Daily Archives: February 29, 2012

The Defector trailer

The Defector trailer

Upwards of 300,000 North Koreans have escaped from their country and are in hiding, hoping to find their way to freedom. The Defector is about their story, as well as the Western humanitarian aid workers who form an international network, a modern underground railroad, to help these fugitives find freedom.

They’ve put well over a year’s research into The Defector, but the film is much more than reportage documentary. With a dramatic approach to story and a signature POV style, The Defector is an unparalleled intimate POV experience that follows 2 sides of the story: Western aid workers and North Korean defectors as their fates collide in the underground railway. There are high stakes for all involved and the emotions and tensions during the journey are dramatic. The production crew of The Defector will film undercover as we delve into why middle-class aid workers would risk their own lives to help North Koreans. The film and interactive website also takes you inside the life of a North Korean who is fleeing the only country, the only reality she has ever known. We gain new insight into what is happening in North Korea, and the new challenges faced by those who leave DPRK today. They also celebrate those who put their lives on the line, the unsung heroes of this modern humanitarian crisis.

The Defector is about this human crisis. It’s a film with a lot of heart, and it’s got guts.

Here’s a few more North Korean related videos: The Man From North Korea, North Korean Refugee Adoption Act, and Resilience.

The Defector: animation trailer

The Defector trailer

Cook Salon at 2012 SFIAAFF

If you’re in San Francisco, be sure to drop by the Cook Salon at the 2012 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Food is the next rock n’ roll. From celebrity chefs to food trucks, our culinary culture is exploding with innovative new tastes and eating establishments, and many of the must-try offerings in the Bay Area are Asian American restaurants and pop-ups. In this salon, two of the hottest local chefs will discuss their experiences and food while they create a dish live with the audience. Consult your recipe box or app and come to share food ideas!

Featuring:
Preeti Mistry, Chef, Juhu Beach Club, Top Chef Alum
Beverly Kim, Chef De Cuisine, Aria Restaurant Chicago, Top Chef Alum

Cook Salon Spotlight with Preeti Mistry

Cool and Calm by dumbfoundead

Cool and Calm by dumbfoundead

Rapper dumbfoundead dropped the music video for “Cool and Calm” off his DFD album. In the video, he lives in a aparment full of beautiful women. He shows his Charlie Sheen side with the trio of women cooking for him and massaging him. The emcee stay calm and cool through the tough decisions in life. How we view the decisions made boils down to perspective. You can download the single on Cool and Calm - DFD or amazon.

Big dreams coming out this little apartment. Listen to more dumbfoundead: For You, BRB, Are We There Yet?, and Love is a Song (DFD Remix).

Cool and Calm by dumbfoundead

Lyrics to Cool and Calm by dumbfoundead

Verse 1:
Waking up to instrumentals playing, Smoke up in the ceiling fan
Complicated wordplay but really I’m a simple man
I like my weather good, I like my women hood
I keep it one hundred, and get misunderstood

Don’t get my words twisted now, we ain’t all the same
Some got a silver spoon, others have a ball and chain
Some wish you all the best, some wish you all the pain
Life’s a game and I’m trying to make the hall of fame
This society asks you to pick a side
Every minute of your life three hundred and sixty five
Red or blue, big or small, yes or no, right or wrong
The difference between the two is the feeling of I belong
Yeah, we in the middle of all this
The temperatures rising like the middle of August
They litter the airwaves, you pick up the garbage
Big dreams coming out this little apartment

Hook x2
All I know is keep it cool
I stay calm
They ask me “How you do that? What is this fool on?”
A little bit of this, a little bit of that
It’s the whole lot of nothing that keeps me on track

Verse 2
Never reached six digits in my bank account
Credit score red, same color that I paint the town
Three month relationship, tells me she can’t wait around
You can break me down, as long as my fam’s safe and sound
I keep the weed lit, and keep my glass full
I call it real talk, they call it asshole
I call it on the grind, she calls it selfish
She needs me all the time, I call her helpless
Is it a problem that I don’t care
Maybe that’s the reason that I’m stuck at almost there, it’s no fair
On this path, there’s no warnings or road flares
All is fair in love games and warfare
Another underdog story for the books
But I promise that the story is a foreign as I look
Waiting at the bus stop to touring on a bus
When the going gets tough I keep it up

Hook x2

Seeking Asian Female trailer

Seeking Asian Female trailer

Every year thousands of American men go to China to find a bride. The documentary film “Seeking Asian Female” follows an eccentric modern love story about Steven and Sandy – an 60 year old aging white man with “yellow fever” who is obsessed with marrying any Asian woman, and the young 30 year old Chinese bride he finds online. When Steven meets a willful young woman named Sandy from Anhui, China, over the internet and she agrees to migrate to the US to marry him. Fantasy and reality collide in this modern love story.

Told through the lens of Chinese American filmmaker Debbie Lum, who becomes the couple’s reluctant translator and marriage counselor, the film examines the penetrating effect of stereotype and expectations on love and relationships today. Debbie documents and narrates with skepticism and humor, from the early stages of Steven’s search for an Asian bride, through the moment Sandy steps foot in America for the first time, to a year into their precarious union. Global migration, Sino-American relations and the perennial battle of the sexes, weigh in on the fate of their marriage in this intimate and quirky personal documentary. “Seeking Asian Female” is at the intersection of several timely subjects – finding love online, an increasing interest in New China, and what it means to have a race-based dating preference in a supposedly “post-racial” America.

Seeking Asian Female trailer

Justice Has A Name by Mickey Cho

Justice Has A Name by Mickey Cho

Rapper Mickey Cho released his single “Justice Has A Name” to celebrate Freedom Day. He talks about modern day slavery due to human sex trafficking. Listen to his heartfelt lyrics rooted in his Christian faith. He’s hoping for justice. Justice has a name.. and His name his Jesus!

Justice Has A Name by Mickey Cho

Lyrics to Justice Has A Name by Mickey Cho

i still remember back in 06
the Lord lit my heart up for the broken and the hopeless
i still remember first reading about these girls
who were living in my city, but lost in a different world
and i, couldn’t imagine all the pain and the damage
these women had to endure, i wondered what really happened
to get them to where they’re at, was it financial famine?
or did their daddies mistreat them and leave them alone abandoned?
was it a lack of men who had the power to stand in?
where they had fallen, and show them that they were championed?
and as a man i felt the weight of it
for every time i lusted, every time i called them hoes or tolerated it
every time i idolized celebrities and players
who would talk about the women they had run through like conveyors
i felt sick to be a part of it
but understood the power of the one who came to free us from the dark of it

justice ain’t a principal, justice is a prince
and His name is King Jesus, the redeemer of our sins
justice ain’t a concept, justice is a man
and His name is Christ Jesus, who’s the Lion and Lamb

and he’s come to set every single captive free
that’s why i stand in His glory as His hands and feet

i find the root of it’s the wickedness of man
cause the industry exists, only if there’s a demand
and we demanded it, and stayed anonymous
pornography and prostitution function so synonymously
one fuels the other, the other fuels another
and what we have’s a multi-billion dollar undercover scheme
gleaming like a business, that’s the way it functions
but their business runs on victimizing people in destruction
see it’s, one thing to free the women from the men
but can we break the slavery that’s in the hearts of men?
and it’s more than just a humanistic effort
it’s the movement of their souls, to the kind and loving shepherd
it’s only in His arms, every soul could be restored
that’s why we take them out of harm, to the one who will restore
He’s committed to it, His justice will endure
liberation for the men and women, trusting that their yours

Join the Bone Marrow National Registry

Join the Bone Marrow National Registry

A group of Asian Americans out in Chicago found that a majority of people don’t understand the process at bone marrow drives and think it involves needles or will be painful. They made this short video to entertain but also educate people on the process of joining the registry. All it takes is a 5 minute cheek swab to register into the Bone Marrow Registry and save a life.

Registering is simply signing up to be a potential donor, there is no actual donating occurring at the drive. If you are a match for somebody, they will contact you asking if you would like to go through with the actual procedure. Your 5 minute cheek swab could help someone like Janet Liang.

Also if you’re in the Chicago area, check out the Be the Match – Chicago YouTube Benefit Concert. Get me info here.

Join the Bone Marrow National Registry