In Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s triptych of short films, coincidence and chance encounters interrupt the fragile reality of waking life. Alternately playful, comedic, and cynical, WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY plumbs the theatrical depths hidden beneath simple stories: an unexpected love triangle, an attempt to seduce and blackmail a professor, and a meeting between two old friends. …
Dante Basco was anointed API film festival royalty with his defining role in Gene Cajayon’s THE DEBUT (HIFF 2000) and as the voice of Prince Zuko in AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER (lest not forget his bad boy personification as Rufio in HOOK). After a diverse career that is entering its fourth decade, Dante makes his …
In Jackson Heights, Queens, three young muslim women navigate the consistent and sometimes conflicting demands of romance, culture, work, and family. After Sam and Maryam’s father leaves their family to embrace an American lifestyle, rejecting their Pakistani values, the two sisters and their mother focus on honoring their cultural traditions. But Sam, working a high-paying …
Ravi (Karan Soni) and Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan) meet on a date arranged by their Indian parents. He imagines his future wife as someone traditional, wholesome and definitely vegetarian. She can’t imagine anything worse, but has to keep up the ruse to please her conservative mother. When a shelter in place order forces them to quarantine …
