Legion of Bloom! From Football to Margaritas, this year’s Spring Showcase blossoms

Posted March 17th, 2015 by Brian in Uncategorized

Something’s in the air. The sun is setting later, the bees are buzzing, the BBQ is firing up. All the world seems to be telling us one thing: it’s time to play.

The SDAFF Spring Showcase, now in its fifth year, is about joining the forces of nature, greasing on the eye black, and setting the hormones a-stirring. It’s the playtime version of our big November festival. “Only” 16 films: from blockbusters to festival hits to a celebration of a community and its stories.

So let’s play. We’re opening with the Polynesian American doc IN FOOTBALL WE TRUST and we’re ending with the table tennis film TOP SPIN. In between we’re singing songs with neighbors (GIOVANNI’S ISLAND), we’re putting on a fashion show (PRINCESS JELLYFISH), we’re discovering love (MARGARITA, WITH A STRAW), and we’re getting busy never growing up (MY BRILLIANT LIFE). Along the way, we’ll make a pit stop with an Iranian pregnancy drama (TODAY) and flashback to childhood in the Philippines (MARIQUINA). And then we’ll put on 3D glasses for the first time Tsui Hark’s THE TAKING OF TIGER MOUNTAIN will be shown in North America as was meant to be shown: with combating skiers and airplanes flying at your face.

And while our opening and closing night films take us back to high school through their stories, we end the Spring Showcase literally in one. At the heart of our mini-retrospective “Cinema Little Saigon” are our free screenings at Hoover High School, where we will present stories of Vietnamese Americans in the San Diego neighborhood they’ve come to shape: City Heights.

So get ready, take a deep breath, and celebrate spring with stories that aim to awaken the world.