“Behind Closed Doors” (RT: 87 min.)
The Festival’s penultimate program showcases a challenging sextet of women filmmakers bent of investigating the interior lives and perspectives of real and imagined family members, acquaintances and romantic partners.

EL PASO VIETNAM
(United States, 2002) Director: Adele Ray
A Vietnamese language teacher meets her future husband in El Paso, Texas during the Vietnam before he is shipped to her hometown, Saigon, Vietnam.
16mm, 10 minutes, Documentary Short Film

tough girl
(United States, 2002) Director: Leilani T. Abad
When Janie Tan loses her mother to cancer at age nine, she retreats into a world of loneliness, comforted only by the poetry she writes in her secret notebook. But when Janey meets Ryan, the new kid in town, she begins to realize the need for human connection and is terrified by the very concept. Retreating once again into her world, Janey unearths the memories of her mother and accepts the challenge to love again.
16mm, 13 minutes, Narrative Short Film

HAUNTING, A
(United States, 2001) Director: Fredeswinda Z. Santos
A woman comes home early from work to her large Victorian house in San Francisco. She goes through the motions and rituals of her private life. As the day progresses, it becomes apparent that she is haunted by her memories and by a ghost. More than a ghost story, A HAUNTING explores a woman’s grief two years after losing her lover.
16mm, 15 minutes, Narrative Short Film

THE LIBERATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE
(United States, 2003) Director: Juli Kang
An office worker stuck in a dead-end job makes a defining gesture to liberate herself from the constraints of her corporate environment.
16mm, 15 minutes, Narrative Short Film

THEATRE OF MARTIN LIM, THE
(United States, 2002) Director: Luci Kwak
Martin Lim, 70, a peculiar and whimsical character, dances and sings tunes from 1940s-50s Hollywood musicals outside his quiet San Francisco flat. Anne Kim, 20, a pre-med student and aspiring dancer at a career crossroads in her life, passes Martin everyday on her way home from school. After meeting Martin several times outside his flat, she soon discovers that her passion for dance far outweighs her parent’s expectations of her becoming a doctor. These encounters with Martin begin to take on more meaning when Anne notices his absence…
16mm, 25 minutes, Narrative Short Film

ILL REPAIR
(United States, 1998) Director: Vivian Umino
ILL REPAIR observes the enduring friendship between two middle-aged Nisei (second generation Japanese American) men who cannot escape the past nor each other. Needled by his wife, Tom goes to his friend’s watch repair shop and demands that his friend Eddy return the watch that has taken over a year to fix. As the tension rises, they reveal that far more than a watch is at stake in their long-standing, bittersweet friendship.
16mm, 9 minutes, Narrative Short Film