struggles with his sexual identity and spirals into the world of drunken façades and midnight afterthoughts, questioning who he is and if he’s willing to take the risk to be his truest self for the world to see.

MURDER TONGUE, Ali Sohail Jaura, Pakistan
In a family where people seldom speak, can mother tongue protect us? Or could it have us ‘murdered’?

BEAUTY QUEEN, Myra Aquino, Philippines
Set in the Philippines during World War II, a young woman struggles to find purpose after losing her father.

EXCELLENCE IN SHORT FILMMAKING – DOCUMENTARY

CHINATOWN: OUR ONLY HOME, Tony Wang, USA
An exploration of Chinese traditions across generations in Manhattan’s Chinatown during COVID-19, through the stories of small businesses and youth’s actions.

AN UNFINISHED FILM, Yi-Chiang Lin, USA/Taiwan
A personal image letter to the filmmaker himself, reminiscing on early artworks, companions, and the reasons for making a new film after his debut feature shoot was suspended by COVID-19 at the end of 2020.

A PORTRAIT OF US, Sarah Park, USA/Korea
A short documentary that follows two Korean grandparents as they navigate a modern-day reckoning of their immigration story and grandparenthood.

SONNET CROWN FOR NYC, Xiao Ha, USA
Intimately filmed sequence of poems in 15 languages by small business owners from across the five boroughs who continued to enrich and sustain NYC through the pandemic.

SINCERELY MINE OKUBO, Yuka Murakami, USA
Picturesque biography of Miné Okubo, a Japanese-American artist best known for her graphic memoir Citizen 13660 (1946), chronicling the WWII incarceration while she was an internee.

YOUTH ONES TO WATCH

BYKIDS: BUDDHISM, BHUTAN AND ME, Rinzin Jurmey, Bhutan
Rinzin Jurmey chose to join a monastery and dedicate his life to Buddhism at the age of 11. Now 18, he moves harmoniously between mountain village and city, embracing tradition and pop culture, religion and hip-hop, prayer and video games.

O~FORTUNA, Che Chen, USA/Taiwan
While trying to rekindle his passion for music, a successful musician accidentally falls out the window and goes on a journey through the world of his past, present, and future.

AND STILL, WE THRIVE, Joy Xing, Canada
A Chinese immigrant wistfully looks back on the triumphs and challenges of his 23-year-long journey in Canada, reflecting on the language barrier and his limited contact with home.

ASIAN AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL SCREENPLAY COMPETITION

WAMPUS CAT, Jessica Wei, USA
TIME AWAY, Jennifer Cho Suhr, USA
LAKE OPAQUE, Amanda L. Andrei, USA

EXCELLENCE IN MUSIC VIDEO

“if i took a pill” – TONIE, Kimberly Te, USA
1-1 Dance Film –  Lee Milby – China/USA
“Water & Oil” – Jenni Rudolph Brandon E. Lee, USA
“Different Than Before” – Amanda Sum, Mayumi Yoshida, Canada
“Bubble Tea” – Ella Jay Basco, Bianca Catbagan, USA
“The Only Heartbreaker” – Mitski, Maegan Houang, USA

AUDIENCE AWARD – NARRATIVE FEATURE
Winner to be announced

AUDIENCE AWARD – DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner to be announced