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shareHistories reside in plain sight in these spatial stories of punk in Little Tokyo, Platoon under the BevMo! awning, soap opera anthems amidst social unrest, and all that is buried, lost, and endures in the architectures around us.
In this program
Once Upon a Screen: Explosive paradox
Directed by Kevin B. Lee
Kevin B. Lee focuses his inimitable curiosity on a BevMo! that was once an AMC, where he saw Platoon as an Asian American kid in the 80s, capturing just how weird going to the movies was and continues to be.
Atomic Cafe: The Noisiest Corner in J-Town
Directed by Akira Boch, Tadashi Nakamura
“Sid Vicious loved our fried rice!” Atomic Cafe was the rowdy Little Tokyo post-show destination for punks in the 70s and 80s, where yakuza booth-surfed with East LA kids. And like a Ramune soda-David Bowie love child, Atomic Nancy and her killer jukebox ruled them all.
pài-la̍k ē-poo
Directed by Erica Sheu
A splash of fresh Saturday under the sun, and a Viewfinder haze of serial sweets delight in this visual ode to the filmmaker’s grandmother.
Fugetsu-Do
Directed by Kaia Rose
A loving look at mochi through four generations of the Kito family’s legendary shop in LA, which survived challenges for over a century–from internment camps to 9/11.
ZONA
Directed by Masami Kawai
Solidarity lies just beneath bare survival in a dystopia that forces a scrappy elderly woman to crib moisture from any possible source.
Chimera
Directed by Eileen Yoon
Across time and continents, two stories of Ayeon gently echo each other but are unable to fully align.
Happy Valley
Directed by Simon Liu
An emotional handkerchief waving in the wind. The raw urgency of a place both dissolving and persevering before our eyes. Simon Liu’s restless siren song to the everyday textures of a Hong Kong in the midst of upheaval.
off (I don’t know when to stop)
Directed by Erica Sheu
A quarantine moment, when objects, shadows, motion, and time look anew, all within the confines of home.
There Was Nobody Here We Knew
Directed by Khaula Malik
In this possible-documentary about possible aliens, a Pakistani couple in quarantine bicker and ruminate about extraterrestrial and terrestrial border-crossings of multiple kinds.