Most of our films can be found at Ultrastar Cinemas, Mission Valley, but we like to spread our enthusiasm around.
To see what's playing at our other venues, check out the list of thrilling, inspiring, and noteworthy films below.
Films at Edwards Mira Mesa Stadium
BRAVE FATHER ONLINE: OUR STORY OF FINAL FANTASY XIV
Akio desires a stronger relationship with his stoic dad – so what’s a millennial to do? Befriend him anonymously through the online Final Fantasy world! As their bond grows stronger, Akio learns more about his father—including a secret that changes their relationship IRL.
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CASTLE OF DREAMS
An ex-con named Jalal reluctantly takes custody of his estranged young children after their mother falls deathly ill. Anchored by nuanced performances, Iranian writer/director Reza Mirkarimi crafts a painful domestic drama about a deeply flawed man who must confront the emotional trauma caused by his prolonged absence.
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FAGARA
After her father dies, Acacia discovers she has two half sisters when she sees chats with them on his phone. From awkward funeral introductions to saving Dad’s hot pot restaurant, the three sisters reckon with painful pasts and how to form family on their own terms. An all-star cast with…
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GOODBYE MOTHER
In this poignant drama, when Nau Van must leave the US and return to Vietnam for his father’s death anniversary and the exhumation of his grave, he uses the opportunity to bring his boyfriend and come out to his family.
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HIT ME ANYONE ONE MORE TIME
What if the nation’s most hated prime minister of all time loses his memory after a protestor chucks a rock at his head? As a bona fide bad guy tries to return to his nice guy roots, this hilarious, feel-good comedy may just have you believing in politics again.
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LOVE BOAT: TAIWAN
Since the 1960s, the Taiwan government has hosted summer culture camps for young overseas Chinese. But “Love Boat,” as it became known, turned into wild excuses for partying, romancing, and more. An exposé and a love letter, Valerie Soe's documentary is a frolicking testament to soft power by any means…
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NO MERCY
After her parents’ death, In-Ae swore to protect her younger sister. But one day, sis is abducted by human traffickers, none of whom scare In-Ae as she rampages into the underworld wielding a gun, a sledgehammer, and the whip-smash ferocity of her fists. This is Korean revenge action with deadly…
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SHORTS: Jorts
Jeans meet shorts in these fresh takes on awkward lengths, '90s nostalgia, and thinking outside the denim box. From black comic book writers to Filipino house parties and a Vietnamese teen desperately seeking lost love.
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ULAN
Maya may write about romance, but every time she meets her Prince Charming, a rainstorm curses her chance at happily ever after. Things come to a head as tikbalang and a big storm threaten Maya’s one true love. Nadine Lustre and Carlo Aquino star in this unusual mix of magic…
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Films at UC San Diego Price Center Theater
THE CHIEF OF YANCHENG DISTRICT
There once was a song / about sensuous spirits / that had everyone in Taiwan / aching to hear it. / But the story grew complex / because it combined politics and sex / and now we need a documentary / just to believe it.
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HEAVY CRAVING
Ying-Juan just wants to be recognized for her cooking. Despite the popular dishes she cooks for kids, she’s considered too heavyset to be the face of their school, and instead is pressured into a dispiriting weight-loss program. But two unlikely friendships set her on a surprising comedy of self-discovery.
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IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD SHOW
To appease the mob, a TV executive needs to lower the network’s value as quickly as possible. His solution: strip its budget and hire the worst performers and writers. To his astonishment, his young hires come up with ingenious, low-budget solutions that turn the network into a surprise hit.
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THREE MAKES A WHOLE
Zero Chou pays tribute to director Liu Li-li with a biopic in the mode of the soapy melodramas that made her famous in the 1970s-80s. We meet Liu as a young woman finding her narrative voice in the stage, and later film, while juggling romance with a married director.
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WILD SPARROW
Deep in the Taiwan mountains, quiet young Han’s life with his great grandma is interrupted when his absentee mother relocates him to Taipei, where he watches her unstable life as an escort spiral out of his control.
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WE ARE CHAMPIONS
When beef between once-inseparable brothers interferes with basketball glory and dreams for a better life, they must struggle to work it all out while on opposite teams in the prestigious Taiwanese High School Basketball League tournament.
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Films at Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA)
GEOGRAPHIES OF KINSHIP
Thirty years after the Korean War, South Korea emerged as the leader in international adoption, despite a flourishing economy. Pioneering director Deann Borshay follows four non-traditional adoptees as she investigates the US/ Korea political relationship that created an adoption market, and its impact on migration, nationhood, and belonging.
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HEAVY CRAVING
Ying-Juan just wants to be recognized for her cooking. Despite the popular dishes she cooks for kids, she’s considered too heavyset to be the face of their school, and instead is pressured into a dispiriting weight-loss program. But two unlikely friendships set her on a surprising comedy of self-discovery.
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SAVING FACE
Surgeon Wil, a closeted lesbian, must suddenly take in her pregnant, unwed mother as a roommate, while hiding a growing romance with the beautiful dancer Vivian. A romantic comedy that broke barriers in its time and sparkles as freshly today, with an all-star Asian American cast that shines.
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Films at Digital Gym Cinema
LAST NIGHT I SAW YOU SMILING
The iconic “White Building” of Phnom Penh, home to 493 families including the director’s own, is set to be demolished by a Japanese developer. Kavich Neang’s documentary captures families packing their belongings and peeling back memories, and stands as a dedication to the building’s last breaths of resilience.
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THE SCIENCE OF FICTIONS
After witnessing a faked moon landing in 1960s Indonesia, Siman’s tongue gets cut off, rendering him a possessed spacewalker and mute witness to history’s fictions. Mesmerizingly performative and strange, Yosep Anggi Noen’s latest sideways crack at Indonesian history examines the persistence of personal trauma amidst new lies the nation tells…
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Films at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center
THE PARADISE WE ARE LOOKING FOR
ENCORE SCREENING Tues 11/12 @ 5p! San Diego has been called many things – including a paradise. It’s also a refugee city, a cluster of neighborhoods, a militarized zone, a border town. And Asian American. This collection of four short documentaries, commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of…
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Films at San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat)
TO LIVE TO SING
Zhao Li lives for Sichuan opera but knows not everyone does. Only the elderly still show up for her theater’s performances. Meanwhile, the performers in her troupe have an eye on more lucrative and modern stagecraft. So when Zhao Li receives the devastating news that her theater is about to…
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