Seattle Asian American Film Festival 2021

Family Portraits

Expired March 15, 2021 6:59 AM
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9 films in package
MANGO BABY
A series of fictionalized memories about sharing mangoes and extending care across time and diaspora
AFTERIMAGES
A father, Kenny, and his son, Michael, are visited one night by someone who claims to be Kenny’s sister, May. The only catch: Kenny believes May died years ago during some political upheaval.
HELLO FROM TAIWAN
After a year of separation, a young Taiwanese American girl and her mom struggle to reconnect with her dad and two older sisters across familial and cultural divides.
MAGIC KINGDOM
Kit, a middle-aged single parent, brings his son from Hong Kong to California under the pretense of visiting Disneyland. His son, Chun, comes to realize the real intention of the trip is his own adoption.
ETA
Ronnie, a middle-aged Filipino father, moonlights as a rideshare driver. What begins as a regular night leads to the most awkward of rides when the passenger is his college aged son and his drunk friend.
GOLDEN BOY
A 51-year old computer science engineer scrambles around the house as he prepares for his wife’s discharge from the hospital. Everything feels overwhelming, but everything he does also says, “We are together.”
HERSELVES
A Korean-American filmmaker unearths the difficult yet skimmed over complexities within the relationship between herself and her immigrant mother as she pieces together her own images of her mother’s life before motherhood.
HARANA (SERENADE)
Maya is a cover band singer in a Las Vegas casino-hotel lounge trying to connect with her daughter who is growing up in the Philippines without her. She realizes that music -- the one thing that keeps them distant – can also bring them closer together.
Family Portraits Q&A
Moderated by Hut Ugalino with Nelson Ng Chak Hei (director, Magic Kingdom), Justin Ricafort (director, ETA), Tiffany Frances (director, Hello From Taiwan), and Kitty Hu (director, Golden Boy).
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Being part of any family comes with joys and heartaches. For the Asian American creators featured in this program, it might look like a young family reuniting across oceans, like in Hello from Taiwan or Magic Kingdom. It can also look like the journeys back in time featured in Herselves or Mango Baby, reflecting on those who came before. Across these narrative and documentary short films, characters come to terms with how their families have deeply shaped them.


Co-presented by Kin On and Asian Counseling Referral Services (ACRS)

MAGIC KINGDOM is set in 1997 against the backdrop of the looming handover. Kit, a middle-aged single parent, brings his son from Hong Kong to California under the pretense of visiting Disneyland. His son, Chun, comes to realize the real intention of the trip is his own adoption. (Content Warning: Death, Gun Violence)

  • Year
    2020
  • Runtime
    15 minutes
  • Language
    Chinese, English
  • Country
    Hong Kong, United States
  • Premiere
    PNW Premiere
  • Note
    English Subtitles
  • Director
    Nelson Ng Chak Hei
  • Cast
    Paul Kwo, Trevis Zhang, Jim Lau, Leann Lei
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