{"id":994720,"date":"2026-08-11T16:49:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/994720\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:49:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:49:33","slug":"dallas-asian-american-film-festival-premieres-in-late-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/994720\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Asian American Film Festival premieres in late August"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas has spent a quarter-century learning to love Asian cinema. The Asian Film Festival of Dallas turned 25 this year<\/a>, and it has earned every candle on its cake. But there\u2019s a difference between watching stories from across the world and watching stories told by the people who live down the street from you. That gap is exactly what the inaugural Dallas Asian American Film Festival<\/a> (DAAFF) wants to close. <\/p>\n

DAAFF arrives Aug. 28-29, spread across three of the Dallas Arts District\u2019s most recognizable spaces: the Dallas Museum of Art, the Crow Museum of Asian Art <\/a>and the Nasher Sculpture Center. The festival is the work of the Dallas Asian American Art Collective presented by the Bowdon Family Foundation. Of the 10 short films selected, 70% come from Texas filmmakers and 50% are North Texas productions. Every screening is free and open to the public, but tickets are limited.<\/p>\n

For some time now, Texas has been quietly building an exapansive film ecosystem, and with conversations around incentives like Senate Bill 22<\/a> \u2014 the state\u2019s film incentive legislation designed to attract and grow production in Texas with the help of $150 million in state funding each year \u2014 the local scene is feeling something it hasn\u2019t always had: hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since SB 22 passed, the film scene here \u2014 everyone\u2019s feeling a lot more hopeful,\u201d says DAAFF director, Christina Hahn. \u201cFolks in Dallas and Texas are being galvanized. Like, \u2018Oh, maybe we can take Atlanta\u2019s spot.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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The numbers behind that hope are striking. Texas is home to the third largest population of Asian Americans in the country, after California and New York. That\u2019s a community that has long had institutions around it, but not always ones built to reflect it. DAAFF exists to provide, as Hahn puts it, \u201calternate narratives for what Asian American and Asian Texan art looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Laura Hyunjhee Kim\u2019s experimental short, \u201cSky\u2019s Edge,\u201d blends surreal digital imagery with references to a 15th-century Korean poetic form. <\/p>\n

Dallas Asian American Film Festival<\/p>\n

A festival director who <\/strong>cares<\/p>\n

Hahn started the Dallas Asian American Art Collective in 2023 with a simple, stubborn question: \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of artist friends, but not a lot of them are Asian. I\u2019ve got a lot of Asian friends, but not a lot of them are artists. I wondered, if we had this intersection, would people come?\u201d<\/p>\n

They came. What started as four people grew into a monthly gathering of 30, then into curated shows and a short film showcase at the Crow Museum. DAAFF is the natural next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur programming is different and unique,\u201d Hahn says plainly. \u201cMostly because we have to be creative [with our resources].\u201d<\/p>\n

That instinct shapes everything, from a rigorous selection process led by more than a dozen North Texas screeners to a lecture series that ran in the lead-up to the festival. It even shows up in the closing party, where South Asian Texan DJ duo Dil Se<\/a> takes the decks at Kessler Studios.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also intentional about what \u201cAsian\u201d means.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think Asian, a lot of people just think Korean, Japanese, Chinese [East Asia]. But West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia [also exist] \u2014 Asian looks really diverse and different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Empashis and undertsnading of that diversity is reflected in the festival\u2019s branding, its roster of programmers and in the lineup itself. What Hahn is most proud of? The 50% North Texas representation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love being able to prove a point,\u201d she says. \u201cHey \u2014 we have Asian Texan filmmaking talent here, and we should be showcasing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The films: strange, funny and unmistakably local<\/strong><\/p>\n

The program spans 10 shorts across animated, experimental and live action blocks, plus a feature \u2014 the range is wide.<\/p>\n

Dallas-based filmmaker Uday Narayanan\u2019s \u201cThe Criminal\u201d is gleeful chaos: a madman in a beat-up Honda Civic crashes through luxury buildings, American monuments and eventually outruns a nuclear bomb.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs over-the-top as it is, I feel like people will relate to the insane maximalism of it all,\u201d Narayanan says. \u201cWith the increasingly ridiculous state of our country, it almost makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also captures the festival\u2019s whole mission: proof that Asian American cinema is \u201cnot some aggregate of clich\u00e9s, but a diverse array of stories that engage audiences in bold and unique ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura Hyunjhee Kim\u2019s \u201cSky\u2019s Edge\u201d lands at the opposite end of the spectrum \u2014 lyrical, strange and formally ambitious. The Korean-American UT Dallas professor and multimedia artist calls her collaborations with musician Chris Corrente \u201cmusic video artworks.\u201d The pieces draw from a 15th-century Korean poetic form that women used to record their journeys and inner lives outside the boundaries of formal literary tradition. Kim takes that lineage and pushes it into a world of borderless screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cA festival\u2019s first edition is its own kind of edgeless space,\u201d Kim says. \u201cThe shape of what it will become hasn\u2019t been fixed yet. Being part of that inaugural moment feels like a shared beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Dallas-based filmmaker Kais Marz\u2019s \u201cMarsupial,\u201d a live action short about a screenwriter caught between love and ambition \u2014 relatable, character-driven and completely unbothered by expectation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Among the films screening at this year\u2019s Dallas Asian American Film Festival is Kais Marz\u2019s \u201cMarsupial.\u201d The short film follows two people finding tenderness in the mundane spaces of everyday life.<\/p>\n

Dallas Asian American Film Festival<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film leans into what it actually feels like to live that artist life \u2014 the uncertainty, the identity of it,\u201d Marz says. As an Arab-American filmmaker, being included here means something larger: \u201cNot just a space for one community, but a space where underrepresented filmmakers in general can find a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anchoring the program is Tadashi Nakamura\u2019s feature \u201cThird Act.\u201d Making its Dallas premiere, this Sundance-featured documentary is an intimate portrait of the director\u2019s father, Robert A. Nakamura, who is known as the godfather of Asian-American cinema. The film moves through legacy, family and historical trauma, following Robert\u2019s later years after a Parkinson\u2019s diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Hahn describes the program as moving in reverse chronological order: the experimental shorts as a look toward the future, the live action shorts as a portrait of the present, and \u201cThird Act\u201d as a tribute to where it all came from.<\/p>\n

Moving forward<\/p>\n

Hahn is planning to host DAAFF to run every other year, alternating with Ginger Roots<\/a>, the collective\u2019s week-long arts festival, so the team doesn\u2019t burn out. She imagines future editions led by different Asian-American collectives across Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be the singular voice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But for right now, this August, what it looks like is 10 short films, one feature and a room full of people. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only that we belong,\u201d Hahn says. \u201cIt\u2019s being comfortable saying we belong here just as much as anyone else. Look at our stuff. Look at our art.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information and the festival\u2019s full calendar can be found online. <\/a><\/p>\n

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