The Ninth Aurora Asian Film Festival will be held June 1 - 4 at the Aurora Fox Arts Center (9900 E. Colfax Avenue) in Aurora. The Festival, presented by Denver Film Society, the Aurora Asian/Pacific Community Partnership and the City of Aurora, will feature 10 new films from several countries along the Pacific Rim including China, Mongolia, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

AMERICANESE - Opening Night Film - Thursday, June 1

In Person Appearances: Eric Byler, Allison Sie and Chris Tashima
AMERICANESE
USA
Director: Eric Byler
Producer: Lisa Onodera
2005/107 min/English
Cast: Chris Tashima, Allison Sie, Joan Chen, Kelly Hu

Raymond Ding (played by Academy-Award® winner Chris Tashima) is middle aged, divorced and in the throes of yet another failed relationship. He sleepwalks through the formalities of splitting up but finds himself in a strange holding pattern where he can’t let go nor move on. Aurora Crane, his ex- girlfriend (played by Allison Sie) is doggedly trying to move on with her life. She has become the no longer young, younger woman in Raymond’s life.


MONGOLIAN PING PONG
China/Mongolia
DIRECTOR: Ning Hao
Producers: Lu Bin, He Bu
2005/102 Min./Mongolian with English subtitles

To most people in Beijing’s modern culture, an ordinary ping-pong ball would be just another disposable byproduct, but the discovery of this mysterious object in the vast Mongolian steppes ( a place virtually unchanged since Genghis Khan) becomes the epicenter of a life-changing expedition for nine-year-old Bilike.


THE BOW
South Korea
Director: Ki-duk Kim
2005/90 min./Korean with English subtitles

A sparse landscape and minimalist characters, The Bow centers around the lives of a sixty-year-old man and sixteen-year-old girl. Living aboard an old, isolated fishing boat where they host day fishermen from the mainland and tell fortunes by using a dangerous, mysterious divination method, the old man diligently crosses off dates on the calendar, zeroing in on the girl’s 17th birthday—a date he plans to marry her.


GIE
Indonesia
Director: Riri Riza
Producer: Mira Lesmana
2005/147 min./English subtitles

Idealist, teacher, writer, rebel and a central yet unknown political activist in the 60s, the darkest era of Indonesian history – that is who Chinese- Indonesian Soe Hok-Gie is. Even as the people around him adjust to Suharto’s new regime, he continues to fight. His uncompromising idealism drives those close to him away; his friends and the woman he loves.



DELAMU
China
Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Producers: Liu Zhao, Hao Li, Toyohiko Harada
2004/114 minutes/Mandarin with English subtitles

Delamu (the Tibetan word for Peace Angel) is a poignant, beautiful documentary about a place, a people and a totally foreign way of life. It takes place on the convergence of two rivers in China’s Yunan Province, a rugged, mountainous landscape nestled between the Tibetan borders.



BE WITH ME
Singapore
Director: Eric Khoo
Producers: Jacqueline Khoo, James Toh, Freddie Yeo
2005/93 min./Cantonese, English, Hokkien and Mandarin w/English Subtitles

Eric Khoo, one of Singapore’s most influential filmmakers, returns to the screen with Be With Me. In development for more than a year but taking only 16 days to shoot, the film is a minimalist, yet overwhelming tale of love, hope and destiny. Be With Me is a tapestry of three stories woven around the themes of love, hope and destiny.


A WORLD WITHOUT THIEVES
Hong Kong
Director: Feng Xiaogang
2005/100 min./Mandarin with English subtitles

When a pair of career grifters whose success at swindling is near legendary come across a country bumpkin carrying his life savings in cash all hell breaks loose. Coming off another successful heist, partners in life and crime, Wang Li and Wang Bo, hop a train and run into “Dumbo” who has recently left his job at a Buddhist Temple to return home and get married.


THE GRACE LEE PROJECT
USA
Director: Grace Lee
Producer: In-Ah Lee
2005/68 min./English

When Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was growing up in Columbia, Missouri, she was the only Grace Lee she knew. Once she left the Midwest however, everyone she met seemed to know "another Grace Lee." But why did they assume that all Grace Lees were reserved, dutiful, piano- playing overachievers?


GRAIN IN EAR
South Korea
Director: Lu Zhang
Producer: Choi Doo-young
2005/109 min./Mandarin, Korean with English subtitles

A patient Korean-Chinese kimchee peddler discovers that she does have her limits in Zhang Lu’s stunningly beautiful minimalist drama, a prize-winner at Cannes and recipient of the Pusan Film Festival’s New Currents Award for Best Film.