Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival 2009

Honolulu, Hawaii - Since the strange disappearance of her mother, Kalia's father has become more paranoid and erratic. He stays out all night and can't hold down a job, leaving her to raise her younger sister Lana on her own. When Kalia rebels against her father by sneaking out for a night surf with a guy she just met, she soon discovers that she should have heeded her father's advice and stayed away from the beach after dark.

'Boba and Melon Gum,' a parody of Jim Jarmusch’s 'Coffee and Cigarettes,' is an intimate look into a parallel culture, the Boba culture, and delves into its characters through a series of short comic vignettes.

Two young children living outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their mother gets embroiled in a pyramid scheme and disappears. One of Filmmaker Magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film," writer-director Tze Chun makes his feature film debut with one of the most-awarded and best- reviewed films of the year. CHILDREN OF INVENTION is by turns humorous and heartbreaking, an "edge-of-your-seat family drama" (Spout) that’s both “powerfully moving and rigorously intelligent."(Boston Phoenix).

Colorful spirits guide a young boy to an urban playground of tribal beats and dance.

Lois is forced to play a game of life and death with no instruction. She doesn't know she has become the prey of a monster, or is it the other way around?

Fine Threads is a documentary by teenage women from Queens, NY, exploring notions of beauty, immigrant ideals, and religion. They weave a narrative out of intimate exchanges in an unlikely place: the Indian threading salon. Told through interviews, and verite, the young women assemble a story about coming of age in the city.

In the early 1980s, FBI Agent (James Van Der Beek) investigates the murder of an Asian professor at a small Midwestern college. His investigation follows the killers to Taiwan, where he learns the Professor's murder was not a random act, but a desperate move by a brutal government to silence political dissidents. Our Agent finds himself on a collision course with the F.B.I., the State Department, the Chinese Mafia, and the Nationalist Chinese Government - in a land where the truth is not what it seems and the only people he can trust, cannot be trusted at all. Inspired by actual events.

As an immigrant, Sam Lau took up cooking as a means of survival. Following a glowing review, he managed to keep his restaurant open for another six months. He was able to show his skills as an artist, but high expectations and low prices made for an unfortunate combination.