 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by David Hare DALLAS - A light, multicultural comedy with a Filipino-American spin, "Disoriented" has a disarming quality that won over viewers when it unspooled recently at the USA Film Festival. Producer Douglas Bachman and writer, director and co-star Francisco Aliwalas collaborated on the low budget "Risque" several years ago. Their current project should see more action. Aliwalas (born in the Phillipines, but a resident of the United States since age 2) plays West Cordova, a medical student living with his Filipino mother (Potri Ranka Manis) in small suburban town. Dad disappeared 10 years earlier, and Mom still clings to the hope he will return. West's older brother Eduardo, who goes by the name Danger (Wayland Quintero), has been away in New York and returns unexpectedly to shake things up. A former jock and West's role model, Danger shows up in drag, revealing that he is gay and not at all hung up about his choices in life. Still to keep their religious mom from |
suffering a big shock, danger agrees to play it straight during the visit. Meanwhile part time "Chinese delivery boy" West meets spunky japanese girl Minako (Kayoko Takahashi), a model with a jerky, martial arts obsessed white boyfriend (Sutton Keany). West also becomes friends with another Filipino-American, Speedy (Jojo Gonzalez), who runs a local car wash and offers advice about affairs of the heart and how to savor life. In the course of the briskly paced film, Minako and West become an item, but she rashly sets about having cosmetic surgery to appear less ethnic. Danger gets bad news about his former lover and nervously awaits the results of an AIDS test. Mom is forced to confront her own false illusions and the reality that Danger and West are adults who don't need or want her controlling influence. Fairly conventional but nicely realized and unpretentious, "Disoriented" has lots of delicious looking food on display, fine performances, a couple of great dream sequences and few dull moments. |
|
|
|
|
by Kevin Thomas |
|
|
Over the past 13 years, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival has indroduced a vast range of films from the Pacific Rim, many of them outstanding- with only a portion of them, unfortunately, receiving subsequent distribution. The Asian national cinemas are often as old as the movies themselves, yet never, except for the Japanese, have they ever had so high a profile. There's creativity everywhere, especially in Taiwan, which in recent years has produced some of the finest films made anywhere in the world. opening tonight at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., the festival will present 70 individual programs, highlighted by 15 feature films. As a first time writer-director, Francisco Aliwalas has a deft touch in his wistful comedy "Disoriented" in which he stars. Set in the lovely old city of Albany, N.Y, a |
fresh location if there ever was one, "Disoriented" finds Aliwalas' Filipino AmericanWest Cordova at loose ends. Raised by his loving but dominating mother (the wonderful Potri Ranka Manis), West is dutifully but unhappily pursuing a premed course to please his mother. You quickly understand how his well-meaning but overbearing mother drove her husband away - he hasn't been heard from for over a decade - and her older son. But then after a four year absence, West's football player brother (Wayland Quintero) suddenly turns up at the bus station - in full drag. What happens next is at once funny and serious, much like "Fakin' Da Funk" but with considerably more polish. Also featured are the highly effective Jojo Gonzalez, Kayo Takahashi, and Sutton Keany |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
There was a time when it seemed that "Asian-American film festival" was becoming a misnomer. Starting in the mid-1980's, the organizers of the country's three major Asian-American film festivals - held each year in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles - showcased more and more films from Asia and desperately trawled for any American-made features they could program alongside them. For the first time in its 21 year history, New York's Asian-American International Film Festival, the oldest of its kind in the country, is screening more features made in the United States by directors of Asian descent than films from overseas. The festival box office expects to sell up to 7,000 tickets. Six Asian-American features have been scheduled for the festivals main screenings. The films are the calling cards for a wave of directors, most of them trained in film schools and still in their 20's and early 30's who have been termed "Gener-Asian X" by critics and film festival programmers. "I tend to see it as a wave," said Eric Koyanagi, director of "Hundred Percent," "and it'll crash or pick up momentum, and maybe we'll be surfing in a couple of years." In his first feature, he cast all Asian-American leads and in the opening scene, three men debate who is the coolest Asian-American male icon, Mr. Sulu from Star trek vs. Judge Lance Ito. Other films at the New York festival, like Francisco Aliwalas's "Disoriented" and Rea Tajiri's "Strawberry Fields," also address issues related to growing up in a multicultural society. |
When it comes to financing, several fimmakers have looked to Asia after receiving unenthusiastic responses from studios and independent production companies in the United States. They said studio executives requested they write white protagonists into their scripts to make them more marketable. Rather than bowing to that pressure, Mr. Koyanagi found a businessman in Malaysia who was willing to underwrite the project. Similarly, Wonsuk Chin, the director of "Too Tired to Die," said he received funds from a South Korean producer. Still most young directors represented at the New York festival scraped together their financing through more tried-and-true domestic avenues, like loans foundation grants, and credit cards. Even after these films are made and shown at film festivals, distribution remains a problem. With the glut of independent movies seeking distribution, Asian American directors said their movies were passed over because of preceived lack of mainstream marketability. Francisco Aliwalas, whose first feature, "Disoriented" has still not reached theaters said: "I find myself educating them on where the populations of Asian- Americans are, what the numbers are, the potential growth and the fact that they will see a film that speaks to them. But they are afraid to take risks." Mr. Chin said his film, which has been picked up for distribution in Japan, Germany, even Bosnia, is still looking for a U.S. distributor. "If this film doesn't get shown in this country," he said, "I don't know, maybe I should just make a Jean- Claude Van Damme movie." |
 |
|
 "Disoriented" Sunday, April 19; 7pm is scheduled to attend. |
|
| Filipino-American debut director Francisco Aliwalas plays Filipino- American pre-med student West Cordova, who juggles his domineering mother, drag-queen older brother, and shallow Japanese-transplant girlfriend while he studies for finals. Lighter than air, impressively acted, and often genuinely funny, Disoriented is a powerful testament to what can be shot on 16mm film in less than a month on a tiny budget. It looks good. It feels good. We care about West's journey to solidify his identity in the midst of affection chaos. It has a professional quality young film grads aspire to, but seldom achieve. So it may be more a testament to Aliwalas' talent as writer, actor, and filmmaker. Look for more from him in the future. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
by G. Allen Johnson Francisco Aliwalas claims he had a "Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn kind of childhood." Aliwalas, born in the Phillipines but raised in New York's state capital, pulled out all the stops to make "Disoriented," his low-budget, well-done comedy about a young man, his traditional mother, drag-queen brother and Japanese girlfriend - all major distractions as he studies for his pre-med exams. The film, shot on Super 16 and blown up to 35mm, will make its world premiere at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival on Saturday night at 7:30 at the Kabuki. "My investors were American Express, Visa, Mastercard," Aliwalas, 33, said. "And my |
parents sunk their retirement funds into it." His characters are generally likable and his camera movements and editing are so assured for a low-budget first feature that "Disoriented" emerges as a winner. Aliwalas plays the lead character of the film, which was not his original plan... he could never quite find the right person to play West Cordova, the embattled college student. "You have to be pretty hyper to wear three hats," said Aliwalas. "I didn't sleep a whole lot during the shoot." |
 |
|
Asian-Am Fest showcases new directors |
|
|
by Sallie Han So maybe it lacks the cachet of Cannes or the high-profile star power of Sundance. But the Asian American International Film Festival, which commences this weekend at Florence Gould Hall in the French Institute (55 E. 59th St.) is where to search for the next Wayne Wang or Ang Lee. Hollywood hit man Wang ("Smoke" and "The Joy Luck Club") and Lee ("The Ice Storm" and "Sense and Sensibility") are perhaps the two best-known filmmakers who received important first looks at the festival. Now in its 21st year, the festival continues to spotlight the works of Asian-American directors. Thanks to the thriving interest in independent cinema, now is the best - and worst - of times for Asian-Americans making movies, claims filmmaker Francisco Aliwalas, whose comedy "Disoriented" has emerged as a favorite on the festival circuit. The AAIFF "is really important, especially now, because it's a logjam at festivals like Sundance. It's hard to get your movie shown. there are just too many films out there," |
explains Aliwalas, who has shown his movie at festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago. AAIFF director Vivian Huang notes the growing number of Asian Americans in filmaking today. "In 1985, all five of the full length features screened were foreign language films from Asia," she says. "This year six of the nine are made in America." Even after 21 years, filmmaker and moviegoers alike claim there is a need for a showcase like this devoted to Asian-American cinema. "Instead of marginalizing Asian-Americans, it really supports Asian American filmmakers," says Korean-born director Wonsuk Chin, whose dark comedy "Too Tired to Die" will have its first New York screening at AAIFF. "Alot of these films could get lost without the film festival," Chin says. "It was seeing the documentary 'Who Killed Vincent Chin' at the film festival that made me an Asian-American," claims Angelo Ragaza, editor of A. Magazine, a bimonthly publications for Asian-Americans. "Seeing your life reflected on the screen is a powerful experience." |
 |
|
 'Disoriented'
|
|
|
"Disoriented'' is a light-as-lemon-chiffon comedy film about a young Filipino-American struggling to define himself in Albany. It was written by, directed by and stars Francisco Aliwalas, a young Filipino-American who struggled to define himself in Albany. But it isn't autobiographical. not by a longshot. "People always ask, 'Is West you?' West is kind of a compilation of some of my experiences and some of my observations,'' said Aliwalas, speaking in a phone interview from New York City, where he lives in the West Side neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen. Asked whether the film's harried protagonist is at least semi-autobiographical, Aliwalas laughed. "It's so semi that it's barely semi. It's semi in 10-point font, a really small font, maybe a Times Roman or Helvetica. "I didn't go through a single-parent household or domineering parents, nor did my parents say, 'You should do this' or 'You should do that,' said the filmmaker, 34, who grew up in Albany and Guilderland. "I think the thing that's really me in this movie is just being confused -- when I was in my 20s, I was trying to define who I was, I was trying to deal with living a bicultural existence.'' For Aliwalas, Albany holds a certain poetic resonance: parts of it were shot in a house on Delaware Avenue. It also reflects his own affection for the city where he first began to weave his Filipino heritage with mainstream American culture. "I was in the Philippines when I was at home,'' he said, "and when I stepped outside, I was in America.'' Conflicted heart The conflicted heart of "Disoriented'' is West Cordova, a pre-medical student in his senior year. West has no real desire to be a doctor -- he's not sure what he wants to do -- but his mother (Potri Ranka Manis) is determined that he finish his degree and scoot off to med school. Complicating matters are West's prodigal brother, Danger (Wayland Quintero), who comes home to tell mom he's gay, and Speedy (JoJo Gonzalez), a car wash owner who encourages West to pursue his own goals. West mulls his future while cramming for exams, delivering Chinese food, bickering with his brother and hesitantly pursuing a young Japanese woman (Kayo Takahashi) with an oafish boyfriend (Sutton Keany). It's a sweet, thoughtful film with an impossibly delicate touch: Humor darts in and out of the dialogue at unexpected moments, and Aliwalas' befuddled alter ego makes a sympathetic hero. It's also gorgeously shot by the film's director of photography, Taylor Morrison, whose luminous exteriors capture Albany at peak quaintness. Radiant Albany "In a way, the film is my valentine to Albany -- because I could have shot this film anywhere, and I could have easily set it (in Manhattan).'' But he chose to shoot here instead, filming scenes on Willett and Winthrop streets, on Madison Avenue, at the Amazing Wok, in Bleecker Stadium and along Washington Park Lake. (He also shot scenes in Rensselaer and Guilderland.) The result is a radiant portrait of a picturesque, anonymous city. "Some people thought we shot it in Venice.'' Venice? "I'm dead serious. The Lakehouse -- they thought it was in Venice. I wasn't trying to hide the fact that we shot it in Albany, but I really wanted to keep it a generic, small, Norman Rockwell town. . . . And Albany is generically beautiful, I think -- it has a nice, vast architectural selection. It's old, it's new.'' Born in the Philippines, Aliwalas was 2 when he emigrated to the States with his parents, both of them physicians. But unlike West, Aliwalas never felt pushed toward med school. "I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was, I think, 11 years old,'' he said. "I'd observed other young people whose parents were physicians, and they were just being programmed to become physicians as well. Mine never did that.'' Travails of filmmaking When he told them of his plans to make "Disoriented,'' they were supportive but cautious: They knew about the travails of filmmaking. So did Aliwalas. A graduate of the film program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he made a pair of successful short films (his second, "Pause,'' won first place in a national video competition) before striking up a production company with his best friend and film school partner, Douglas Bachman. He cranked out commercials, educational and industrial films, and made one feature: 1992's "Risque,'' a thriller shot in Center Square. Then he relocated to Manhattan, where he's spent the last several years writing screenplays (seven, besides "Disoriented'') and working as a personal assistant for one creative giant after another: publisher Judith Regan, fashion designer Elie Taharie, writer-director Paul Schrader ("Affliction,'' "Touch''). Currently he's working for children's author-illustrator |
Maurice Sendak, assisting with his ventures in film, television,books, even opera. "I'm his left brain and his right hand,'' Aliwalas said. But the big one was Schrader. The three years he spent as the director's personal assistant "was my film school,'' he said. "That was a very pivotal experience. He took me to L.A. with him to work on 'Touch.' I was there every minute of the making of that film. I saw how a $6 million movie got made from the very beginning.'' A Less than 'Titanic' Budget "Disoriented,'' shot for 21 days did not cost millions. Aliwalas won't reveal the movie's budget, except to say that it cost "more than 'Brothers McMullen,' and less than 'Titanic.' '' Most of it came out of his and Bachman's life savings and credit cards. When the film went broke in post-production they screened the film for potential investors -- including Aliwalas' parents, who were so charmed by what they saw that they offered to pay for its completion. "I was floored by this,'' he said. "I knew they didn't do it out of pity.'' No one does anything out of pity for Francisco Aliwalas, a self-professed optimist whose conversation is speckled with words like "lovely'' and "beautiful'' and "perfect'' and "positive.'' "That's me,'' he said. "The glass is always half full.'' This filmmaker "is very against what people think directors are -- which is temperamental and combative, arrogant. He's the total opposite. It's just a big party for him,'' said Bachman. "He wants everybody to have input, he encourages everybody to have input. Mostly he wants to make sure that everyone's having a good time while they're making the movie.'' Filming was bumptious and busy. They shot in the fall but had to steer clear of the season's brilliant foliage; the movie is set in May, so Aliwalas had to run around in jeans and a T-shirt. "We had to keep autumn out of the shot,'' he said. "It was tricky.'' Acting younger Also tricky was the age discrepancy between Aliwalas and his character, who's on the brink of finishing college. The director's a spry fellow, but as shooting progressed he began to look a tad worn out. "I had to play a guy 10 years younger,'' he said. "They actually had to put Preparation H around my eyes, because I was so tired.'' Actually, Aliwalas never planned on an acting career; his goal was always to stand behind the camera, not in front of it. But when his search for the right actor for West led nowhere -- everyone "was either too Filipino, or not 'guy' enough'' -- he grudgingly agreed to do it himself. To his amazement, he had a blast. "Acting is very liberating,'' he said. "It's like playing house on a larger scale. It's like playing doctors and cowboys and Indians. It freed my mind.'' Now armed with an agent and a manager, he hopes to hire himself out as an actor while continuing to write and direct his own films. Next up is "Santa Cruzan,'' a "contemporary fairy tale'' set during a Filipino festival. And he's determined, he said, to fight Hollywood's standard Asian stereotypes. "They're still objectified. They still play the dragon lady, even in a contemporary sense,'' said Aliwalas, who auditioned for Chow Yun-Fat's "The Corruptors'' but was dismayed by its cliche-riddled script. "Somebody once said the only color Hollywood ever sees is green. I think once we can prove (Asian films) are marketable, then the currents will shift.'' Positive reviews He's cheered, for starters, by the reception for "Disoriented,'' which has disarmed both crowds and critics at a dozen-plus film festivals around the country. Positive reviews have trickled in from an assortment of heavy hitters, including the Los Angeles Times ("Francisco Aliwalas has a deft touch in this wistful comedy'') and the Dallas Observer ("lighter than air''). Yet the movie has been greeted warily by distributors -- not because of its Asian themes, but because of its sweetness. Unlike a lot of independent films, "Disoriented'' doesn't have a bone to pick with anybody. It isn't rough-hewn. It isn't nihilistic. It isn't grim. It's nice. "It's so sweet, you'll get cavities,'' Aliwalas said, bon mot at the ready. "I think we should hand out toothpicks and floss.'' "I'm having a honeymoon. It just sounds so excessively positive,'' Aliwalas said, "but when I'm talking about films or watching films or making them, it's the happiest point of my existence.'' |
|
www.jademagazine.com |
|
|
by Karen Lam |
|
|
Poor West Cordova is trapped in a nightmare. "His domineering mother is molding him into an MD. His Japanese model girlfriend craves blonde hair and big round eyes. And his jock brother returns home after trading in his high tops for high heels," describes director Francisco Aliwalas. So goes the premise of this hilariously heart-warming tale titled Disoriented. Aliwalas, who also stars in the movie, calls it, "Capra-esque." But what does such an esoteric term really mean? It means that this is one film that recalls the simplicity of life and all its glory. However, such a description hardly does Disoriented justice. For this is a tale about the lives of a down-to-earth Asian American family strung out in Peoria. Like Frank Capra's many takes of middle- American woes, goodness ultimately prevails. Yet unlike Capra's classics, this one deftly interweaves a bevy of complications unique to the lives of Asians in America. And who has ever seen a drag queen wander through Capra's flicks? The Los Angeles Times says Aliwalas "shows a deft touch in this wistful comedy," and the New York Daily News labels it a "favorite on the festival circuit." They were right on the money on both counts. I was able to sit down with Francisco Aliwalas and discuss "Disoriented," how he got started and where he's headed. Karen: So where's home? Aliwalas: New York City, where I live right now. But I was born in Quezon City, Philippines and immigrated to Albany, New York when I was two years old. Karen: Any memories of the Phillipines? Aliwalas: I have some memories. And my parents kept a lot of photographs and inundated me with the culture via the food and the ornaments. My father always loved to talk about the P.I. I inherited a love for storytelling from him. Karen: Is storytelling a Filipino charteristic? Aliwalas: I think Filipinos are like Southerners here. They love tall-tales. They love to take simple plots and infuse them with opera-sized drama. But I also think it's human to exaggerate a memory. Karen: What makes Disoriented different than other Asian American movies? Aliwalas: The movie is set in a small town, non-descript, American mileau and I purposely set Disoriented there because Asians in America are often view as inner-city dwellers. My upbringing is in Albany, which was deemed as an all-American city, meaning that a lot of American test-marketing research takes place in that city. So in that sense, Albany, the setting for my film, is the quintessence of middle-America. Another attribute making Disoriented unique from the other AA films is that the characters are not these hip, edgy, tragically hip angst film urbanites. Karen: Do you have a beef with teen-angst films? Aliwalas: I happened to love Breakfast Club, but I also wanted to explore a coming-of-age |
story coupled with a story about living bi-culturally in the U.S. In fact, I consider myself a combination of all those characters in Breakfast Club. I am a nerd, a geek, a jock, a freak. But I guess I'm no princess. Karen: How did you end up acting and directing the movie? Aliwalas: My producer, Douglas Bachman encouraged me to star in the film. He believed that I could carry the film and saw this as a great opportunity to be "a triple threat"writer, director, actor. Karen: What was the most exciting aspect of making Disoriented? Aliwalas: I loved the loneliness and solitude of writing. But I equally adore the social environment of a shoot and having to answer, literally, dozens of questions on the set-both technical and aesthetic. And watching the characters coming alive when shaping the film in the cutting room was pretty wonderful as well. Karen: What was the toughest? Aliwalas: Having to switch my directing and acting hats. I was forced to dive into a character who is the antithesis of who I am. Karen: What are some of your favorite movies? Aliwalas: My list of favorites is chronically changing. But the films that have left an indelible impression include Citizen Kane, Persona, Star Wars, Breathless and It's A Wonderful Life. Karen: In that order? Aliwalas: Not really. Karen: Any on that list that inspired Disoriented? Aliwalas: Disoriented is a Filipino-American version of It's A Wonderful Life. Both films have a character who is charming yet lost. Both are set in small-town America, populated by quirky folks. And both films are essentially about listening to your heart and making the right choices. Karen: What would you compare movie-making to? Aliwalas: Jumping out of a B-1 bomber blindfolded and without a parachute. Karen: So why do it? Aliwalas: It is the most exhilarating, most exasperating experience. It is my extreme sport. Karen: What's next? Aliwalas: I have two scripts that I am tweaking. One is the second installment to my Fil-Am trilogy, called Santa Cruzan. It's a modern retelling of the Cinderella story set in Jersey City. The other script, Attractive Nuisance, is a romantic comedy about a man overcoming a romantic tragedy. I'm hoping to find the financing to make either film. A. Magazine: Inside Asian America) |
