The Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival — which takes place Nov. 7-17 at area venues — features several LGBTQ+ features, shorts and documentaries in this year’s program.
The festival opens with the Philadelphia premiere of out gay writer/director Yen Tan’s melancholic drama, “All That We Love” (Nov. 7, 6 p.m., Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts). In this film, Emma (Margaret Cho) is bereft after losing her dog. She is also concerned about losing her daughter, Maggie (Alice Lee), who is heading off to Australia with her boyfriend Nate (Devon Bostick) for an indeterminate amount of time. While she is comforted by her gay best friend Stan (out gay Jesse Tyler Ferguson) — who has his own grief issues — Emma also unexpectedly reconnects with her ex-husband, Andy (Kenneth Choi), who is in recovery. The beauty of Tan’s graceful, gentle film is how the characters are lost but find ways of being there for one another. “All That We Love” is a poignant meditation on healing that perceptively considers loss, letting go, and second chances.
The festival also includes a revival of out gay filmmaker Alice Wu’s 2004 romcom, “Saving Face” (Nov. 9, 8:30 p.m., Asian Arts Initiative) about a closeted lesbian (Michelle Krusiec) who has a complicated relationship with her girlfriend Vivian (Lynn Chen) as well as her pregnant mother (Joan Chen).
In addition, two LGBTQ shorts programs, “The Kids Are Alright: Trans and Nonbinary Asian Childhood” and “Queer (Be)longing” are available for online rental Nov. 7-17.
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One of the highlights of this year’s fest is the Philadelphia premiere of “Extremely Unique Dynamic,” (Nov. 12, 6:30 p.m., Asian Arts Initiative). Co-written and co-directed (with Katherine Dudas) by stars Harrison Xu and the out gay Ivan Leung, this film is a shaggy, amusing meta-movie where best friends Ryan (Xu) and Daniel (Leung) spend one last weekend together in L.A. before Ryan moves to Edmonton, Canada.
Rather than hang out, get high and have fun, the straight Ryan coaxes the closeted Daniel into making a movie together — and a meta one at that. Ryan and Daniel will play Gregg and Tim who will play Jake and Jasper in the film within the film within the film.
The actors/writers/filmmakers spoke with PGN about their “Extremely Unique Dynamic.”
What do you think accounts for your extremely unique dynamic?
Harrison Xu: We are very different people in many ways, but we are also very similar. He’s funnier than I am, and he’s cool. I balance him in a different way.
Ivan Leung: That’s not true. I think that Harrison is very, very, cool, and I’m the lame one.
What prompted you to make this film, which appears to be a thinly veiled version of your friendship?
HX: Stubbornness. Ivan and I worked together on the marketing campaign for this film, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” It was our first time working together in that capacity. We created a persona for Winnie the Pooh as a sassy bear, and I thought: Are we funny together? We were eating Thai food, and I wondered, what if we made a film together, and it was about making something about making something? We kept egging each other on and it started as something we would shoot over the weekend, and it snowballed into something a lot bigger than we intended.
IL: I had wished in the past that I could be a lead in my own movie and express my queerness and not have the [actors] be stereotypical “hot Asian guy,” and we actually got it to happen. It was so gratifying that it came to fruition.
Why did you create a meta movie? “Extremely Unique Dynamic” is very layered.
IL: The meta was Harrison’s idea. I don’t understand meta, just like my character in the movie, and I didn’t understand it during the shoot of the film. If you want to talk meta, Harrison is your man.
HX: It was fun tapping into it, and guys who have been friends for a while have trouble expressing how they feel. Through our characters in the film, they can talk about what they did feel. If we had time and budget, we could take it a step further with what their characters’ characters say. We improvised the dialogue about being Asian, being queer [and] about our parents. The meta-ness of it enabled us to talk about things that didn’t feel on the nose because our characters, or our character’s characters, are talking about it.
You poke fun at Asian hypersexual representations in cinema, as well as cinema tropes, like the makeover, or a celebrity cameo. Can you talk about biting the hand that feeds you?
IL: It is more palatable because it is in the vein of a stoner comedy. We wanted to talk about all these issues in a way where people can digest it more easily. Another point I’m proud of is the codependency between a straight and a gay best friend, because we don’t talk about that, and guys don’t talk about their feelings in general.
What can you say about this being a “gay” film?
IL: There is a way that writers write queer characters in the media and it’s getting better, but there is such a wide spectrum of queerness, and not everyone is extremely flamboyant or a stereotype. In society, there are people that are out, and they are not comfortable talking about their queerness or their sexuality; it’s just a part of them. I thought it was interesting to have that kind of an “out” character, who doesn’t talk about his sexuality. For the character [of Daniel], there is a sense of shame that resides in him, and it’s interesting to see how he pivots and deals with that shame.
What do you think about the celebrity culture you satirize? Both Ryan and Daniel want to be famous, and you feature Hudson Yang and Nathan Doan in your film.
HX: My character is kind of a meta, over-the-top version of myself. I do work in film marketing, and it was fun taking that character and heightening it. The journey Ryan goes through is learning to accept what is important when making a movie. But finishing the movie, that’s our accomplishment.
Was making this film an opportunity to showcase your writing and directing talents as well as your acting styles? Is this a calling card for future work?
IL: I want to direct more features and be a showrunner of a series with Harrison. I love being able to express myself and do what I want without having to think about the powers that be. We were able to take big swings with “Extremely Unique Dynamic.” It was nice to have control and be able to express ourselves in the way that we wanted to.
HX: We’ve been professional actors for 10-plus years. As an actor, you’re always trying to fulfill the vision of the writer or director. Having ownership of your own project is really fulfilling. This is our concept and our vision, and we know what we’re doing. We trusted each other. We put in thousands of hours into this film.
The Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival takes place Nov. 7-17 at area venues. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit paaff.org.