Sunday, March 15, 2009

Asian American Film Festival Gala



The San Francisco Asian American Film Festival turned 27 this year and it only seems to be growing in popularity.



The Opening Night party was held at the Asian Art Museum in Civic Center, a fair distance from the Castro Theatre where the opening film showed. It was an urban romance from Korea, "My Dearest Enemy," which either amused or bored the crowd, depending on who you talked to.



The museum is a suprisingly nice place for a large party...



...and much of its staff was there to help with the festivities, including its Director, Jay Xu, in the middle above.



Most of the hors d'oeuvres tended to be on the dessert side, which made sense since the event didn't even start until 9:30 PM, but that left non-sugar fans somewhat starved.



Still, it was a fun party with an extraordinarily mixed crowd...



...though the life of the party tended to be at the Enriquez table (above).



The journalist Beth Spotswood, above, was covering the event for a new "Online Newspaper" called "SF APPEAL" (click here for her amusing account).



The site went up a couple of weeks ago and is the labor of love of Eve Batey (above), who did a stint as an early SFist editor before spending a couple of years in the "San Francisco Chronicle" salt mines. She's finally decided to create her own publication and I wish her the best.

4 comments:

Beth Spotswood said...

Journalist?!? Ha!
So fun to see you. I wish we could've hung out more. And yeah, I was eyeing those chairs as well. My favorite museums are any museums with those re-created rooms and I prefer them free of visitors so I can pretend I live there. Ideally, they have lots of mirrors so I can see myself pretending to live there as well.

AphotoAday said...

Didn't see Frank Chu amongst the people in any of your photos...
Where WAS that guy?

Civic Center said...

Dear Photo: I think he was dumped by Beth Spotswood for a different date. It's a pity because he would have been a perfect addition.

Beth Spotswood said...

Frank dumped me. And I'll thank you not to bring up painful memories...