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With the return of the summer, the 8th annual Vancouver Taiwanese Film Festival is ready to make a mark in Vancouver’s cultural scene once more. The festival presents its 2014 theme “Breakthrough” with six selections that focus on a mental state that many joyously encounter at the darkest moments of their life. The 6 films will be shown in Chinese with English subtitles. For more information about films and tickets, please visit the TWFF website.

Dr Asef Bayat, University of Illinois, will speak to his broad research areas ranging from social movements and non-movements, religion-politics-everyday life, Islam and the modern world, to urban space and politics, and international development, focusing primarily on the Middle East.

His lecture will also address themes in his latest book, “Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East” (Stanford University Press, 2010).

In February 2012, the New York Knicks, mired in a disappointed season and out of desperation, looked to the end of their bench and found Jeremy Lin, an undrafted free agent from Harvard. On the verge of seeing his lifelong NBA dream vanish, Lin – at, or near what was believed to be his last chance as  an an NBA professional – underwent a now-legendary run, obliterating stereotypes along the way, and in the process birthed a global phenomenon known as “Linsanity.” Basketball – and the world – was never the same. Director Evan Jackson Leong chronicles Jeremy Lin’s inspirational story long before that fateful month, and at a time when Lin was still struggling to find a place in a league that didn’t want him, while never wavering on his faith and hope for an opportunity.

Director / Writer: Evan Jackson Leong
Producers: Christopher C. Chen, Allen Lu, Brian Yang
Documentary – 2012 | 88min | USA | English

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Venue: Downtown Vancouver Public Library, Alice MacKay Room | Library Square Conference Centre | 350 West Georgia Street | Vancouver, BC V6B 6B1 | 604.331.3823 | explorASIAN is proud to be partners with VAFF for this event.

Choose the Genre.  Pitch the Story.  Make the Film.

Are you mighty? Take the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon challenge: make an 8-minute short film in 12 days. Think it’s easy? Find out. More.   The Vancouver Asian Film Festival (VAFF)’s Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon (MAMM) kicks off its 10th Year with our open call for entries! Are you and your team up to the challenge of being super-filmmakers?

Gather your team and submit your registration through our online form. Your team will then get to pitch your idea and create an original short film between the contest dates. Winning submissions will be shown at the concluding Gala Screening and afterparty. Registration, contest rules, eligibility, and list of genres will be posted online at www.vaff.org very soon. Stay tuned!

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REGISTRATION FOR MAMM 10 IS COMING SOON.  What’s the full list of prizes? What’s the requirement? Who’s on the judging panel? Who’s in MAMM 10 and what are the creative elements? Check back for updates, and for information on registration, contest rules, eligibility, and list of genres.

explorASIAN is proud to be partners with VAFF 2014.  See you all there!

Graphic novelists are contemporary minstrels, visual balladeers, whose stories are that rare and most wonderful of things – a marriage of text and image.

For Orijit Sen, David Wong, and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, the graphic novel is an extension of an older form of storytelling. It is a format that they have each reinvented or used in particular ways to commemorate and to question.

One of India’s most renowned graphic artists, Orijit Sen is considered the pioneer of the form in India. His book River of Stories presents an alternative view of India’s large dams and the impact they have on indigenous people. His recent work – a giant seven storey high mural that is rendered like a graphic novel, earned him the name ‘The Michaelangelo of India’. David Wong is a Vancouver based architect, whose book Escape to Gold Mountain chronicles the experiences of the Chinese community in BC. Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas belongs to the Lanaas nation in Haida Gwaii, and is a visual artist. His graphic novel Red, melds the graphic Haida art style, with the whirling dynamism of Japanese manga, giving birth to a new phrase: Haida Manga.

Listen to these three image makers talk of their work, and the intersections between art, aesthetics, memory and politics.

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WHEN: Wednesday, July 9  @ 6 pm
WHERE: SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hastings St.
TICKETS: $15 single talk / $20 double bill* BUY NOW

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Buy the ‘Bundle’ ticket and save $10. Gives you access to Artpolitik with Orijit Sen, David Wong and Michael Yahgulanaas at6pm AND Laughing My Way to the Mosque with Zarqa Nawaz and Anita Majumdar at 8pm at the same venue. explorASIAN is proud to be community partners with Indian Summer Festival for this program.

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Vancouver Chinese Instrumental Music Society is a charitable non-profit organization and home for Canada’s first professional Chinese music group formed in 1989.   On June 22, 2014, the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and VCIMC are co-presenting an intimate and exciting show on Sunday, June 22.

Jasmine Jazz will be a rare collaboration between Chinese folk instrumentalists (Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble) and some of Vancouver’s best jazz musicians, Arnt Arntzen, Jodi Proznick and Bruce Henczel. These are Vancouver’s two music scenes that make this city wonderful but usually are not seen together.