My first experience at CAAMFest was a blast. It was exciting to see Asian-American cinema come into its own right before my eyes. Being that there aren’t many true representations of Asian America in cinema today (that’s an understatement), the field is wide open for these Asian-American independent filmmakers to make their voices heard in whatever way they see fit; they’re pioneers in that way. They represented the culture well, with staggeringly varied and unique films that show just how versatile, imaginative, and inclusive the Asian-American perspective can be.

The festival didn’t focus exclusively on the medium of film, however, and provided a platform for creative minds in other fields; various chefs, bands, DJs, and writers got to express themselves through their respective mediums as well. From live concerts, to food tastings, to book signings, there was a lot to experience at CAAMFest. The different art forms converged to make for some amazing live events.

At San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, Amrit Singh, executive editor at Stereogum.com, screened Dosa Hunt, his short film in which he takes some of his New Yorker musician buddies (of bands like Das Racist, Vampire Weekend, and Neon Indian) and searches for the best dosa (a South Indian potato-filled crepe) in New York City. CAAM provided us with a dosa truck outside the museum that satiated our gargantuan dosa cravings, and Heems—of the now-defunct Das Racist and star of Dosa Hunt—played a trippy set with fellow former Das Racist member, Dapwell, to top off the night. A great movie, delicious food, and live music all worked together to put on an entertaining show.

There were a handful of excellent films at the festival, a lot of good ones, and some clunkers. Not everything I watched was gold, not even close. However, each film contributes to defining Asian-American cinema, which is immeasurably valuable. It’ll be a joy to watch how Asian-American cinema evolves over the next few years, and CAAMFest is the best place on earth to witness this growth. I look forward to what next year’s festival brings to the table.

Way Too Indie’s Top 5 films at CAAMFest 2013

#1 Seeking Asian Female

There’s something organic and unpredictable about the way Seeking Asian Female evolves as a story that captured me like no other film at the festival. The title refers to the attraction of old white men to young Asian women, or “yellow fever”, but the film isn’t about that at all. It’s about two completely different people from opposite ends of the earth who are forced to fall in love on a time crunch and the director filming them who somehow gets wrapped up in all their quarrels. At the end of the film, I was overjoyed to find that it had taught me something about myself. Watch this movie and prepare to have your expectations shattered.

#2 Abigail Harm

What struck me about Abigail Harm was the unearthly, enchanting version of New York director Lee Isaac Chung creates. The barrenness, the angelic light, the silence— this is a New York never before seen on screen. His take on the classic Korean folktale “The Woodcutter and the Nymph” is stirring, visceral, and modern, though it stays true to the humanistic tone of the original. Amanda Plummer is endearing and magnetic, effortlessly acting as the film’s emotional core. There is a sort of anti-chase-scene that takes place in a beautiful empty building that is breathtaking. An unforgettable film.

#3 Late Summer

I entered this film feeling as jaded as can be, expecting a third-rate attempt at emulating the great Yasujiro Ozu. I quickly realized how wrong I was as Ernie Park’s elegant homage to Ozu serenaded me into a state of calm and awareness. Park clearly understands what makes Ozu great and utilizes the master’s tools with a deft hand. His telling of an Asian story through a black family in Tennessee is a brilliant angle that gives Late Summer a distinctly Asian-American voice.

#4 Harana

Harana affected me on a personal level, as I’m a Filipino-American born in the United States who has never left the country, let alone visited the Philippines. This film is so beautiful and charming, it made me want to hop on a plane and visit my parents’ homeland. However, this movie should work for any romantic who misses the good old days when it was cool to be a little corny when courting a girl (Say Anything…). There are so many touching moments in Harana, so many beautiful songs and warm conversations that it’s hard not to fall in love with it. If you’re having a bad day, watch Harana.

#5 Midnight’s Children

Though many feel that Deepa Mehta and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a little dense and scatterbrained narratively, but I found myself too distracted by the stunning visuals in the film most of the time to notice. Yes, there are some issues here—Rushdie is obviously not completely comfortable writing screenplays—but the problems are easy to ignore when you get so lost in the world being created on-screen. The sheer scope of the film is awe-inspiring, the cinematography is gorgeous and whimsical, and the cast is on-point. Flaws and all, it’s a colorful, wild ride that shouldn’t be missed.

Abigail Harm

Abigail Harm is a modern interpretation of a classic Korean folktale that drips with atmosphere and expertly balances fantasy with raw human emotion. Set in a darker, otherworldly version of New York City, we follow the lonely Abigail (Amanda Plummer), a woman unseen; her only human interaction is with the blind people she aids by reading books to them. She discovers an enigmatic intruder in her apartment (Will Patton), who she greets with warm hospitality, which inspires him to offer her a chance at true love. He instructs Abigail to visit an abandoned warehouse where she finds an attractive young man (Tetsuo Kuramochi) taking a bath who has seemingly materialized out of nothing. She takes possession of the stranger’s bathrobe which wins her his undying love as long as she keeps it. Abigail reacts to the extreme sensations that come with love much like a blind person would react to seeing for the first time.

Like another CAAMFest favorite, Late Summer, Abigail Harm is a great example of what Asian American cinema can be. Director Lee Isaac Chung delivers the message of the original tale with a touch of mystery and offers up a strangely stimulating style of romance. Plummer and Kuramochi playfully spin around each other like ballet dancers, touching and exploring with childlike naiveté. Plummer is always impressive, but this may be her best work. She conveys loneliness and desolation with delicate movements and facial expressions, and her chemistry with Kuramochi is fascinating to watch.

Chung’s New York is one-of-a-kind; the typical hustle and bustle is absent, with dreamlike serenity in its place. Everything feels unstuck in time and eerily still, which helps Plummer’s performance shine. This is an ethereal, contemplative romance that should delight fans of the arthouse.

RATING: 8.5

Harana

Harana takes its name from a dying tradition in the Philippines, which is the act of a boy serenading a girl he fancies outside her house at night, in hopes that her parents will invite him inside to declare his love face to face. Nowadays, the tradition isn’t practiced nearly at all, with kids preferring to sing at their local karaoke bars. Florante, an Filipino-American guitarist, goes on a quest to gather an elderly trio of the last surviving “haranistas”— men who were masters at harana—and take them on a nostalgic tour of the Philippines to play and record previously unrecorded harana songs that would otherwise be lost.

Director Benito Bautista constantly provides beautiful moment after beautiful moment. From sublime, intimate footage of the haranistas overflowing with emotion as they sing their beloved songs, to a segment where the aging crooners enact harana on behalf of a young boy too shy to ask a girl out himself. When the haranistas bid each other farewell at the end of their tour, the emotion is overwhelming; it’s clear they will not meet again in this lifetime, though they are thankful that they got to share the experience with one another. Harana is good for the soul, a loving look at a tradition that represents the uninhibited romance lost on the youth of today.

RATING: 8.1

Sunset Stories

May (Monique Gabriella Curnen), a neurotic nurse living in Boston, is sent back to her hometown of Los Angeles and tasked with picking up and transporting a cooler containing fragile human skin tissue. She’s thrown for a loop when she runs into her ex, JP (Sung Kang), and in her befuddlement, loses the cooler. The ex-lovers revisit their damaged history as they follow the trail of the Macguffin on an adventure through the So-Cal sprawl. They (predictably) encounter painfully stereotypical LA eccentrics on their journey and learn lessons about what love really means to them.

The premise is absurd, but the fairy-tale presentation softens the blow…slightly.The film’s heart is in the right place, and its message about love is an interesting one. However, nothing can save Sunset Stories from its main problem, that it thinks it’s more clever than it is. There is a cringe-worthy scene in which two small characters, a trans-gender night club singer and a butch bike mechanic, have a long, disposable, forgettable conversation for no good reason. It’s great whenever these communities are represented on screen, but scenes like this are woefully ham-fisted. We’re smarter than that. Ernesto Foronda and Silas Howard’s direction is sterile and uninteresting, though it never looks amateurish.

Easily the film’s saving grace is the wonderful cast, who really carry the movie. Everybody is great, and the sub-par writing betrays them. Curnen is high-strung and paranoid without ever being irritating, and Kang provides the perfect amount of calm-and-collected to complement her. There’s just not enough good in Sunset Stories to warrant a watch.

RATING: 5.2