APA Film Presents the 9th Annual DC Asian Pacific American (APA) Film Festival Sept. 25 through Oct. 4, 2008 at locations throughout the Washington, D.C., area including Landmark’s E Street Cinema, Navy Memorial Theater, Goethe-Institut, and Freer Gallery of Art. The festival will showcase 14 features and over 45 short films. A complete schedule of films and descriptions is available at http://www.apafilm.org.

The Opening Night Presentation on Sept. 25th is AMAL, a complex drama involving a family’s dispute over their father’s will and his connection to a humble auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi, India. Director Richie Mehta and lead actor Rupinder Nagra are scheduled to attend.

On Sept. 27th, the festival presents a day of programs at the Freer Gallery of Art, including the documentary THE SIAMESE CONNECTION about Chang and Eng, the famous conjoined twins of the 19th Century from Thailand; and LONG STORY SHORT, profiling Larry and Trudie Long, a popular Chinese American husband-and-wife nightclub act of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Several other documentaries will make their DC premieres. MAUI BOYZ follows ten local men from Maui as they live, work and play according the “Aloha Spirit” of Hawaii. Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, a Nobel Prize nominee and wheelchair-bound doctor, is the tenacious star of FLYING ON ONE ENGINE (SXSW 2008), traveling to India every year to perform hundreds of free operations for children with facial deformities. A pair of documentaries investigate the human rights struggle of Korean comfort women who were forced into military sexual slavery during World War II (BEHIND FORGOTTEN EYES, THE HOUSE OF SHARING.).

A number of films feature ensemble casts of new and veteran Asian and American actors, including the romantic comedy KISSING COUSINS (starring Samrat Chakrabarti, Gerry Bednob (40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN), Jaleel White, and David Alan Grier); and Filipino drama SANTA MESA (starring Jaime Tirelli (BELLA, GIRLFIGHT), Melissa Leo, and introducing Jacob Shalov).

Two programs will be presented in partnership with the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Anne Kaneko’s AGAINST THE GRAIN explores the lives of working artists amidst political and economic unrest in Peru; and SITA SINGS THE BLUES is a modern retelling of the Ramayana through spirited animation and blues music.

The Closing Night Presentation is KILLING OF A CHINESE COOKIE, Derek Shimoda’s offbeat documentary that ponders the life and meaning of the fortune cookie in American pop culture.

DC APA Film Festival Trailer Contest Winner by Chihwen Lo. (see all the 2008 DC APA Film Trailer Contest Finalists)