10 Films you shouldn’t miss at the 8th Asian World Film Festival

By Asian Film Festival on November 8, 2022 • ( Leave a comment )

These are ten films you shouldn’t miss at the Asian World Film Festival which will take place which will take place from November 9 – 18, 2022.

**Ajoomma** by He Shuming – Singapore | 2022 – 90 minutes

A middle-aged, Korean-drama-obsessed widow from Singapore travels out of the country for the first time to Seoul and ends up getting lost. Her journey becomes an unexpected road of self-discovery, as she comes to terms with the life she truly wants for herself, beyond her roles of daughter, wife, and mother. (AWFF 2022)

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**Butterfly on the Windowpane** by Sujit Bidari – Nepal | 2020 – 97 minutes

Bidya (13), a gifted student and aspiring poet, lives in a rural village in Nepal with her younger brother, BASANTA (9), and her single mother. She desperately wants to go to the city school to pursue her dream to study further and leave the conservative society she lives in. But when she fails to secure the first position in the school term, she loses her scholarship. She is reluctant to add a burden to her hard-working mother.

As time passes, Basanta witnesses his sister transform from a strong lady with aspirations to a quiet and helpless girl. He attempts to provide her with some hope and inspiration, by finding a magazine where Bidya’s poem has been published. But when he returns home with the magazine, risking his life, he witnesses a moment, completely unexpected. (AWFF 2022)

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**Chosen** by Joseph Juhn – USA | 2022 – 89 minutes

In 2020, five Korean Americans of diverse backgrounds with competing political views run for US Congress. David Kim is a young, progressive, LGBTQ candidate running in Koreatown, Los Angeles with a Trump-supporting conservative church pastor, for a father. Marilyn Strickland is a half Korean, half Black, Democratic candidate running in Tacoma, Washington, while Young Kim and Michelle Park Steel, both Republicans running in Orange County, show unapologetically strong allegiance to President Trump. Then finally, Andy Kim, an incumbent running for re-election, faces an uphill battle as no Democrat has won his district twice in a row in more than 150 years. (PAAFF 2022)

Screening:
November 10, 2022 | Thursday | AMC Marketplace 6 | 6:00 pm (With Q&A)

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**Farha** by Darin J. Sallam – Jordan | 2021 – 92 minutes

Farha (14 years old) lives in a village in Palestine in 1948. Girls her age are traditionally married, yet she dreams of continuing her education in the city with her best friend Farida. As she gets closer to her dream, the looming danger reaches her village, and Farha is brutally separated from Farida. Terrorized for his daughter’s safety, Farha’s father locks her up in a concealed, small storage room, promising to return. But he never does. Buried in the tight dark space, Farha’s only connection to the outside world is a small hole in the wall and a few cracks in the wooden door. What she witnesses inside and outside of the room forces a new path for Farha as her life-changing journey begins. (AWFF 2022)

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**Goddamned Asura** by Lou Yi-An – Taiwan | 2021 – 114 minutes

On the night of his 18th birthday, Jan-Wen went on a random shooting spree in a crowded night market with his self-made modified gun for some mysterious reason. The tragic incident caused his family and friends, the victims, and the witnesses to all face a tremendous impact on their lives in the aftermath.

However, if there were a chance for these people to make different choices at the crucial moment, would the tragedy remain, or would there be a brand-new outcome?

This complex, multi-layered psychological drama delves into a random shooting homicide through six characters, a popular video game, an alternate reality, and a circle of reincarnations. (AWFF 2022)

Screening:
November 11, 2022 | Friday | AMC Marketplace 6 | 2:00 pm (With Q&A)

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**Happiness** by Askar Uzabaev – Kazakhstan | 2022 – 131 minutes

A woman is standing in front of the mirror. She is beautiful and has a striking face and strong cheekbones. She is bracing herself, the last vestige of self-respect driving her on. Her body is black and blue from the marks of many years of abuse. She swathes it in the orange dress that represents her working life. In this world, she is a successful influencer promoting a product line called “Happiness” that – as she demonstrates in her hypnotic sales pitches – is supposed to make women attractive and happy. But terror reigns at home; it even reigns in her newlywed daughter’s house too. A self-determined life is something about which a woman in Kazakhstan dares not even dream. (AWFF 2022)

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**Joyland** by Saim Sadiq – Pakistan | 2022 – 127 minutes

In the heart of the metropolitan yet conservative city of Lahore lives the Rana family, a lower-middle-class joint family comprising of the old patriarch, the elder son and pregnant wife with three daughters, and the youngest son Haider and his wife Mumtaz.

As the Rana’s eagerly anticipate the birth of a baby boy to continue their family line, Haider secretly takes up a job as a background dancer at an erotic theatre where he is drawn to an ambitious trans starlet, Biba. Slowly yet suddenly, Haider and Biba are engulfed in a secret summer romance that surreptitiously takes over his home, unraveling the dichotomy between desire and morality for the entire Rana family. (AWFF 2022)

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**Junho** by David Seok Hoon Boo – South Korea, USA | 2022 – 103 minutes

Juhno wanted nothing more than to be a great actor. But when his prestigious acting troupe in Korea is rocked by a #MeToo scandal, he escapes to San Francisco, to start a new life. Unlike Junho’s attempt to overcome loneliness, isolation, and the loss of his best friend Jin, who was a victim of the scandal, his transgression from the past dislocates him from the present. (AWFF 2022)

Screening:
November 13, 2022 | Sunday | AMC Marketplace 6 | 1:00 pm

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**On the Job: The Missing 8** by Erik Matti – Philippines | 2022 – 208 minutes

This sequel to On the Job (2013) focuses on corruption and media censorship now that a new strongman, Duterte, is in power in the Philippines. (IMDb)

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**World War III** by Houman Seyedi – Iran | 2022 – 107 minutes

Shakib is a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago. Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house, and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime. (AWFF 2022)

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