March 29, 2013 – LOS ANGELES Visual Communications (VC), the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center, announced its program of outstanding films for the upcoming 29th edition of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) beginning May 2- 12, 2013 at the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), CGV Cinemas located in Koreatown, the Tateuchi Democracy Forum at NCPD in Little Tokyo, and the historic Art Theatre of Long Beach.

As Southern California’s largest and most prestigious film festival of its kind, the LAAPFF launches the celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month through this year’s slate of over 140 films from both Asian Pacific American and Asian international directors from over 20 countries. Over the past 29 years, the Festival has presented more than 3,600 films and shorts by Asian American and Asian international artists. This year, 33 feature films and 108 shorts will be showcased throughout the 10-day fest.

The Festival will feature many returning filmmakers and producers who continue to make films and still hold true to their own voices as exemplified by amazing curated programs, special presentations and sneak previews of upcoming commercial releases, and the launch of two new programs for the production of new Asian American content. In addition, this year also offers an array of celebrated films from prestigious global film festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto and Cannes Film Festival.

The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) is presenting the 13th Annual New York Indian Film Festival, the oldest and most prestigious film festival for Indian cinema in North America, from Tuesday, April 30 to Saturday, May 4, 2013 in New York City.

The New York Indian Film Festival will kick off its week-long festivities with a star-studded Opening Night red carpet premiere of Feroz Abbas Khan’s DEKH TAMASHA DEKH on April 30, 2013, which will take place at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts.

L-R, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi and Satish Kaushik in Dekh Tamasha Dekh.

Festival screenings will take place throughout the week at Tribeca Cinemas, with Nitin Kakkar’s FILMISTAAN on May 4, 2013, the Closing Night selection to be followed by the annual awards ceremony and after-party at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts. This year marks the launch of a new award at the 2013 Festival that honors student-created short films (five minute or less). Through open, no-fee submissions from film schools, one student will be selected to receive a special award at the Closing Night Award Ceremony

The 13th Annual New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) is presenting an exclusive kick-off screening of Midnight’s Children followed by a special Q&A on April 10, 2013. In attendance will be the film’s acclaimed director Deepa Mehta, award-winning writer of the novel Salman Rushdie who also adapted the screenplay, producer David Hamilton, cast members Sarita Choudhury and Samrat Chakrabarti, plus other special guests. Paladin and 108 Media will be officially releasing Midnight’s Children in major U.S. cities starting in New York City on April 26.

(L-R) Author and Screenwriter Salman Rushdie and Director Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta returns to NYIFF after her Oscar-nominated film WATERopened the film festival in 2005. “We have had a very long and creatively fruitful relationship with NYIFF. FIRE, the very first film in the elemental Trilogy was shown there and almost every film I have made since,” says Mehta. “Aroon Shivdasani was in fact responsible for the creation ofMidnight’s Children. She brought Salman to the premiere screening ofWATER in New York and that began a close relationship with Salman, which culminated in the very first film adaptation of any of his novels. It is enormously pleasing for me to be once again collaborating with NYIFF and bringing to their extremely discerning audience Midnight’s Children, a film that I have been dreaming of doing since I first read the book over 30 years ago.”

Sokha is one of nine girls featured in GIRL RISING. She was a Cambodian child of the dump, orphaned and forced to pick through garbage to survive. Through a series of miracles she finds her way to a school and has risen to become a star student with a promising future. Photo credit: GIRL RISING

April 19-26, 2013 GIRL RISING is screening nationwide in selected Regal Cinemas.

“No one is more vulnerable than an uneducated girl, and this film is a wake-up call to the world that it’s time to educate girls,” actress Freida Pinto said in a statement to India-Times.com. “Right now, 66 million girls are not in school, and 14 million girls under 18 will be married this year — that’s 38,000 girls married today, and 13 girls married in the last 30 seconds."

Freida Pinto joined other actresses Priyanka Chopra, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, Meryl Streep, Selena Gomez, Kerry Washington, Salma Hayek, and Cate Blanchett to narrate GIRL RISING which recently premiered in Los Angeles and screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Sometimes it only takes a single person to start a revolution. This time, its a documentary film. GIRL RISING is the centerpiece of a campaign for girls' education. The film's message: "Educate Girls and you will change the world." A simple notion, yes, but in reality - not so simple.

Millions of girls in developing countries face barriers to education that boys do not encounter.

April 5, 2013

Hollywood

Thomas Wong is the recipient of the Writers Guild of America, West's 2013 Writer Access Project (WAP) honor. The Writers Guild will showcase Wong's work in drama to industry decision-makers.

Wong joins nine other honorees who were selected for outstanding talent in the areas of drama and comedy.

The winners were selected from the results of judges scores who read written entries and judged on a blind submission basis.

Writers Guild members with extensive showrunning and writer-producer experience served as judges, including award-winning screenwriter, producer and director Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and screenwriter of The Princess Diaries.

A reading of selections of the honorees' original pilots will be held this month to industry representatives.

Photo credit: Michael Jones, WGA.org  
2013 WAP Honorees, Standing (L-R): Thomas Wong, Michael DiGaetano, Dawn Comer Jefferson, Joey Manderino, Joseph Neustein, Leslie Valdes. Seated (L-R): Sherry Carnes, Geetika Lizardi, Lena Waithe, Margaux Froley Wong's bio states that he always dreamed of becoming a television writer, but, "as the first-born son in a traditional Chinese family, such fanciful notions were downright un-American." Wong earned a degree in English at Williams College, then attended NYU School of Law, "like any good child shouldering the weight of his family’s expectations would."