Bridging The Gap At CAAMFest 2014 with Masashi Niwano




Kamla Bhatt Show show

Summary: (http://kamlashow.com/podcast/wp-content/uploads/MasashiNiwano-CAAM1-150x150.jpg)Meet Masashi Niwano, festival and exhibition director of CAAM (https://caamedia.org)Fest 2014. In this interview he walks us through what you can expect to see in this year's  annual festival of films, food, and live music  organized by San Francisco-based Center For Asian American Media. Previously, the festival was called San Francisco's Asian American Film Festival. The 11 day festival is from March 13-23, 2014 in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland. This year's theme is the bridge, which is a fitting one when you think what the festival tries to achieve.  They try to connect and bridge the gap between various communities with films, food and music. The opening night film is a delightful Vietnamese-American film "How To Fight In SIx Inch Heels." This is the US premier of the film and will screen on Thursday, March 13, 2014 at San Francisco's Castro theatre. Kathy Uyen, who stars in the films is a local SF bay area native. She grew up in San Jose. " "Delano Manogs" is the closing night film that will show at Oakland's New Parkway on March 23, 2014. The film is about Larry Ltliong, a Filipino farm worker who helped form the United Farm Workers. Packed in-between the opening and closing night films are shorts, documentaries, feature films along with live music shows and conversations and meetings around food. There is also a special tribute to the famous Hong Kong filmmaker Run Run Shaw. He is often credited for the popularity of kung fu movies, a staple from the Hong Kong film industry. This year there are a handful of films by South Asian filmmakers from India, UK, Canada and the US. They include Mahesh Pailoor's "Brahmin Bulls" (US), Meera Menon's "Farah Goes Bang" (US), Richie Mehta's "Siddharth" (Canada), Amit Gupta's "Jadoo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se7FtI_zrew)" (UK) and a retrospective of Ritu and Tenzing's (http://thesunbehindtheclouds.com/?page_id=17)films. Live performances include music from Korea, Vietnam and local artists from the San Francisco bay area. K-Pop's Lee X Stereo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHJziPsWHV4) and Glen Check (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtN-BH7P7c) will perform on March 20the and Vietnam's Queen of Hip-Hop Suboi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGobWn-2sGY) will make her US debut on March 22, 2014 in San Francisco. For tickets and information please check CAAM's festival (http://caamfest.com/2014/) site. Photo credit: Masashi Niwano