DVD Cover to Slant, Vol. 1

Kozo published another review of mine the other day, so I thought I’d talk a bit about it here.

While coming home from OU Medical Center awhile back, I stopped in Norman to find a place to eat. Across the street from the Chinese place I’d chosen was Hastings, a video/music/book/video game/comic store that I tend to frequent anytime I come back to Oklahoma. While browsing the “foreign film” shelves of the DVD section, I stumbled upon Slant, Volume 1, a collection of short films that aren’t foreign at all, as they’ve been created by a handful of Asian American filmmakers. It’s striking that an Asian American film collection gets shelved in “foreign film” section, but that’s a discussion for another time.

I had never heard of this anthology before (although I did recognize Kip Fulbeck’s contribution, as he screened Lilo and Me during a visit to UC Santa Cruz awhile back), but being the budding Asian Americanist that I am, I snapped up a copy for the low, low price of $1.00. From the official website, I culled this description:

The Best of Slant Vol 1 features a collection of short films culled from seven years of Aurora Picture Show’s annual Slant: Bold Asian American Images festival. The Slant festival annually showcases the best in emerging Asian American cinema. Since its start in 2000, Slant has screened an eclectic mix of films that explore a wide range of topics and genres such as the smashing of stereotypes, off-beat comedies, family stories, explorations of culture and identity, and universal themes like love, loss, the human condition.

Slant curator Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen, a magazine about Asian American culture. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of Asian American media and independent media. She lives in Oakland, California and works for the San Francisco WritersCorps, a creative writing program for urban youth.

Films in the Compilation include:

1. How to do the Asian Squat by Daniel Hsia
2. Lilo and Me by Kip Fulbeck
3. Maritess vs the Superfriends by Dino Ignacio
4. A Little Bit Different by Lynn Okimura
5. Profiles in Science by Wes Kim
6. I Pie (A Love Store) by Nobu Adilman
7. How to Make Kimchi According to My Kun-Uma by Samuel Kiehoon Lee
8. Slip of the Tongue by Karen Lum

You can check out my full review for LoveHKFilm.com here. I thought the better contributions made up for those that were simply lacking or just too quirky for their own damn good. For those of you curious about the anthology and perhaps unable to get your hands on it, check out Dino Ignacio and Rex Navarette’s contribution, Maritess vs. The Superfriends, one of the clear-cut gems of this eclectic collection.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at 11:14 am and is filed under Slant, Asian American Cinema. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.