In A Picture of You, a brother and sister (Andrew Pang and Jo Mei) return to their rural childhood home in Pennsylvania to sort through their recently deceased mother’s belongings. They discover shocking photos that change their perception of their mother (Jodi Long) entirely. The siblings process and reckon with the startling discovery in radically different ways, and together they venture down the rocky road toward the truth, clashing the whole way. The film also stars Teyonah Parris and Lucas Dixon.

More refined than your typical domestic drama, A Picture of  You transcends the label of “Asian Film”, portraying its protagonists as siblings, flawed souls, and emotionally textured human beings, a treasure in today’s movie industry, which typecasts Asian Americans rampantly. The film is funny, well-written, relatable, and at times gut-wrenching, and director J.P. Chan exhibits an impressive measure of finesse in his debut feature.

We spoke to Chan and his cast after the film’s screening at this year’s CAAMFest, discussing the personal inspirations behind the film, what it’s like to discover old pictures of your parents, CAAMFest, Asian American roles disappearing, a woman thinking the film was shot in Japan (seriously), and more.

For more info, visit apoyfilm.com. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview, coming tomorrow.

Let’s start off with the most basic question. What was the inspiration behind the film?

JP: There was a combination of inspirations for the movie. It’s emotionally based on my grieving for my mother when she passed away a few years ago and how it affected my family dynamic, especially with my brother. Also, I realized at that point that I only knew a portion of her. She was so much more than just my mom; she was someone’s wife, someone’s best friend, someone’s co-worker. There was such a fuller picture of her than I realized. Not what happens in my movie, of course, [laughs] but more than I realized.

Can you remember a time when you were rifling through old family stuff and found a picture of your parents that you’d never seen before? How did that feel?

Jodi: I found this picture of my parents sitting on a dock. My mother was spraying the water with her feet. My dad was really into her, and she looked like, “I’m not sure about this.” [laughs] They were in bathing suits in the ’40s.

Jo: My parents immigrated from China, so there’s a big divide in the pictures between when they were young in China and when they immigrated and came to the US. Their younger pictures are black and white. Any time I see pictures of them in black and white, they just look like entirely different people. I think of who they were before me, before moving their lives to the US. They were different people.

How was the screening at CAAMFest last night?

Jo: The challenge of an indie film coming to a small festival is that you’re always worried about how much outreach you can do or how much it’s going to connect with the audience. I was really happy that we filled up the theater and people stayed for the Q&A.

Jodi: I thought it was great. There wasn’t this mass exodus after the screening ended! [laughs] Everyone pretty much stayed. People were laughing and crying.

Did you get the laughs you were looking for, JP?

JP: Oh yeah. This is only our third festival, so not many people have seen the movie, but enough people have seen it for me to feel confident that it works for the audience. I feel like my job now is mainly to get people in the seats and make sure the picture is in focus. The folks at CAAM have been great.

This is a tiny cast, so you had to get the right people to fill those roles, since they’re all important. How did you assemble your actors, and for Jodi and Jo, what was the dynamic like on set?

JP: Jo Mei and I have worked on several shorts before. We knew a bunch of the actors personally. Andrew Pang was someone we knew from the New York Asian American theater scene. He’s done a lot of smaller roles in big movies and TV. I’ve wanted to work with him for a long time, so it was amazing. Jodi came on because people have been saying for years that Jo Mei looks like a young Jodi. She was our first choice for the mother role, so we’re really lucky.

Jo: At first we were worried that she would ignore us! [laughs]

JP: Teyonah was the lead in one of my shorts, before she did Mad Men.

Jo: Teyonah and I went to Julliard together, and Andy and Lucas are Yale grads. I knew of Lucas through my friends at Yale, and he was the perfect type of actor we wanted.

The neighborhood you shot the film in looks gorgeous.

JP: The house is actually owned by a friend of mine and his partner. When they bought the house, they told me that if I ever wanted to shoot a movie there, I could use it. I wrote a script set in his house, and in 2012 showed up at his house with it. We had free access for three weeks.

Jodi: It’s also a really interesting house, architecturally. It’s another character in the movie. The architect designed an upside-down house. It’s really modern. Usually, you walk in and it’s the living room, the kitchen, whatever. In this house, the office is downstairs, then the bedrooms are upstairs, and the kitchen, living room, and dining room are on the top floor, where the best views are. I got to stay in the master bedroom!

JP: Knowing that we had that location nailed down, it allowed us to create the story around it. It really enhanced the story. The clean lines of the house really relate to what the characters are going through, and it’s a nice juxtaposition to the nature outside.

What has your experience been as an Asian American in cinema?

Jodi: JP doesn’t bang the Asian American thing over the head. The characters have this sister-brother relationship, which everybody has. The house is so modern, so indicative of where we’ve come as Asian Americans.

Jo: In the film, we address the fact that we’re Asian, but it’s not the point. We joke about it, because we recognize that we’re in a rural, white town in Pennsylvania in the movie. But we don’t talk about our race over breakfast! We’re human beings. As somebody who’s coming out of school and trying to break into the business, there are circumstances where people are aware that we don’t have to cast Asian actresses as the nail salon worker, or the newscaster, or the waitress, so they give it to somebody else. They’re not expanding those roles, so those little roles are disappearing.

JP: I feel like I would be dishonest if I wrote the film any other way. You could have made the argument, before we hired the cast, that if we hired non-Asian actors, the film would have wider appeal. That may be true. But there’s an inability in the indie film world to process what a film like ours looks like. We don’t think it’s particularly Asian American. I’ve had plenty of white folks come up to us and say, “This isn’t that Asian.” People see Asian faces on a poster and think, “This isn’t for me.” It’s crazy. If I don’t put my work out there the way I want to, then I’m part of the problem. If we white-wash our own movies, we’re fucked!

Jodi: This movie couldn’t exist without all those movies before that focused on being Asian American. It’s an evolutionary process. I mean, I did Flower Drum Song on Broadway, and people still look at that play as the “Asian play.” People were hearing this at the ticket booth. “Do you want to see the Asian play?” This is Rodgers and Hammerstein! Oh my god. Can we ever get beyond this?

JP: In the indie world, I think if people see Asian faces, frankly, they tend to be Asians, and the film is about Asia, or they’re victims of men. I don’t think they know how to process an Asian American, middle-class family drama. At one of our Q&A’s, in Bend, Oregon, a woman that had seen the entire film raised her hand and said, “Was the entire film shot in Japan?” We had a great premiere there, and I wasn’t offended, but to me, that struck me. There’s nothing to indicate that the film takes place anywhere other than America in the present day, but because this woman saw Asian faces, she thought it was in another country.

Jo: In mainstream cinema, they don’t acknowledge the existence of Asian Americans in society. You’re in a hospital, and all the faces are black and white. Even if we were extras, it would at least acknowledge that we exist. When this begins to happen more, women like the one in Oregon wouldn’t think that Asians only exist in Asia.

Jodi: We have to tell our own stories in movies and include faces like ours. Otherwise, we’ll never get into the mainstream. Even if this movie only does an eighth of what X-Men does…

JP: I’d be happy with an eighth! [laughs] I’d be happy with one eight-hundredth!

Jodi: [laughs] You know what I’m saying!

Awesome Asian Bad Guys, which screened a couple of weeks ago at CAAMFest, is an action-comedy that follows The National Film Society, a couple of Asian Los Angeles Youtubers (Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco), as they attempt to track down and assemble the baddest, scariest, most awesome Asian bad guys from the ’80s and ’90s like Al Leong (Die Hard) and Yuji Okumoto (The Karate Kid, Part II) to kick ass and carry out a dangerous rescue mission. An homage to badass Asian actors that highlights them as the stars of the show and not throwaway two-bit villains, Awesome Asian Bad Guys is a fun, silly comedy that should tickle the fancy of anyone who fondly remembers guys like Dante Basco (Rufio, Hook). The film also stars Randall Park, Tamlyn Tomita, and Aaron Takahashi.

Co-director Patrick Epino chatted with us at CAAMFest about the National Film Society, tracking down the bad guys in real life, filming action for the first time, his experience at CAAMFest, and more.

The films at CAAMFest showed the Asian American experience in many ways, but your film views it from a different angle, one that’s more light-hearted and funny.

Patrick: We’ve done our fair share of films…We just wanted to make something kind of fun. The story of the National Film Society is that Steve and I were both in odd places. I’d made a feature that was this dark, brooding comedy. Stephen made a lot of serious short films. Things weren’t super awesome, and we met at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. We both had an interest in building audiences, new media, stuff like that. I had this idea, he had one, we combined them, and we decided to work together and become the National Film Society, which is different from both of our ideas. He wanted to use online video, I wanted to create this Wu-Tang Clan of filmmakers and really leverage audiences and networks and stuff. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s helped us to get to where we are. We started doing goofy online videos, and it translated into Awesome Asian Bad Guys. We still love all kinds of films and still have ideas for different types of projects, but for NFS and Awesome Asian Bad Guys, it’s like, let’s just make this as fun as we can.

You study film and Asian-Am stuff, and you hear about the Long Duck Dongs, the Mickey Rooney character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s…all these marginalized, emasculated Asian characters. What about the bad guys?! Those are the ones I remember! They’re awesome!

So it was as simple as that. They’re awesome!

Patrick: Yeah, it was awesome! I remember Al Leong as a kid. That guy scared me.

So you got this idea for this project about these Asian bad guys. Did you then pursue the actors?

Patrick: When we first made this Youtube video in 2011 called Awesome Asian Bad Guys, we hypothesized about making, like, The Expendables but with Asian bad guys. In maybe May 2012 we thought about making it and we brought Phil Yu, Angry Asian Man, on as an executive producer. We brought on Milton Liu as our writer, a funny, smart-ass-y kind of guy. He introduced us to Diana Williams, a great producer, super talented. With the actors…we’d shot a couple online videos with Aaron Takahashi and Dante Basco. Tamlyn Tomita knew of us. We went to Aaron, Randall (Park), just asking them to be in it. They were totally down, so we got some momentum from  that. We had contacted Al Leong through facebook for our original video, and he was super cool. It was a lot of fun hunting those guys down.

Randall is hilarious.

Patrick: Randall’s amazing. There were a couple times on set where that guy would just go. It was just him–everyone else had left the scene, and he’d so some funny things. He did this web series called “The Food” that’s just the best.

Was the film pretty scripted or was there some ad-lib involved?

Patrick: It was mostly scripted. Everyone threw in things here and there on different takes, but for the most part it’s what was in Milton’s script. We would have loved to play with more improv stuff, but we were always on the fly.

I was actually surprised at how good the action scenes were in the film.

Patrick: We were looking for fight coordinators and we ended up with this guy, Sunny Sun. He’s amazingly talented. He was a stuntman on The Expendables, he’s choreographed stuff for The Avengers. He brought some of his guys on to do the fights, and it was a pleasure working with him. So much fun. I thought I was a 90’s indie film guy. I wanted to make a Jarmusch film or a Kiarostami film or something, you know? I never learned how to choreograph action, but then I learned I don’t have to! There are people to do that for me!

There’s a great child actor in the film. She gets to participate in a lot of the action scenes as well, doing cartwheels and stuff! Where did you find her?

Patrick: We held some auditions for a girl who could do action. She’s a martial artist named Jasmin Currey. Her whole family are, like, black belts in Tae Kwon Do. She’s the sweetest kid, and it was great to work with her. I was like, oh man, this girl could kick my ass! She’s training right now, trying to perfect everything she does as a martial artist and potentially a stuntwoman.

Was the plan all along to string the webisodes together as a film?

Patrick: No, I don’t think so. The script was written, and it was a pretty long script. 60 pages. I guess it was kind of written as a TV show, with act breaks, but when it became and option to screen in festivals, we though we should make it a full piece. The vlog interjections in the film were done after the fact to act as transitions that contextualize what we do for people who don’t know who the hell we are. (laughs)

How has your experience at CAAMFest been?

Patrick: Great. I’m from the Bay, so it’s been a real pleasure. Friends and family came to our screening last night.

Who are some working Asian American filmmakers you particularly enjoy?

Patrick: I really like J.P. Chan’s stuff. I’m a big fan of Ham Tran’s work. I met him in ’04 in Toronto for his short film, The Anniversary. There are a lot of people doing good stuff online. I’m excited to see what the Wong Fu guys do with the money that they raised on Indiegogo. I have no idea what their script is about, so I’m excited for that.

CAAMFest, formerly known as the San Francisco International Asian Film Festival, kicks off tomorrow night, Thursday, March 13th, and runs through March 23rd. Presented by the Center for Asian American Media, the festival pays tribute to pioneers of Asian cinema while also providing a platform for emerging Asian filmmakers to showcase their new projects. With Asians and Asian Americans being woefully underrepresented in all forms of media, the festival gives much needed exposure to the Asian cinematic perspective.

Opening Night, Centerpiece, Closing Night, and Special Presentations

The fest kicks off at the Castro Theater with the North American premiere of How to Fight in Six Inch Heels, a Vietnamese box office hit that’s been compared to The Devil Wears Prada. After a post-screening Q&A with director Ham Tran and his cast and crew, the festivities will continue at the Asian Art Museum for the Opening Night Gala.

The festival has not one, but two centerpiece films this year. American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, by director Grace Lee, chronicles the life of Grace Lee Boggs, the 98-year-0ld feminist and social activist. Also being highlighted is a film on the other side of the spectrum entirely: Cold Eyes is a South Korean crime thriller that had great success overseas.

Closing out the festival is Delano Manongs, which will be screening in the East Bay at the New Parkway theater in Oakland, a first for the festival. The doc follows the story of Larry Itliong, a Filipino American labor organizer who spearheaded strikes for farmers on the west coast.

Other festival highlights:

• Spotlight on Grace Lee
• Retrospective on filmmakers and Dharamshala International Film Festival directors Ritu and Tenzing
• A Run Run Shaw tribute
• Out of the Vaults, a showcase of two films from Joseph Sunn Jue’s Grandview Film Company
• Memories to Light 2.0, an exploration of Asian America through home movies

Directions In Sound and Superawesome Launch

The folks at CAAMFest has always been known to throw the biggest, coolest festival parties and events around, and they aren’t slouching this year. Directions in Sound is a live music program showcasing music acts from Korea, Vietnam, and the Bay Area, and this year CAAM is presenting two live concerts: “Here Comes Treble”, an all-female show, and “Korean Showcase”, consisting of all Korean bands.

My most anticipated event is the “Superawesome Launch Featuring Awesome Asian Bad Guys”, which will be held at the Oakland Museum of California. Featuring live music, an Asian-focused Off the Grid, the event also includes a screening of Awesome Asian Bad Guys, an action-comedy by Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco that stars old Asian actors who you’ve seen play evil dudes in movies for years.

For more info, visit caamfest.com