The Center for Asian American Media unveiled the lineup of nearly 40 films for CAAMFest 2025, taking place May 8-11 in San Francisco.
This year’s programming provides a look at how the roots of Asian America have shaped this present moment, with themes including the 50th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the creative and nurturing contributions of Asian American women.
The festival opens with Third Act directed by Tadashi Nakamura as he turns the spotlight on his dad, Robert A. Nakamura “The Godfather of Asian American film”; and closes with Yellow Face directed by Annette Jolles.
“At a time when it feels particularly fraught to express stories from communities of color, CAAM is doing what we’ve done for over 40 years—sharing films from Asian America to a wide array of audiences,” says CAAM’s Director of Programs Don Young. “Watching these stories, in a theater full of friends and neighbors, is an opportunity to laugh and cry and ultimately to celebrate human experiences that transcend bounds.”
This year’s festival will return to the AMC Kabuki in San Francisco’s Japantown for Opening Night and a total of four days of screenings in this historic neighborhood that is undergoing its own resurgence, with new restaurants, cafes, and boutiques highlighting both traditional and youth-oriented culture. The Roxie Theater will also host three days of screenings. CAAMFest continues to strengthen ties with other local arts institutions, with the Asian Art Museum hosting the CAAMFest Gala following the Opening Night film on Thursday, May 8, and SFMOMA opening the Phyllis Wattis Theater for Mother’s Day programming on Sunday, May 10.
“Turning a lens on history, whether it’s the end of the Vietnam War or the trailblazing women in the Bay Area, offers a chance to reconsider the stories through which we come to understand ourselves,” says CAAMFest Program Manager Del Holton. “Ranging from intimate narratives on family and memory to experimental work that bends the conventions of storytelling, these films illuminate the many perspectives of Asian America.”
GALA AND SHOWCASES
OPENING NIGHT FILM: Third Act
Directed by Tadashi Nakamura (2024 CAAM Mentor)
Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura “The Godfather of Asian American film,” but his son, Tad, calls him Dad. As the filmmaking son of a filmmaking legend, Tad uses the lessons his dad taught him to decipher the legacy of an aging man who was a child survivor of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, a successful photographer who gave it up to tell his own story, an activist at the dawn of a social movement—and a father whose struggles have won his son freedoms that eluded Japanese Americans of his generation. As Parkinson’s Disease clouds his memory, Tad sets out to retrieve his story—and in the process discovers his own. The two have made films together, with Robert always by Tad’s side. Third Act is most likely the last.
Expected Guests: Tadashi Nakamura, Consulting Producer and CAAM Mentor Ursula Liang
CLOSING NIGHT FILM: Yellow Face
Directed by Annette Jolles
The Broadway play from Roundabout Theatre Company follows DHH (Daniel Dae Kim), a fictionalized version of playwright David Henry Hwang, as he joins Asian American protesters speaking out against the casting of white actor Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian lead of Miss Saigon – a real-life controversy in the 1990s – only to find that when it comes time for him to cast his next play, he makes the same mistake by casting a white actor (Ryan Eggold) as his lead, thinking he is multiracial Asian. Francis Jue plays DHH’s immigrant Chinese father targeted by the U.S. government, a role Jue originated for the 2007 world premiere. The play was filmed on Broadway by Great Performances on PBS. This program was made possible with support from Rakuten Viki.
Expected Guests: Daniel Dae Kim
CENTERPIECE DOCUMENTARY: Love, Chaos, Kin
Directed by Chithra Jeyaram
When Lakshmi, an Indian immigrant, and adoptive mother, unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she takes her White-passing adopted twin daughters, Anjali and Meghna on a journey of self-discovery. This leads them to reconnect with their struggling birth mother and find their estranged Navajo father, forcing them to confront their past, embrace their multiracial identity, and redefine what it means to be a family. This is a CAAM-funded film.
Expected Guests: Chithra Jeyaram
CENTERPIECE DOCUMENTARY: Your Touch Makes Others Invisible
Directed by Rajee Samarasinghe
The surreal tale of a spellbound Tamil factory worker who loses her son to a supernatural entity. Collaboratively enacted by impacted locals, Your Touch Makes Others Invisible is a lyrical exploration of disappearances in a small post-war community in northern Sri Lanka where memories of interactions between the Tamils and the Sinhalese linger.
Expected Guests: Rajee Samarasinghe
CENTERPIECE NARRATIVE: Bitterroot
Directed by Vera Brunner-Sung
Preceded by: Why My Dad Loves, directed by Nkaujoua Xiong
Reeling from a failed marriage and seeking solace and a new perspective, a Hmong man cares for his aging mother amidst the deceptively tranquil landscape of rural Montana. This is a CAAM-funded film.
Expected Guests: Nkaujoua Xiong
CENTERPIECE NARRATIVE: Characters Disappearing
Directed by Connor Sen Warnick
Preceded by: ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong, directed by Daphne Xu
When their grandfather Gong Gong goes missing, twenty-something cousins Mei and Chris cut diverging paths through a haunting vision of New York’s Chinatown. In a world that’s suggestive of both 1971 and 2022, Mei, leader of a radical leftist collective, implores Chris to get more involved – but he’s fixated on uncovering spiritual purity and the true story of a 250-year-old monk their grandfather met. A work of emotional intensity bubbling just beneath the surface, Characters Disappearing is an existential portrait of griefs large and small. Conducting original research into a vanishing era – and pulling from his own family history and personal encounters with anti-Asian violence – Connor Sen Warnick’s debut feature examines collective paranoias from the 1970s and present day. This is a Chinatown rarely seen, where bursts of unexplained violence and spectral figures co-exist with the promise, and fraying, of multi-ethnic solidarities.
Expected Guests: Connor Sen Warnick
CENTERPIECE SHORTS
The first time short films have been a festival Centerpiece in CAAM’s recent memory, this program highlights ambitious, bold shorts that experiment with narrative and documentary form and share new perspectives from Asian and Asian American filmmakers.
A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers, directed by Birdy Wei-Ting Hung
at the bamboo green, directed by Xiaolu Wang
Billo Rani, directed by Angbeen Saleem
Correct Me If I’m Wrong, directed by Hao Zhou
Kumar Kumar, directed by Kiran Koshy
On My Road to Dharma, directed by Yihuan Zhang
Spring Will Come, directed by Marion Hoang Ngoc Hill & Linh Dan Phan Nguyen
Expected Guests: Xiaolu Wang, Angbeen Saleem, Kiran Koshy, Marion Hoang Ngoc Hill, Parvesh Cheena
HONG KONG CINEMA SHOWCASE
With support from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in San Francisco, CAAMFest 2025 presents the best in contemporary film from Hong Kong, as well as a special retrospective screening of Ann Hui’s Boat People.
Blossoms Under Somewhere, directed by Riley Yip
Saturday, May 10, 4:30pm | AMC Kabuki 3
Ching, a stuttering high school girl, runs a used lingerie business online with her best friend, Rachel. Buried in the unethical business, Ching embellishes the relationship with her buyers, gaining the attention she has always longed for.
Expected Guest: Riley Yip
To Be Continued, directed by Dora Choi & Haider Kikabhoy
Convenient, tired, and vapid, ‘East-meets-West’ is a cliché that has for decades been used to sell the ‘Hong Kong story’ to the world. Yet in the forgotten legend of Harry Odell, Hong Kong’s first impresario, a rediscovery of the city’s soul awaits. Flamboyant and cigar-chomping, Odell was a Cairo-born, Shanghai-bred Russian Jew who stamped his mark on the cultural life of post-war Hong Kong. What began as a grassroot conservation campaign to save the iconic State Theatre in Hong Kong morphed into five years of research and interviews with those who witnessed Odell in action. The result: a film that is as much a study of one indomitable pioneer as it is a soul-searching journey of what defines Hong Kong.
Expected Guest: Paul Chan
Boat People, directed by Ann Hui
One of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave, Boat People is a shattering look at the circumstances that drove hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to flee their homeland in the wake of the Vietnam War, told through images of haunting, unforgettable power. Three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photojournalist (George Lam) travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a teenage girl (Season Ma) and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty have forced many to resort to desperate measures in order to survive. Transcending polemic, renowned director Ann Hui takes a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance.
FILMS WITH LOCAL ROOTS
CAAMFest is returning for its 43rd year, featuring many filmmakers with ties to the San Francisco Bay Area. The following are all films and programming with local ties to the Bay Area: Bitterroot, Chinatown Cha-Cha, Making Waves: The Rise of Asian America, Softshell, Third Act, and Year of the Cat.
Shorts with connections to the Bay Area include A Brighter Summer Day for The Lady Avengers, After What Happened at the Library, Awit Natin (Our Song), Daly City, Grandma, Legends, and Painted Ones.
FILM – DOCUMENTARIES
Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo, directed by Desireena Almoradie
Joyful, raw, revolutionary. Because of You: A History of Kilawin Kolektibo tells the story of queer Filipnxs who, in the 1990s, against a racist, lesbophobic backdrop, came together for the first time in NYC to create a safe and loving community.
Expected Guests: Directors Desireena Almoradie, Barbara Malaran
Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama, directed by Cindy Mochizuki
Directed by Vancouver-based filmmaker and visual artist Cindy Mochizuki, Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama, that tells the epic journey of the late Japanese Canadian photographer Wakayama who decides to join Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the deep south during the 1960’s American civil rights movement. Learning the art of dark room photography along the way, this transformative journey allows him to confront his own identity and to return ‘home’ to the west coast of Canada to begin a body of photographic work that continues to document, celebrate and re-present the spirit of Japanese Canadians who resided in the former Paueru Gai/Powell Street neighborhoods
Chinatown Cha-Cha, directed by Luka Yuanyuan Yang
The 92-year-old former San Francisco Chinatown nightclub dancer Coby Yee decides to get back on stage again after joining the senior dance troupe Grant Avenue Follies. Together they go on a tour for the last time, bridging once isolated Chinese communities in the US, Cuba and China.
Expected Guests: Luka Yuanyuan Yang, Producer Lou Wang-Holburn
Made in Ethiopia, directed by Xinyan Yu & Max Duncan
When a massive Chinese industrial park lands in rural Ethiopia, a dusty farming town finds itself at the new frontier of globalization. The sprawling factory complex’s formidable Chinese director Motto now needs every bit of mettle and charm she can muster to push through a high-stakes expansion that promises 30,000 new jobs. Ethiopian farmer Workinesh and factory worker Beti have staked their futures on the prosperity the park promises. But as initial hope meets painful realities, they find themselves, like their country, at a pivotal crossroads. Filmed over four years with singular access, Made in Ethiopia lifts the curtain on China’s historic but misunderstood impact on Africa, and explores contemporary Ethiopia at a moment of profound crisis. The film, which won a Special Jury Mention at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, throws audiences into two colliding worlds: an industrial juggernaut fueled by profit and progress, and a vanishing countryside where life is still measured by the cycle of the seasons. And its nuance, complexity and multi-perspective approach go beyond black and white narratives of victims and villains. As the three women’s stories unfold, Made in Ethiopia challenges us to rethink the relationship between tradition and modernity, growth and welfare, the development of a country and the well-being of its people.
Making Waves: The Rise of Asian America, directed by Jon Osaki
Making Waves: The Rise of Asian America explores the vital role of ethnic studies in redefining the narrative and promoting service to communities across the country. From the 1968 student strikes at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State to present-day movements, Making Waves documents the stories of Asian American activism and efforts to lift-up ethnic studies as a strategy to address present and future anti-Asian hate. This is a CAAM-funded film. This program is made possible with support from APA Heritage Foundation.
Expected Guests: Jon Osaki, Josh Chuck
Mistress Dispeller, directed by Elizabeth Lo
Desperate to save her marriage, a woman in China hires a professional to go undercover and break up her husband’s affair. With strikingly intimate access, Mistress Dispeller follows this unfolding family drama from all corners of a love triangle.
New Wave, directed by Elizabeth Ai
A filmmaker on a mission to excavate an untold story of rebellious teens in the electrifying world of 80s Viet new wave in Orange County, California, unexpectedly confronts buried traumas that lead to forgiveness and a new beginning. This is a CAAM-funded film.
Slumlord Millionaire, directed by Steph Ching & Ellen Martinez
Preceded by: Single Residence Occupancy, directed by Omer Shachar
In New York City’s most quickly gentrifying neighborhoods, a group of fearless residents, activists, and nonprofit attorneys fight corrupt landlords for the basic human right to a home. This film follows the story of the Bravo family who have endured leaks, mold, infestations and harassment and been in a legal battle with their landlord for 15 years; Janina Davis, a former supermodel who is reclaiming her Brooklyn brownstone after a deed theft scam; Mr. Chen, a resident of Manhattan Chinatown who fears the construction of four luxury towers might destroy his historic community; and Moumita Ahmed whose Queens City Council race was viciously targeted by billionaire real estate developers. All four stories are interwoven throughout the film, clearly exposing how interconnected systems give power to the real estate industry and contribute to the human toll of gentrification. This is a CAAM-funded film.
The Grocery List Show, directed by Emily Strong
The Grocery List Show explores international grocery stores throughout the U.S. and the communities they serve. The five-episode series features former Top Chef contender Chrissy Camba, who joins special guests as they shop for ingredients, chat with food enthusiasts, and cook together— celebrating global food traditions in a shared meal. Each episode begins with a brief history of the selected neighborhoods—spanning Chicago, Brooklyn, and New Jersey—and looks at the migration and formation of immigrant communities. The focus then shifts to the chosen stores, whose specialties include Filipino, Caribbean, Latin American, Italian, and halal food. CAAMFest 2025 will screen the first episode, which highlights Seafood City Supermarket. From the very first store that opened in 1989 in San Diego, California, Seafood City Supermarket has since become one of the premier chains of Filipino supermarkets in North America. Filipino food lovers in Chicago were thrilled when Seafood City opened on the Northwest Side.
Year of the Cat, directed by Tony Nguyen
Year of the Cat follows filmmaker Tony Nguyen on an extraordinary quest to solve the mystery of his father, lost in the chaos of the Fall of Saigon 50 years ago. Crafted as an investigative home movie, this intensely raw documentary weaves together moments of humor and heartache, offering an intimate look at how the children of refugees are shaped by war and loss. As Tony delves into his family’s history, the film reveals the emotional lengths we go to in confronting the ghosts of the past—and the possibility of healing as we reclaim and transform our futures. This is a CAAM-funded film.
Expected Guests: Tony Nguyen
FILM – NARRATIVES
Cu Li Never Cries, directed by Pham Ngoc Lan
Personal and political histories are ever-present in the story of Mrs. Nguyên (Minh Châu), who returns to her hometown to spread the ashes of her estranged husband and to reconnect with her niece, Vân (Hà Phuong). Yet Vân harbors resentment against Mrs. Nguyên—a mother figure to the orphaned young woman—for her long absence, complicating this homecoming and dredging up a difficult past. As the older woman traverses the familiar yet increasingly alien environs of her past, she has the companionship of Cu Li, the pygmy slow loris her deceased spouse left her, whose impossibly wide, glassy eyes become a reflection for characters caught in a half-dreamscape. Shot in a pristine black-and-white that offers immersive realism one moment and a fairy-tale shimmer the next, Cu Li Never Cries is a tender yet commanding feature debut for Pham Ngoc Lân in which the legacies of Vietnamese history are written on its characters’ uncertain futures. Winner of the Best First Feature prize at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.
Fucktoys, directed by Annapurna Sriram
A lush 16mm fever dream that reimagines The Fool’s Journey of the Tarot through the story of AP—a sanguine young woman seeking salvation from a curse. AP is promised by not one but multiple psychics that for a cool $1000 and the sacrifice of a baby lamb, it can be lifted. So, she makes money the only way she knows how, scootering her way deeper into the night, into the uncouth underbelly of Trashtown. Dark, irreverent, and sexy, AP stumbles upon new characters and absurd situations, each more unhinged than the last, as she winds her way towards the inevitable. Fucktoys is a campy romp that explores the intersection of intimacy, exploitation, and class in a pre-millenium alternate universe.
Expected Guests: Annapurna Sriram, Producer Tim Petryni
Mongrels, directed by Jerome Yoo
In the summer of 1991, a Canadian prairie town finds itself plagued by an unsettling rise in the population of feral dogs. In desperate need for a remedy, Gwang-Sun Lee, a former Korean hunter, is enlisted by the affluent farmer, Scott Larson, to confront this burgeoning “rodent” problem. Gwang-Sun, or ‘Sonny,’ carries the heavy burden of his wife’s recent passing. Despite this torment, he works daily to assimilate and move on alongside his dutiful son Ha-Joon and naive daughter Hana. However, beneath the surface, tragedy runs deep within the family. The Lees paint a personal portrait of their fractured lives, all desperately grappling with their own mourning trials, and tribulations.
The Motherload, directed by Van Tran Nguyen & Alex Derwick
Preceded by: We Were The Scenery, directed by Christopher Robert Radcliff
An imaginative telling of the story of a Vietnamese American mother-daughter duo who, in their attempt to heal the rift between them, reenact and satirize scenes from celebrated Vietnam War films while depicting a diasporic reality. Conflict among the mother-daughter duo arises when Jessca (Tran Nguyen) embarks on a quest to find a home that once belonged to her mother’s family during pre-war Vietnam. Kim (Jessca’s mother, played by Tran Nguyen’s mother), happy in her new but precarious position in America, fights to stay stateside. As their desires cause them to grow apart they are faced with old myths about the motherland, depicted in a public-broadcasting television show. With a cast consisting only of two Vietnamese American women re-enacting and satirizing scenes from celebrated Vietnam War films while depicting a diasporic reality, this movie takes a closer look at what has been lost in war, what we find in the rubble, and how to hold on to what remains. Two inventive storylines complicate The Motherload to levels of absurdity.
Both of these glide in and out beneath the narrative backbone of Jessca and Kim’s personal story, and reflect the stunning disconnect between the Vietnamese diaspora and the world’s understanding of their presence.
Expected Guests: Van Tran Nguyen, Alex Derwick
Softshell, directed by Jinho Myung
Softshell, Jinho Myung’s debut feature captures the awkwardness of early adulthood as two siblings stumble through tangled, quiet lives. Shot on grainy 16mm film, this dramedy captures the rhythm of life in New York as we follow Thai American siblings Jamie (Caledonia Abbey) and Narin (Legyaan Thapa) carving out new paths after their mother’s death. Their sharp, tender banter brings life to a relationship brimming with unspoken understanding, while their experiences with fetishization and cultural identity reveal unsettling truths about the world they inhabit. With its Mumblecore aesthetics and shaky handheld camera movements (by DP Rhys Scarabosio), Softshell brings a unique perspective to the American indie landscape, balancing surreal, offbeat humor with deep moments of melancholy. The film’s vivid, at times grotesque imagery — like the siblings’ connection to a pet chameleon or a whale shark — adds layers of symbolic weight to a story about the tense spaces between people and the quiet moments that define connection. Winner of the Belfort International Film Festival Grand Prix Janine Bazin Juried Prize.This film contains graphic content in the form of violence toward animals.
Expected Guests: Jinho Myung
FILM – SHORTS PROGRAMS
INHERITANCES
While inheritance may invoke histories of those who came before us, these films bring nuance to the ways these histories reach us in the present. Community responsibilities, cultural practices, and even running jokes shape the ways we understand ourselves and relate to others.
Check Please, directed by Shane Chung
Daughter of Guam, directed by Alfred Bordallo
Import Models, directed by James Chung
Maybe It’s Just the Rain, directed by Reina Bonta
Painted Ones, directed by Julia Husain Nacario
Rising, directed by Evelyn Hang Yin
Expected Guests: Shane Chung, Alfred Bordallo, James Chung, Angeline Gragasin, Julia Husain Nacario, Evelyn Hang Yin
LET IT OUT
How do we process the messy feelings of grief, loss, loneliness, or regret? In shades of animation, documentary, and narrative, these films explore the raucous ways difficult emotions spill out along the path to healing.
After What Happened at the Library, directed by Kyle Casey Chu
Awit Natin (Our Song), directed by Pacqui Pascual
Grandma, directed by Yang Hu
Mango Chile Pie, directed by Karan Sunil
Splash Back, directed by Yufei Xiao
To Dance Again, directed by M.G. Evangelista
Expected Guests: Kyle Casey Chu, Pacqui Pascual, Yang Hu, Karan Sunil, Meghana Indurti
COMING OF AGES
Coming of age is not simply about transitioning from childhood to adulthood. It represents a process of growing into oneself.
Clementine, directed by Sally Tran
Legends, directed by Suhashini Krishnan
Myself When I Am Real, directed by Angeline Gragasin
Paramita, directed by Kirthi Nath
Zari, directed by Shruti Parekh
Expected Guests: Suhashini Krishnan, Yên Sen, Kirthi Nath
THROUGH CHILDREN’S EYES
These films highlight the unique perspectives of the youngest members in our communities. With whimsical reimaginings of hard-hitting realities and the unfiltered emotions only children are brave enough to show, these shorts help us see familiar narratives anew.
Chaturanga, directed Sidartha Murjani
Daly City, directed by Nick Hartanto
God & Buddha Are Friends, directed by Anthony Ma
Te Seguiré A La Oscuridad, directed by Nicholas Luciano
The Unreachable Star, directed by Sharon S. Park
Expected Guests: Sidartha Murjani, Nick Hartanto, Anthony Ma, Joy Regullano, Nicholas Luciano