More Twists And Turns For This Year's Mighty Asian Moviemakers In August

Jul 18, 01:08 PM by administrator

For Immediate Release
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VANCOUVER, BC (July 18) – On the tails of their 2nd successful year, the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (VAFF) and broadcaster Citytv announces the 3rd annual Citytv/VAFF Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon – a fun multicultural “slant” to the popular guerrilla filmmaking events that gives local independent filmmakers and first-timers opportunities to screen their craft. Last year, over 140 people registered to produce 12 short films that screened at Tinseltown Cinemas. Scheduled for the final week and a half in August, the Mighty Asian is the “must-participate” creative event to close out the summer.

On August 20th to 30th, filmmaking teams of 10 will have 10 days to produce a 10-minute short film, incorporating various assigned creative and cultural elements into their storytelling. The top 3 films will share cash prizes totalling $5,000 and receive a spot in the lineup at this year’s upcoming 11th annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival November 1 – 4. The original twist to this contest is that it is culturally driven, with the requirement that at least two of the writers, directors or producers on each team be a visible minority and at least one must be of Asian heritage.

This year, the competition is longer – 10 days, instead of 7. “We think people will still shoot on the weekend, but the extra 3 days at the beginning of the week will give producers and screenwriters a bit more time to deal with a new creative element that we’re introducing for the first time,” says Peter Leung, MAMM executive director. This year will see the addition of genres – where the teams will choose and incorporate a combination of 2 genres into their films. “There’s every chance that we could see an Asian sci-fi romance or suspense-musical,” laughs Leung.

“We were thrilled with the response from the community and we’ve seen the quality go up from Year 1 to Year 2,” says Barbara Lee, VAFF president and founder. “Last year’s winning Mighty Asian film, “*An Offer*” (directed by Marcus Sim) was accepted and screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May.”

Rules and regulations and registration forms for the Citytv/VAFF Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon will be available from the VAFF website, www.VAFF.org. Open to BC residents, the entry fee is $50 per team and the registration deadline for all teams is August 19th. For more information, email: festival@vaff.org.

CineCity: Vancouver’s Stories is a Citytv Vancouver initiative designed to support emerging visible minority and aboriginal filmmakers in the creation of short film. CineCity represents the station’s overall commitment to the Canadian film industry as a development-funder and market-maker for domestic productions positions the company as Canada’s number-one, private, over-the-air broadcast supporter of Canadian feature films.

The Vancouver Asian Film Festival Society (VAFF) is a not-for-profit organization that provides a forum for independent North American Asian filmmakers to showcase their work to both Asian and non-Asian audiences. The aim of VAFF is to foster an understanding and appreciation of these filmmakers and providing them a springboard to larger film festivals. And the Society endeavours to represent the often-ignored North American Asians caught between two cultures.

The 11th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival runs November 1 to 4, 2007 at Tinseltown Cinemas.

The deadline for application is 12 noon Sunday August 19 and the entry fee is $50 per team. For more information, email festival@vaff.org.

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