Group 4 Blog 5

Upon completion of our last blog post and reflecting on our group presentation, we found that we wanted to fully answer the following question in depth: What is the relationship between CAAMFest and the Chinese film and media themes we have explored throughout this course? Answering these two questions would allow us to demonstrate how CAAMFest regarded the concept of Chinese Cinema in its early programming. 

As we learned more about the cultural and community aspects of the festival, it was the initial motivator for us to look deeper into the programming of the festival and we shifted our question appropriately. It shifted again when we had the idea to look at the roots of the festival as an exemplary example of what the festival was trying to accomplish in terms of community impact. Through our extensive understanding of CAAMFest’s 1982 programming, we concluded that CAAMFest approached Chinese Cinema through a means of wanting to keep it alive in a historical and culturally accurate manner for everyone to see. In particular, the 1982 programming demonstrated the need to break Western stereotypes placed on the Chinese community by white filmmakers exemplified by Chan is Missing. We think that collectively, CAAMFest views Chinese cinema as very meaningful and honors it which can be seen through CAAMFest’s careful and detailed treatment of the material. CAAMFest pays detailed attention to who is seeing the films screened and uses location as a device to facilitate meaningful viewership. In the case of Chinese cinema, careful attention is paid to highlighting theaters and locations that will target Chinese and Chinese-American viewers. Further, CAAMFest repeatedly screens older films, recognizing their lasting importance; searches for forgotten or overlooked Chinese and Chinese-American films; and will show a film multiple times across the years, indicating that there is continued relevance for people to see these films. It definitely made us reconsider the class questions through a different lens to learn how intricately CAAMFest targeted their intended viewership and made us think about how viewership can be constructed rather than it being a result of random patterning and chance.

We learned how the festival was founded because of national recognition of the importance of Asian-American media. We were surprised to learn that the first festival was held at BAMFA and made us consider how deeply engrained the institutions of the arts are in the history of the Bay Area and that being at UC Berkeley ourselves, we were a part of that. The growth of the festival and associated foundation show how Asian and Asian-American cinema continued to grow in prominence in the bay area and nationally. We found these great primary documents from the Ethnic Studies Library that are of advertisements placed in the festival’s media over several years. When put together, it creates a timeline that shows how outside corporations view the festival as gaining prominence and thus worthy of having more substantial and costly advertisements. It’s a great indication of increased viewership validated by external parties.

One remaining question we still have and did not have enough time to answer is to what extent were the original goals of CAAMFest reflected in their initial programming sustained in later years? We investigated this question a bit, the above example being one of them, but we would love to know a more holistic answer on whether the meaningful targeting exemplified in the 1982 festival was something sustained in later years, especially as theaters began to close and the landscape shifted. What new strategies does CAAMFest employ to compensate for this loss in an online sphere?

Sources: 

Asian American Media. 27th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, The 

Center of Asian American Media, San Francisco, CA, 2009. 

Verizon. “Your Signal Is Strength.” Asian American Media. 29th San Francisco International 

Asian American Film Festival, 2011. 

Wells Fargo. “Filmmakers bring creativity to life.” Asian American Media. 29th San Francisco 

International Asian American Film Festival, 2011.