San Diego Asian film festival hits home
Christine Klee
Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Entertainment
"Children of Invention," presented as the opening film of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, is writer and director Tze Chun's first feature film. This movie has so far won 13 well-deserved festival awards, including "Grand Jury Prize, Best Film" and "Best Narrative Feature" at the SDAFF.
The Film Festival opened on October 15, at the UltraStar Mission Valley at Hazard Center. The night started with a pre-party, at which Asian food such as sushi, chicken satay and fried noodles was served. Inside the theatre, numerous booths offered activities such as a free chi reading and origami.
The film "Children of Invention" is loosely based on Tze Chun's childhood, during which he witnessed his mother falling prey to various pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are fake business models in which a person has to pay a fee to start working at a company as a salesperson, but before they start selling the products they are required to recruit a number of people. According to the employer, the employees will be paid based on the number of recruits they make, out of the other people's fees. However, only the top levels will ever actually receive any money, whereas the bottom levels of the scheme will lose their investment.
Filmmaker Chun called these schemes "a short-cut to the American Dream," only they do not work. As he had experienced these schemes as a child, the only research he did writing the movie was finding names for the companies in the movie, as almost everything they came up with had been used before by real-life companies.
However, these schemes are only part of the movie's plot, as it mainly deals with the children's reaction to losing their house and eventually their mother to one of those schemes.
"Windowbreaker," which was one of Tze Chun's first short movies, is an 11-minute short which deals with a series of break-ins in a racially diverse neighborhood. The movie was also part of the official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. "Children of Invention's" Raymond and Tina, the mai n characters, are two characters from his short film that Chun wanted to revisit in a different setting. During the writers' strike in 2007, he decided to do so and wrote the script. Between March and September of 2008, the movie was financed, filmed and edited and in October presented at Sundance.
The Film Festival opened on October 15, at the UltraStar Mission Valley at Hazard Center. The night started with a pre-party, at which Asian food such as sushi, chicken satay and fried noodles was served. Inside the theatre, numerous booths offered activities such as a free chi reading and origami.
The film "Children of Invention" is loosely based on Tze Chun's childhood, during which he witnessed his mother falling prey to various pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are fake business models in which a person has to pay a fee to start working at a company as a salesperson, but before they start selling the products they are required to recruit a number of people. According to the employer, the employees will be paid based on the number of recruits they make, out of the other people's fees. However, only the top levels will ever actually receive any money, whereas the bottom levels of the scheme will lose their investment.
Filmmaker Chun called these schemes "a short-cut to the American Dream," only they do not work. As he had experienced these schemes as a child, the only research he did writing the movie was finding names for the companies in the movie, as almost everything they came up with had been used before by real-life companies.
However, these schemes are only part of the movie's plot, as it mainly deals with the children's reaction to losing their house and eventually their mother to one of those schemes.
"Windowbreaker," which was one of Tze Chun's first short movies, is an 11-minute short which deals with a series of break-ins in a racially diverse neighborhood. The movie was also part of the official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. "Children of Invention's" Raymond and Tina, the mai n characters, are two characters from his short film that Chun wanted to revisit in a different setting. During the writers' strike in 2007, he decided to do so and wrote the script. Between March and September of 2008, the movie was financed, filmed and edited and in October presented at Sundance.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
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posted 12/15/09 @ 8:11 AM PST
The Film Festival was a great event!
Term paper service
posted 2/18/10 @ 12:06 AM PST
Great news I must say!
Lana Williams
posted 3/11/10 @ 4:48 AM PST
"Children of Invention" allowes to look at the childhood and family from a new perspective. Great movie!
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