The 35th showing of CAAMFest, the annual NorCal festival by the Center for Asian American Media which celebrates community arts and food, is underway.
The 11-day event kicked off Thursday and will run through March 19.
This year’s centerpiece films include both documentaries and feature films — “Who Is Arthur Chu?” centers around the 33-year-old Taiwanese American writer who is famous for winning “Jeopardy!” 11 times. It’s co-directed by Scott Drucker and Yu Gu.
The other gala presentation documentary being screened is “The Chinese Exclusion Act,” by Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu, in its West Coast premiere. It’s the story of the racist legislation through interviews with scholars, experts and descendants of early Chinese immigrants. “The 60 years of national exclusion, racialized ordinances, and hate crimes, is more important than ever to bear witness to,” the film’s description reads.
Danny Pudi, of “Community” fame, stars in Lena Khan’s “The Tiger Hunter,” where he plays a young Indian man who sets out to America in the 1970s seeking the American Dream.
“Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming” is an animated coming-of-age spectacle by Ann Marie Fleming featuring the voice of Sandra Oh. Rosie Ming “is an aspiring poet who leads an otherwise full existence in Vancouver with her loving and overprotective Chinese grandparents” who finds adventure at a poetry festival in Iran.
“Window Horses” won the Best BC Film Award and Best Canadian Film Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and is an official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival.
According to CAAMFest, last year’s event drew more than 27,000 attendees and 250 creatives. Its venues are scattered throughout the Bay Area, and includes the return of the Great Star Theater in San Francisco’s Chinatown this year.
Visit CAAMFest.com for more information.
