Passions Latines by Cheuk Kwan
Yellow Fellas by Tetsuro Shigematsu

Montreal, April 3rd, 2008 - Festival Accès Asie is happy to present in collaboration with the NFB Theatre, two first works of Asian filmmakers proud of their heritage. The feature length fiction Yellow Fellas by Tetsuro Shigematsu is an in-your-face radical who attacks in a humorous manner on media stereotypes of Asian men. On the other end, Passions Latines is the fourth episode of this ambitious documentary series Restaurants chinois by Cheuk Kwan who invites you in the discovery of the diaspora from the four corners of the globe while visiting behind the kitchen scenes and premises of these unique cultural mixes.

Born to Japanese parents, Tetsuro Shigematsu is a multidisciplinary artist who is interested not only in visual arts, stand-up and writing but in directing films. His first creations were based on his adolescent experience as a Japanese-Canadian growing up in Montreal and were already marked with a humouristic tone and unique satire. After several projects as a comedian and scriptwriter, Tetsuro realized that he had a lot of censored and internalized anger born out of prejudice towards Asian men that is conveyed by the Western press. So, he decided to direct his own film.

Tetsuro Shigematsu therefore recruited a team of young Asian men to take part in guerilla cinema against the false and deceptive portrayals. Yellow Fellas is the result of an independent enterprise in 2000 that was created outside of institutional structures in order to maintain his much needed creative freedom. In this film we follow Howie Hiroshima, a young Asian male tired of racism from the white society and who decides to create a secret society of militant Asian men who are anxious to get their revenge against the society who has emasculated their identity.

The film provokes in his approach as a director as in his writing yet defuses with a humourous openness. Regardless, in his pure will to engage in politics, Howie Hiroshima is confronted by the difficulty to act on his promised words, particularly when loving passion knocks his certainties aside. Against his colleagues and artists, Tetsuro Shigematsu refuses to go back to his Asian origins to reclaim the pride that tell the unique stories of Asians living away from their ancestral lands.

Cultural heritage is equally central in this documentary series Restaurant chinois by Cheuk Kwan. The filmmaker invites the spectators to accompany him in the voyage that is divided into five trilogies, Song of the Exile, On the Islands, Three Continents, Latin Passions and Beyond Frontiers. Each break is an occasion to discover how migrants integrate the traditional culinary cuisine with local products to develop Chinese tastes that are also specific to their new land.

What interests the film maker more than that of culinary exploits are the relationship that are weaved between the welcoming community and Chinese migrants who have decided to situate themselves in countries such as Norway, Peru, South Africa, or in India. The series exposes the principle ventures that confront the members of the Chinese diaspora such as immigration, settlement, integration or assimilation, identity, history, interracial marriages through these portraits of these restaurant owners.

In a thousand places in this series, Passion latines is the center of three Chinese restaurants in South America situated respectively in Peru, Brazil and in Argentina. Each restaurant is the chance to discover one facet of mixed cultures that combine Chinese migrants and the richness of the Andes, the festive world of Brazilian soccer or the vibrant rhythms of Argentinean Tango. A voyage full of surprises in the heart of the kitchens, the spectator will explore the profound humanity of uprooted migrants who preserve their ancient cultural heritage while building at the same time, a world of tomorrow.

National Film Board Theatre (ONF), Sunday May 18th
1 p.m. Passions latines by Cheuk Kwan from the documentary series
Chinese Restaurants - French Only

3 p.m. Yellow Fellas by Tetsuro Shigematsu - English Only
1564 Saint-Denis, Montréal
Information: (514) 523-1047 www.accesasie.com
Cost: 5$ (ticket on sale just before showtime)

Press contact: Olga Pudelko (514) 570-0931