Story and photos by Allan Cho

Nesika (Ne-SAY-ka) means “we, us, our” in Chinook, originating from a trade language used by many different Aboriginal groups on the Westcoast.  Used extensively in British Columbia during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinook was tool of communication between Aboriginals and early European traders.

Forward a hundred years, in February 2008, the Province of B.C.’s Multicultural Advisory Council sponsored the Provincial Nesika Awards to celebrate British Columbia’s cultural diversity and Indigenous communities.  Each year since,  four award winners in the individual, business, organization and youth categories are recognized at the Awards Event on Nov. 23 during B.C. Multiculturalism Week.   Elder Larry Grant giving a traditional Musqueam welcome.

 Sitting here are Mo Dhaliwal (Acting Chair); Shellina Lakhdhir (Acting Vice-Chair), John Yap, MLA, and Larry Grant (Musqueam Elder).  And the winners Julie Linkletter (President of Collingwood Neighbourhood House); John Donnelly (John Donnelly Events Management); Winnie Cheung (Women Transforming Cities); Jorge Salazar (Vancouver Foundation).

The Multicultural Advisory Council (MAC) was officially created in 1990 to provide advice to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism on issues related to multiculturalism and anti-racism.  This year, they announced the winners of the Nesika Awards.

Winnie Cheung is a dear friend of the community, and has been a tireless supporter of Asian Canadian community initiatives, particularly in the arts and culture.  Winnie has been instrumental in establishing several signature programs to foster interactions between international and local students, engage the community with UBC, and promote learning through the appreciation of cultural diversity.

Besides Women Transforming Cities, Winnie is a leader in many community organizations, serving as a board of director on the Laurier Institution, Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society’s explorASIAN, Hong Kong Canada Business Association, and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW).   Winnie is also a published author and writer, most recently a translator for her mother’s book Childhood Lost.  Congratulations again Winnie!

The audience in the standing room-only filled room was also treated to a wonderful repertoire of music from Big World Band, a group based in Vancouver and formed in 2011 by its member musicians. The group combines musical instruments and traditions of the world in various new ways to create what it brands as a “new world music.”  Its music performances range from ancient pieces, to new recombinations and arrangements, to new compositions — the goal is to celebrate the meeting of many cultures.

For Gung Haggis, this is Allan Cho.

VAFF’s after party took place at the much beloved Wild Rice, a modern Chinese fusion restaurant on 117 West Pender Street.  Wild Rice has been host to VAFF for the past number of years, and each party has gotten bigger, better, and wilder.

It was fantastic late night of networking and socializing with celebrities, filmmakers and VAFF organizers.

Mark Lee who has been a volunteer at VAFF since 2005, making him one of the longest serving volunteers of the festival.  Mark was a founder of the Asian Canadian Cultural Organization at UBC,  Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives Newspaper, as well as a docent at the Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden.   He’s a community mover and shaker.

Among the celebrities were Olivia Cheng, from the movie Iris Chang: Rape of Nanjing and actor Rick Tae (most recently in the TV series Artic Air).

Also on hand was our friend Bev Nann, community builder, former President and founding member of ExplorASIAN and currently on the board of the the the Laurier Institution.

Mark Oh (caught in picture), did a terrific job as Volunteer Coordinator this year for VAFF.  Along with Thomas Greiner, these two gentlemen were able to bring together a collective of new volunteers and make the festival happen.  Lots of time, we don’t give enough credit to those volunteers who work so tirelessly behind the scenes to make the festival happen — they are the ones who sell the tickets, do the marketing, and operate the theatres during screening.  Kudos to you all, VAFF!

Speaking of volunteers, Callan Tay has been a mainstay at VAFF for a number of years now.  A film afficionado, Callan’s knowledge of films is unsurpassed.  He’s one of many volunteers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes, including picking out the venues to make these film festival parties a success.  Callan was last year’s Volunteer Coordinator – and stayed on throughout VAFF 2012 as a volunteer, helping steer the ship.  

For VAFF 2012, I tried to do my best Todd impersonation here as a blogger.  I had a lot of fun.  VAFF 2012 had a number of excellent films.  The quality is getting higher now.  It always helps that there’s a home-grown talent like Harry Shum Jr., and Kelly Hu, too.  With the emergence of Asian Canadian filmmakers and actors, you can see that the future is bright.

Reporting for Gung Haggis, this is Allan Cho

VAFF 2012 ended with a host of great films.   Here is the lovely and vivacious VAFF executive Winnie Tam, who is this year’s Director of Marketing as well as Festival Programmer, introducing the program and giving welcoming remarks to the audience to the much anticipated Spirit of Nihonmachi and Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom.

Both films give a wonderful glimpse into Japanese culture on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.  Spirit of Nihnomachi is an excellent documentary the people behind the  annual Powell Street Festival that celebrates Japanese-Canadian culture and their history in Vancouver, while the Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is a touching documentary of the survivors of the the March 2011 tsunami that destroyed much of their cities and lives.   Beautifully told, the film relates nature to destruction and rebirth, and examines the Japanese people’s deep-rooted relationship with the cherry blossom in helping them cope with the aftermath of one of the country’s most devastating natural disasters. Both films are testaments to the resilient nature of the Japanese people.

The festival ended with a bang, as audiences were captivated by a remarkable film White Frog.   Having an all-star cast of Harry Shum Jr., Joan Chen, Kelly Hu, and B.D. Wong, and starring the emerging Bamboo Stewart, White Frog is a coming-of-age story about 15 year old Nick Young (Booboo Stewart) who is a neglected teen with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Surprisingly produced with only under a $1 million budget, the film touched audiences deeply about Nick’s  life as he is challenged and ultimately changed forever when tragedy hits his family. Taken under the wing of his brother’s best friends, the young man goes through a personal journey that forces him out of his comfort zone and reconcile who he is and who he wants to become.   The audience was then treated to a live a Q&A session with the director of the film Quentin Lee and Writer/Producer Ellie Wen.   Afterwards, the audience was treated to a night of partying over at the Wild Rice!

VAFF picked a number of great films for Day 2 of its program.  Asian American films are getting better by the year, and one can immediately feel the intensity and the maturity of films these past few years, particularly this year’s.   There was one film that really stood out this evening, Model Minority.   There not a dry eye in the theatre by the end of the film.  An emotionally intense and thought-provoking story, Model Minority follows the downfall of a vivacious loveable girl who gets caught up with the wrong crowd, and on the wrong side of the law.

Starring the wonderful Nichole Bloom O’Connor, the movie takes us on a journey of one L.A. teenager’s descent into the seamy underworld of drug dealers and juvenile prison — her life spinning out of control amidst a family in turmoil.  We watch on helplessly as Kayla the underprivileged Japanese American 16-year-old seemingly throws away her all the promise and ambition built up her entire life in a mere matter of months as she innocently falls in love, only to discover that the blood of her family is truly thicker than water, as the saying goes.  This film has already won a number of awards, including the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, Las Vegas Film Festival, and the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, and it doesn’t surprise that this film will spawn the careers of actors and director.

The evening ended with a pair of remarkable films, Lost Lagoon and a Day is Far Too Long.  These two films shows the breathaking beauty of Vancouver — often, those who live here don’t get to see our city on the big screen, so it’s always a treat when a great story uses the landscape of familiarity of Vancouver as a backdrop to stories about displacement and migration.  Sponsored by the Korean community organization, c3society, these two films are fitting tributes to the vibrant diversity of the city of Vancouver’s large Korean community.  We often forget that great films are not limited to hallyu — it is also found in the talent on home soil.

VAFF 2012 is celebrating its 16th birthday.   Can you believe it’s been sixteen years of great films by VAFF?    The festival started off with a question, why isn’t there a film festival in Canada celebrating Asian Canadian films?

Over the years, there’s been pressure from within and without to turn to more foreign films, to have films in Asian languages so that it could appeal to newer immigrant audiences or those more familiar with the latest Asian blockbusters.   There’s plenty of those films at the Vancouver International Film Festival.  So why do we need more?   Courageously, VAFF has stuck to its mission and mandate to promote great Asian Canadian and Asian American films by North American film makers.  That’s the only way to grow our industry.  Through home-grown talent.

VAFF’s volunteer staff has also been stellar throughout the years.   Led Mark Oh and Thomas Greiner, this year’s volunteers ran a smooth campaign.  Lots of times, we forget just how critical the work of volunteers are to the success of a film festival.  Lots of festivals do not succeed because of its inability to retain volunteers.   There is little accolade behind volunteering, but it’s always these individuals who make the difference.

Congratulations to everyone at VAFF 2012 for a great ending to Day 2 of the festival.   Look at the packed audiences as they leave International Village.   The after party continued at LaCasita, where everyone enjoyed themselvesa late night drink and Mexican cuisine.  Well deserved!

It’s hard not to get choked up (at least a little, if you’re human) when the credits come and you’re left reflecting on your own life at the end of Daylight Savings.   Remarkable film, awesome performances, and a startling balance of lightheartedness and emotional depth makes Daylight Savings a hit sequel to Surrogate Valentine.   In the prequel, Danny Boyle’s film revolved around a sad sack musician love-struck with a girl seemingly eons out of his league.  You felt pity, but nothing more than that for Goh Nakamura.  With Daylight Savings evolves a far different Goh, one who has matured and toughened up — a Goh who still quite doesn’t know what he wants in life, but puts himself out there in search of it regardless of what he ends up with.

Goh Nakamura is a singer, writer, and actor.   His previous movie, Surrogate Valentine, drew rave reviews, including one in the New York Times about the witty and likeable, but awkward way in which his lines falls so naturally with the moment and context.

Goh is also a beautiful singer, and it showed as he treated the VAFF afterparty audience to a selection of his songs from Surrogate Valentine and Daylight Savings.

Yea-Ming Chen is a Taiwanese American singer who is in an emerging Indie rock band, Dreamdate. What was amazing about Daylight Savings is that both these actors are not professionally trained, but were discovered at other film festivals.  Although heavily scripted, the film relied entirely on the chemistry between these two actors who had rehearsed and played out their lines together in public spaces like stories and bars to ensure the spontaneity and naturalness of their characters.

Reporting for Gung Haggis, this is Allan Cho