The Chinese Culture Foundation is pleased to announce our involvement with the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival!

22ND ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL – A presentation of NAATA with more than 121 films and videos the 22nd San Francisco International
Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) unspools March 4-11 at the AMC Kabuki8 Theatres and the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and at Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, and March 19-21 at the Camera 3 Cinemas in San Jose.

This year we are co-presenting the following program(s) with the Festival.

CHINESE RESTAURANTS: SONG OF THE EXILE
World Premiere
Canada 2003 | 79mins | Video Color | English, Mandarin, Hebrew & Turkish w/E.S.

WED 03.10 6:45PM
CHIN10 AMC Kabuki 8 Theaters

SAT 03.20 12:15PM
CHIN20 CAMERA 3 CINEMAS

The family-run Chinese restaurant is a global icon of immigration, community
and good (or bad) food. They dot even the most remote of landscapes as
cultural outposts of brave sojourners, the bringers of dim sum and fortune
cookies. A deeper look inside them, however, reveals a complex history of
cultural migration and national politics.

SONG OF THE EXILE is a fascinating exploration of family-run Chinese
restaurants in Israel, South Africa and Turkey. In Haifa, Yan Yan Restaurant
is run by the Chinese Vietnamese refugee Kien Wong, a community organizer
doing his best to raise his young Christian Chinese Israeli family amidst
the dramatic tensions of the Middle East. Golden Dragon was Cape Town's
first Chinese restaurant, and is run by Onkuen and Maylee, an activist
mother-daughter team for whom South Africa's apartheid is a recent memory.
In Istanbul, the simply named Chinese Restaurant has been home for the
multi-generational Wang family since 1957; they now watch as its youngest
members curiously explore their mixed-race Chinese Turkish identities.

A brilliant and incisive look at the intersection of Chinese immigration and
global politics of the last half-century, SONG OF THE EXILE is the first
segment of a groundbreaking series (future episodes will cover Argentina,
Trinidad & Tobago, Norway and many others), and required viewing for all
those passionate about food, politics and history.

PURPLE BUTTERFLY (ZI HUDIE)
US Premiere
China/France 2003 | 127mins | 35mm Color | Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese &
Cantonese w/ E.S.

FRI 03.05 9:15PM
PURP05 Castro Theater

Set apart from much of contemporary Chinese cinema, director Lou Ye's
(SUZHOU RIVER) visually sumptuous, hypnotizing features have revolved around
topics of love and fate, coincidence and possibility. In PURPLE BUTTERFLY he
signs his charismatic signature to a page of Chinese history that is rarely
dealt with: the activities of the underground anti-Japanese resistance
movement during the thirties.

Cynthia (Zhang Ziyi) is a young Chinese woman who is in love with Itami
(Toru Nakamura), a Japanese man about to be sent home for military service.
A devastated Cynthia moves back to Shanghai only to witness the death of her
elder brother during an attack by the Japanese extreme right. She changes
her name to Ding Hui and joins a secret resistance group code-named Purple
Butterfly, the same group that, years later, will plot to assassinate Itami.

Breathtakingly beautiful, PURPLE BUTTERFLY makes the viewer spin in a vortex
of emotions and information. Eschewing a linear narrative, the film requires
its viewers to abandon themselves periodically to the camera, which lingers
on the expressions-and tears-of its heroes. Well-suited to the torment of
its characters, the unconventional structure privileges visuals over
dialogue to narrate a chapter of Asia's past, reminding us that history is
made up, above all, of individual lives.

PURCHASING TICKETS
Tickets are now on sale at:
http://www.naatanet.org/festival, or call 415.478.2277.

Purchasing in advance is highly advised, as shows will sell out! Discounted
group tickets are available, as well as our special CASTRO PASS: $50 for
access to all 12 films showing at the Castro Theatre, including PICADILLY,
our Centerpiece Presentation.