YNOT at the Movies

As we are gradually returning to in-person gatherings, CAAMFest, formerly known as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, reaches its milestone—the 40th anniversary. For four decades, the festival has been celebrating the richness and diversity of the Asian and Asian American experience with cinema.

It's quite a surprise that for the big 40, this year's edition of the festival contains much fewer films than usual. There are ten feature narratives and eight feature documentaries only, in addition to 34 shorts, several panel discussions, and live music events.

Similar to last year, this year's CAAMFest (May 12-22, 2022) will take place in a hybrid format: the festival will show films both online and at in-person events. All shorts and some features will be screened via online streaming across the country through the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) website; select films, panel discussions, and live performances will take place at the Castro Theater, the Great Start Theater, and SFMOMA in San Francisco, as well as the New Parkway Theater in Oakland.

(You may click on each still image or poster for the corresponding screening or event's show time and ticket information.)

At the grand Castro Theater, the festival opens with a captivating documentary "Free Chol Soo Lee" (USA 2022 | in English/Korean | 83 min. | Documentary), co-directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi. Using a great amount of archived footage of interviews, the film tells a poignant and inspiring story about a charismatic Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee who was wrongfully convicted in a murder case in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1973. Believing in his innocence, the community came together and rallied their support for exonerating him. Lee became an unlikely figure to inspire and unite the Asian community. However, his damaged life never seems to recover from his wrongful imprisonment.

The festival's centerpiece documentary is the Audience Award winner at this year's SXSW Film Festival, "Bad Axe" (USA 2022 | 100 min. | Documentary). The director David Siev's superb storytelling intimately captures his family's struggles with racism, the pandemic lockdown, and the generation gaps within the family, as well as the divisive political reality in rural America. David's dad is a refugee from Cambodia and runs a family restaurant in Bad Axe, MI. When Covid hits in 2020, his grown children come home and they have to navigate the challenges both from the pandemic and the extremists.

This honest, balanced, and sometimes deeply moving documentary unfolds a very personal yet very common Asian immigrant story. It's an elegant portrait of a resilient and hard-working family's American dream.

The festival's closing night film is the director Alika Tengan's feature directorial debut drama "Every Day in Kaimukī" (USA 2022 | 81 min.). It tells the story of a local DJ Naz (Naz Kawakami) in Kaimukī who wants to move to New York City. But he needs to figure out how he can do that, and deal with his belongings. The movie promises to have plenty of good music.

If you watch the annual San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade, you probably recognize Ben Fong-Torres (方振豪) for his live-TV broadcasting in his beautiful singing voice. But many might not know his extraordinary career as the renowned music writer for the Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle . What's even less known is his remarkable immigrant family's story.

The director Suzanne Kai's fascinating film "Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres" (USA 2022 | 102 min. | Documentary) terrifically brings this legendary figure to light. With incredibly rich footage and entertaining interviews, the film's arresting storytelling underlines Ben Fong-Torres's enormous contributions that shaped American pop culture.