Film Series Looks at Asia in Love
In a classroom at Boston University, a room full of film students watch a screening of a student film. The production has been a mishmash of frazzled nerves and conflicted ideals, but now the finished product is able to be seen in all its glory. In the back of the room, a student, transported by the narrative, begins to smile.
Pan out. We are watching the story unfold – in a Boston University classroom, before a room full of rapt film students. The symmetry is poignant, and it serves as a perfect denoument to a week of cinematic transports.
The film in question is “The Student Film,” created by BU students Rebecca Dobyns, Connor Glynn, Michael Schade, and Fuxin Zhang. The film was the final in a weeklong film series sponsored in part by the Center for the Study of Asia, an affiliated center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.
The Student Film from Puxin Productions on Vimeo.
“Love and Other Obsessions” brought together critics and cinephiles from a multidisciplinary cross-section of BU for a week of films from across Asia, as well as a selection of student films made by Asian students or tackling Asian subjects. The event was co-sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities, the Geddes Language Center and the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature (MLCL).
“Though this is the third film festival we have organized, this year was by far the largest turnout,” said Cathy Yeh, Associate MLCL, who spearheaded the festival. “It has been an uplifting experience to enjoy the quality of student’s participation. They have had great and critical attention.”
The theme of the festival reflected both Asian societies’ own takes on personal relationships in the face of enormous social transformations and the ways in which these relationships are presented in fantasies and stereotypes of other cultures and societies. The festival highlighted the particular features of different countries – Hong Kong on Monday, Korea on Tuesday, Japan on Wednesday and India on Thursday, with Friday concluding the festival with the students’ films.
The festival also featured a talk by keynote speaker Yomi Braester (Washington University) on Wong Kar-Wai’s masterpiece In the Mood for Love (2000). Activities also include Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian food as well as lunch talks focusing on the theme of the film festival.
“I really loved the guest speakers we had, and the quality of guest speakers in attendance was very high,” said Kate Li, a student filmmaker and participant in the festival. “It was wonderful to see the way Asian filmmakers experience the West.”