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OPENING FILM - This miraculous documentary, set in Wuhan hospitals during the 76 days the city was on lockdown, is a powerful, unimaginable, harrowing, but deeply hopeful portrait of front-of-line workers improvising heroic emotional care.
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CENTERPIECE FILM - After the murder of the unarmed Akai Gurley by Peter Liang, a Chinese American cop, factions turn out in the streets, some in support of Black lives, others claiming that an Asian rookie is a convenient scapegoat for a racist justice system.
Buy ticketsIn this horror comedy, a zombie outbreak unleashes mayhem on the Taiwan parliament and unlikely heroes emerge, as do blood and guts.
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Other former Spelling Bee champs go on to glory. Monica Choudry hasn't left her mom's house. With her pesky brother, Monica learns to care for family–and herself.
Buy ticketsWith interviews, outtakes, and glorious archival footage, a dynamic and crucial look at Bruce Lee as an icon, actor, and Asian American.
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STARTS TODAY! Wu Yu's life is overturned after her elderly mother is killed in a hit-and-run. Previously a young, secular school-teacher, she now dives into her mother's Buddhism, and sets off on a solitary mission to bring the killer to justice.
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LAST CHANCE TO WATCH! ENDS TODAY! Some say she’s crazy. Maybe she’s possessed. There’s no simple explanation for Kim Ji-Young, a college grad turned stay-at-home mom. Acclaimed adaptation of Cho Nam-Joo’s best-selling novel and an ode to the unspoken yearnings of mothers and daughters.
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In this action-comedy, coming-of-(middle)-age kung fu flick, three martial arts students reunite after decades apart to find what–or who–killed their sifu.
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Perfect killers or accidental pawns? Real-life spy thriller as two women wipe a toxin on Kim Jong-un's brother's face and disappear into the crowd.
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Four delightful vignettes capture the complex heart of Hong Kong as its people -- young and old, local and migrant -- wrestle with the past and look towards the future.
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One man encounters another in Thailand. Tsai Ming-liang’s wordless meditation to the fleeting beauty of everyday details and the exquisite practice of looking and touching.
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* Limited tickets available. Golden Bear, 2020 Berlin International Film Festival Over the course of his two-decade career, independent...
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After being released from prison for a thirteen-year murder sentence, a former yakuza member is set on making an honest living and becoming a reformed citizen.
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Instead of focusing on his favorite subjects–drunken, listless Korean men–master filmmaker Hong Sang-soo flips the script and follows an ensemble of strong female characters as they search for peace in a world where patriarchal interruptions are ever-present.
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Focusing on four authors spanning modern China, Jia Zhang-ke sketches literary culture onto a turbulent history, the rural landscape, and the faces of ordinary people.
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Wessi awakens taboo attractions and unruly impulses when she leaves her life in Germany to reunite with her sister, faraway in Mongolia.
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The passing of a wealthy matriarch leaves conniving would-be heirs jockeying for power in this long-unavailable tale of mansion intrigue.
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SCREENS FRI & SAT ONLY! CLOSING FILM - Riz Ahmed plays Zed, an up-and-coming rapper who suddenly falls ill with a mysterious affliction. With a world tour about to start, Zed wants to fight the illness, but instead fights inner demons related to family and identity.
Buy ticketsThe feature presentations of this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival examine the deep reserves of humanity, ingenuity, and resilience called for during this singular year.
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OPENING FILM - This miraculous documentary, set in Wuhan hospitals during the 76 days the city was on lockdown, is a powerful, unimaginable, harrowing, but deeply hopeful portrait of front-of-line workers improvising heroic emotional care.
Buy ticketsThis rental is no longer available
CENTERPIECE FILM - After the murder of the unarmed Akai Gurley by Peter Liang, a Chinese American cop, factions turn out in the streets, some in support of Black lives, others claiming that an Asian rookie is a convenient scapegoat for a racist justice system.
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SCREENS FRI & SAT ONLY! CLOSING FILM - Riz Ahmed plays Zed, an up-and-coming rapper who suddenly falls ill with a mysterious affliction. With a world tour about to start, Zed wants to fight the illness, but instead fights inner demons related to family and identity.
Buy ticketsThe best of Asian American cinema in all of its colors—from stories of musical ambition and kung-fu revisited to tales of hustle and humor.
With interviews, outtakes, and glorious archival footage, a dynamic and crucial look at Bruce Lee as an icon, actor, and Asian American.
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The ghost of one Celine haunts another as filmmaker Celine Parreñas Shimizu uncovers a 1932 Filipino-American community pushing, pulling, and ultimately burying one woman alive.
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Students at a NYC Chinatown elementary school work, play, and sing through a theatrical production of Frozen, while reflecting on identity, race, and family expectations.
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This delightful and nostalgic coming-of-age film chronicles the crusades of a group of friends as they navigate growing up in 1990s Manila.
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Other former Spelling Bee champs go on to glory. Monica Choudry hasn't left her mom's house. With her pesky brother, Monica learns to care for family–and herself.
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Meet Ted Ngoy, the tenacious refugee behind the pink box who is single-handedly responsible for the fact that nearly 80% of donut shops in the Los Angeles area are owned by Cambodian Americans.
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This cross-continental documentary follows Chinese-American Jany Murphy, part matchmaker, part modern day Cyrano de Bergerac, as she tries to help three Chinese divorcees find American husbands.
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In June 2017, Yingying Zhang, a Chinese visiting scholar, mysteriously vanished from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. Soon after, her boyfriend and parents arrive in the US for reasons they never expected: to seek answers from a bewildered campus and a foreign criminal justice system.
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With a French New Wave aesthetic and a killer Korean psychedelic rock soundtrack, a motley mix of Korean expats strut and skitter about in the thrum of Seoul’s famously bustling streetscapes.
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Mu, a Kayan woman from Myanmar, leaves her life as a tourist attraction in Thailand and resettles in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where resettlement and single motherhood test her determination to forge her own path.
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In this action-comedy, coming-of-(middle)-age kung fu flick, three martial arts students reunite after decades apart to find what–or who–killed their sifu.
Buy ticketsDirector Lynn Chen rounds out the nine-year cinematic journey of singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura and his friends, lovers, and everyone in between. Playing that line between fact and fiction like an old guitar, these three instant-classic comedies show Asian Americans at their bumbling bests: creating, romancing, glowing under the California sun.
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Goh scrapes by as an indie musician while chatterbox actor Danny shadows him from gig to gig, until an old high school crush suddenly appears and throws everything off.
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When a heartbroken Goh Nakamura love-clicks with fellow musician Yea-Ming Chen, he decides to test fate and find her in Las Vegas.
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Three women rethink their lives when their mutual ex saunters back into town in this musical continuation of the Surrogate Valentine trilogy.
Buy ticketsFilms to make you laugh, cry, and cheer, featuring accidental assassins, beauty queen hideouts, and giant robot dreams.
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Perfect killers or accidental pawns? Real-life spy thriller as two women wipe a toxin on Kim Jong-un's brother's face and disappear into the crowd.
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When a transgender woman witnesses a murder, she finds safety in...a beauty pageant! That is, until the villains send an assassin to meet her in the competition.
Buy ticketsIn this horror comedy, a zombie outbreak unleashes mayhem on the Taiwan parliament and unlikely heroes emerge, as do blood and guts.
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With a wedding on the horizon, former lovers Ken and Naoko reunite and dip their toes into the libidinous limbo of a more carefree past.
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LAST CHANCE TO WATCH! ENDS TODAY! Some say she’s crazy. Maybe she’s possessed. There’s no simple explanation for Kim Ji-Young, a college grad turned stay-at-home mom. Acclaimed adaptation of Cho Nam-Joo’s best-selling novel and an ode to the unspoken yearnings of mothers and daughters.
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Four delightful vignettes capture the complex heart of Hong Kong as its people -- young and old, local and migrant -- wrestle with the past and look towards the future.
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Her boyfriend's proposed. Now Fong needs to get out of a secret marriage but her fake husband has got the wheels turning.
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Workplace comedy meets mecha anime, when an overzealous marketing director comes up with a plan to construct the iconic hangar from the anime Mazinger Z, the PR team gets roped into a wild and bureaucratic ride to achieve an otaku pipe dream.
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Tense hunt between a faceless foe and a disappeared swordsman from two bitterly feuding sects, in this ravishing indie wuxia film.
Buy ticketsFresh from Venice, Busan, and other prestigious international film festivals, these are premiere works by the world’s best directors.
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Atsuhisa’s quiet life is shattered when he catches his wife with another man. A series of tragic events force him to break through his silence to fight for his daughter.
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Playing a fictionalized version of herself, actress Kasumi Arimura visits her mother at home on her unexpected day off.
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MMA fighter Tiger decides to help aspiring pop star Cuckoo get onto a singing show and destroy her ex-boyfriend, a celebrity judge and song thief. Johnny To is at it again, in this action and ballad-packed film filled with ringside fights, hot pot, celebrity culture, musicals, and much, much, much…
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One man encounters another in Thailand. Tsai Ming-liang’s wordless meditation to the fleeting beauty of everyday details and the exquisite practice of looking and touching.
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In Lav Diaz’s scathing allegory for mankind’s innate cruelty, three Filipino miners travel back to their island home and find nothing but menace, corruption, and traumatic memories lingering in the dense forest terrain.
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This fantasy romance/real-life documentary reveals the story, secrets, and longings of Qiu Miaojin, a lesbian Taiwanese writer who journeys to Paris in search of a love story and ends up writing her own.
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Five filmmakers speculate existence along the Mekong River Delta ten years into the future, as man-made development projects and climate change threaten the river’s ecological function.
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* Limited tickets available. Golden Bear, 2020 Berlin International Film Festival Over the course of his two-decade career, independent...
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Ramona Diaz's blistering look at investigative journalist Maria Ressa’s relentless stand against Duterte.
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After being released from prison for a thirteen-year murder sentence, a former yakuza member is set on making an honest living and becoming a reformed citizen.
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Immediately after the feature, ticket holders can enjoy a pre-recorded bonus Q&A with director Evans Chan and film subject Alex Chow!...
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Instead of focusing on his favorite subjects–drunken, listless Korean men–master filmmaker Hong Sang-soo flips the script and follows an ensemble of strong female characters as they search for peace in a world where patriarchal interruptions are ever-present.
Buy ticketsWith the new SWIMMING OUT TILL THE SEA TURNS BLUE, director Jia Zhang-ke completes a trilogy of documentaries about artists in China. The films encompass fashion, painting, and literature, but also the tectonic turns of a modern China and the would-be freedoms of artists and their essential ties to Chinese society.
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A companion piece to Jia Zhang-ke’s monumental Still Life, Jia follows famed painter Liu Xiadong as he paints laborers demolishing their hometown for the Three Gorges Dam project.
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Jia Zhang-ke’s ode to fashion–a textile factory, a designer, and a tailor–in a China where nothing is ever as it seems.
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Focusing on four authors spanning modern China, Jia Zhang-ke sketches literary culture onto a turbulent history, the rural landscape, and the faces of ordinary people.
Buy ticketsFrom Asia’s most innovative and thought-provoking filmmakers come new stories and new ways of telling them.
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Wessi awakens taboo attractions and unruly impulses when she leaves her life in Germany to reunite with her sister, faraway in Mongolia.
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Twenty-five years later, a victim of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack takes a long journey of reckoning with the head of the doomsday cult responsible for his lifelong injuries.
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Immediately after the feature, ticket holders can enjoy a pre-recorded bonus Q&A with director Achal Mishra! New Voices in India Cinema Award,...
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STARTS TODAY! Wu Yu's life is overturned after her elderly mother is killed in a hit-and-run. Previously a young, secular school-teacher, she now dives into her mother's Buddhism, and sets off on a solitary mission to bring the killer to justice.
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A strange, elderly tailor with secrets befriends a young girl intent on exposing her unfaithful father in this sensitive portrait of public and private life.
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Chen-yun returns home for the first time in five years to deal with the fallout of her estranged mother’s deep involvement in a cult after it leads to her younger brother’s violent death.
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Filmed over two years, STRAY follows the resourceful and brave stray dogs of Istanbul. Charismatic mutt Zeytin mixes gentleness with street smarts while navigating a network of humans and animals, itself a rich, ever-changing map of Istanbul’s overlooked and invisible.
Buy ticketsThe decay of celluloid is especially harsh in Asia and the Pacific Islands, where humidity runs high and the aftermarkets for old treasures are dim. And so SDAFF pays tribute to the archivists, the preservationists, and digital and analog surgeons who bring cultural artifacts — and breathtaking sights and sounds — back to life.
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Film restorationists at the Taiwan Film Institute walk us through the process of re-discovering and re-juvenating a national cinema.
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The passing of a wealthy matriarch leaves conniving would-be heirs jockeying for power in this long-unavailable tale of mansion intrigue.
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A husband can't tell his wife that her old classmate is his ex-lover, in this fiery Taiwanese-language melodrama.
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Roped into a fashion shoot in search of the “exotic,” a young Indonesian boy receives a Polaroid camera and sparks trouble on the island of Sumba.
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A man with an unsettled past and a matriarch with a sixth sense for change face the irreversable in a once-thriving Maori community.
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If a plane crashes in a remote mountain, will anybody notice if villagers loot the wreckage? Or perhaps power will clash with greed, inciting a cycle of deception and a delicious moral thriller.
Buy ticketsDiscover the thrills of the short form including international standouts, experimental documentaries, narrative thrills, and a cocktail mix–1 part quarantine to 100 parts bravado.
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Shorts that probe the soft spots of belonging-to and longing-for a place in the world.
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Inventive films that change the format and spin the artifacts, annals, and echoes of all that’s left behind.
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Shorts that swim in body chemistry.
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Heroic feats, chilling power plays, and surreal misbehaviors while on the job.
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Inhale the smell of teen spirit from Michelle Kwan fandom, bank robberies, and monsters-in-the-making.
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Three shorts that queer the shape of filmmaking into audacious new forms.
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Nine filmmakers, nine stories exploring filmmaking from the teen perspective. From our Reel Voices documentary filmmaking program.
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Americans in Taiwan, Taiwanese in America, and all the messy, awkward, and sentimental combinations of familial and cinematic border-crossing at the intersection of ABTs and ah-ma's.
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When social distance becomes social compression, these narratives find a way out.
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Shorts that can only exist in the recesses of the remix and the weird underbelly of the digital.
Buy ticketsOnce you start this rental, you will have 24 hours to finish watching it, and you must watch it in this browser on this device.
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