The full lineup for our first ever HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST, scheduled for August 7-14, 2020, is now live! Screening 11 new feature films, the HIFF SUMMER FEST also officially kicks off the annual I ❤ HIFF campaign in August. Our first-ever summer mini-festival will also be entirely online. To follow safety and public health measures, HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST, much like our overall HIFF@HOME program which started in April after the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, HIFF has invested in a new streaming platform to ensure the best quality presentation and user experience for our film hungry audiences to watch the latest award-winning films fresh from the film festival circuit.
HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST access to films is also simplified by purchasing one pass, which will allow you to watch any of these films at your leisure between the festival dates of August 7-14, for the discounted price of $40. If you want to go ala carte in your viewing, you can also purchase individual tickets for each film. For further details and to purchase your SUMMER FEST PASS (sales start July 17), click here.
Without further ado, here is the HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST film lineup:
DONUT KING
Director: Alice Gu / Country: USA
The Donut King, Ted’s story is one of fate, love, survival, hard knocks, and redemption. It’s the rags to riches story of a refugee escaping Cambodia, arriving in America in 1975 and building an unlikely multi-million dollar empire baking America’s favorite pastry, the donut. Ted sponsored hundreds of visas for incoming refugees and helped them get on their feet teaching them the ways of the donut business. By 1979 he was living the American Dream. But, in life, great rise can come with great falls.
THE FIRST SUPPER
Director: Shiro Tokiwa / Country: Japan
Having been away in Tokyo for a long time, photographer Rintaro (Shota Sometani) returns to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral. To the consternation of both he and his sister Miyako, he discovers that his mother has cancelled the catering service for the wake. Claiming instead that she will be cooking a special meal for the mourners. As it turns out this special meal is the last request of their deceased father (Masatoshi Nagase). And as they move through each course, the family’s past and present collide in an unfolding of memory, love, loss, and redemption.
FIRST VOTE
Director: Yi Chen / Country: USA
FIRST VOTE is a rare look at Asian American passions on both sides of the political divide in election battleground states Ohio and North Carolina. Lance Chen is a Chinese immigrant and professor at the University of Dayton who became a citizen in 2016 specifically to vote Republican in Ohio. Sue Googe, also an immigrant from China, owns a real estate business and made an unsuccessful Tea Party bid for a congressional seat in North Carolina. Kaiser Kuo is a writer, musician and former Baidu executive, but he’s also an avid Democratic activist in North Carolina. Jennifer Ho is a professor at the University of North Carolina, and brings deep understandings of racism to her teaching and worldview. Director Yi Chen allows us to hear from all of them.
I AM WOMAN
Director: Unjoo Moon / Country: Australia
For the first time on screen, I AM WOMAN tells the inspiring story of singer Helen Reddy, who wrote and sang the song “I Am Woman” that became the anthem for the women’s movement in the 1970s. The film is a story of fearless ambition and passion, of a woman who smashed through the patriarchal norms of her time to become the international singing superstar she always dreamed of being.
THE LEGEND OF BARON TO‘A
Director: Kiel McNaughton / Country: New Zealand
Fritz (played by Australian-Tongan actor Uli Latukefu), a displaced Tongan man, who escaped his past after the death of his father, returns to the cul-de-sac of his youth to sell his family home. When a priceless heirloom – a championship wrestling belt belonging to his late father, Baron Toa, – is pillaged from the family home, Fritz’s uncle Otto cancels the sale of the house until the belt is returned. A local street thug reveals the belt is now in the possession of resident gang, The Pig Hunters. Fritz determines to get the belt back with higher reasoning, but must also channel the life lessons of his late father to fulfill his new mission, to save the neighborhood.
MONSOON
Director: Hong Khaou / Country: United Kingdom, Vietnam
Kit (CRAZY RICH ASIANS’ Henry Golding) can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in his surroundings as any Western tourist would: the environment as exotic as the language incomprehensible, and a budding romance with an ex-pat. The aim of Kit’s travels is to find a place to scatter his parents’ ashes becomes part of a journey back to his roots and to the discovery of his identity. A subtle film about rootlessness, the process of recollection, and finding new contexts that bring a different sense to one’s existence, MONSOON is a personal journey of the 1st generation who want to fulfill the legacies of their refugee parents by bringing them home.
MY SWEET GRAPPA REMEDIES
Director: Akiko Ohku / Country: Japan
Single 40-something Yoshiko (Yasuko Matsuyuki) spends her days enjoying life’s simple pleasures, riding her bike to work, enjoying a drop of her favorite drink in the evening, and writing in her journal. But when she begins spending more time with her spry young colleague Wakabayashi (Haru Kuroki), she is soon confronted with the possibility of romance. With a much younger man. Through this season of romance, Yoshiko reflects on her past and her hopes for the future.
A THOUSAND CUTS
Director: Ramona S. Diaz / Country: USA, Philippines
In 2016 Duterte made headlines as an outsider candidate who won the presidency through promises of change and a brutal approach to the war on drugs. Shortly after taking office, he kept that promise, and thousands of bodies began appearing in the streets. As attacks on journalism and the free press begin to ramp up, documentary filmmaker Ramona Diaz follows key players from both sides of the divide. The film documents journalist Maria Ressa and her outlet Rappler as they struggle to continue to tell the truth in the face of extreme opposition, threats, harassment and even arrest. While at the same time, tracking the campaigns of staunch Duterte supporters and influencers. As the fight for power, truth, and democracy unfolds, the story of Duterte and the Philippines becomes one that resonates ever closer to home.
TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK)
Director: Ray Yeung / Country: Hong Kong
TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK) presents the story of two closeted married men in their twilight years. One day PAK, 70, a taxi driver who refuses to retire, meets HOI, 65, a retired single father, in a park. Despite years of societal and personal pressure, they are proud of the families they have created through hard work and determination. Yet in that brief initial encounter, something is unleashed in them which had been suppressed for so many years. As both men recount their personal histories, they also contemplate a possible future together. The multi-award winning second feature from Ray Yeung (FRONT COVER), the director has crafted a moving story set against the backdrop of life as it has been in Hong Kong, but which is rapidly disappearing from view.
WE MAKE ANTIQUES: KYOTO RENDEZVOUS
Director: Masaharu Take / Country: Japan
Here comes the sequel to the popular comedy caper hit WE MAKE ANTIQUES! Just when they had left their life of pottery forgery behind them, antiques dealer Norio and master potter Sasuke find themselves ensnared in a plot not of their own making. When a woman named Shino (Ryoko Hirosue) appears at Norio’s antiques shop distraught over the theft of her father’s most prized tea bowl, Norio can’t help but be drawn in by her plight. But when he and Sasuke try to catch the culprits, they discover that not all is what it seems, and find themselves fighting for their livelihood! A witty, and thrilling whodunnit!
Check back in the coming days for more updates to the HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST, including confirmed filmmaker Q&As, added panel discussions and even an Opening Night pau hana mixer, virtual style! Stay home, stay safe, and summer fest with us this August!
HIFF@HOME SUMMER FEST (August 7-14) full film lineup is now online
