2019 Festival Schedule / Tickets

Friday, March 1

2019 Opening Reception - ​6:00-7:20pm

BarFly / Alamo Drafthouse Sloan's Lake
4255 W. Colfax Ave. Denver, CO 80204

Join us for our opening night and festival kickoff! Light appetizers served. Drinks and desserts available for purchase through BarFly and their amazing bartenders! Don't miss BarFly's unearthly Beer-amisu cake, our raffle drawing, and a chance to one win of these cakes!

The first 100 Opening Film tickets and VIP passes will include a ticket to our Opening Reception. Purchase yours below through the Alamo Drafthouse Denver before they run out! (75/100 Remaining)

All tickets and passes sold afterwards will include a ticket to just the opening night film at 7:30pm.

​Opening Night Film & Reception
VIP Pass - Includes Opening Night and tickets to all 12 festival films & shorts

Opening Film: Lipstick Under My Burkha - 7:30pm​
​​Friday, March 1st

(2016)

Running Time
1h 57m

Country / Language
India / Hindi

Director
Alankrita Shrivastava

Starring
Aahana Kumra, Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Plabita Borthakur
Originally banned in its country of origin for being "lady oriented," Lipstick Under My Burkha battled against the Censor Board of India for over a year before finally being released to the public.

​"Lipstick Under My Burkha' Is the Much-Needed Conversation India Refused to Have" - The Wire India

Set in the crowded lanes of a small town in India, a burkha-clad college girl struggles with issues of cultural identity and her aspirations to be a pop singer. A young, two-timing beautician seeks to escape the claustrophobia of her small town. An oppressed housewife and mother of three lives the alternate life of an enterprising saleswoman. A 55 year old widow rediscovers her sexuality through a phone romance. Trapped in their worlds, they claim their desires through secret acts of rebellion.

Awards
Tokyo International Film Festival: Spirit of Asia Award | Mumbai Film Festival: OXFAM Award for Best Film on Gender Equality | Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival: Audience Choice Award | London Asian Film Festival: Best Film & Standout Performance Awards | Film de Femmes (Paris): Grand Jury Prize

Saturday, March 2

Die Tomorrow - 11:00am
USA PREMIERE

(2017)

​Running Time
1h 15m

Country / Languages
Thailand / Thai
​
Director
Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

Starring
Patcha Poonpiriya, Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Morakot Liu, Chonnikan Netjui, Koramit Vajrasthira, Sirat Intarachote, Sunny Suwanmethanont, Rattanarat Aurthaveekul, Jarinporn Joonkiat, Violette Wautier
​
Awards
Thailand National Film Association Awards: Nominee | Five Flavours Asian Film Festival (Warsaw): Best New Asian Cinema

Synopsis
In Bangkok, 6 people are going to die tomorrow. They don't have any clue of their fate. The film explores the conversation of people on their last day on earth.
Berlin Review, Ben Croll:
​
Nawapol stages six vignettes ... Each is based on a real case reported in the Thai press. 

Die Tomorrow punctuates each vignette with documentary footage, where the director asks various interviewees if they fear death. The film’s most memorable subject is a 102-year-old man who has seen his wife and children go before him. 

Rarely has the subject of human mortality been treated with such playful dexterity as in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s Die Tomorrow. This narrative/doc[umentary] hybrid hones in on the existential question, ‘When is it our time to die?’

Letterboxd Review, Darren Carver-Balsiger:​​
​
Die Tomorrow moves at its own pace, a film that takes its time, relaxing and flexing each scene into exactly what it needs to be without appearing to try. Nominally it's a series of short films, but the connecting tissue makes it one effort. It becomes a series of wavy timelines, bobbing in and out, around each other, within each other. It's so cohesive, a film of cutaways, edited so smoothly. It's focused, mostly using a 1:1 aspect ratio to trap its subjects. Within these confined shots comes a lyrical swirl of single take camerawork, young people talk and live, death outside their reality, instead just waiting in the dark unseen fringes ready to be opened up.
...
Die Tomorrow is weirdly life affirming.

2019 CU Denver Showcase - 1:15pm
Q&A Session - 2:40pm
Saturday, March 2

CO Dragon Film Fest &
University of Colorado Denver
​College of Arts & Media present:

Virtual Mandala | USA, 2015
​J. Cecilia Wu

Three Worlds, One Stage | Colorado, 2018
Jessica McGaugh & Roma Sur

Full Program & Film Descriptions

Showcase will be followed by 45 minute Q&A Session with our CU Denver filmmakers!​

Dear Etranger (​Osanago warera ni umare) - 5:15pm
Saturday, March 2

(2017)

​Running Time
2h 7m

Country / Language
Japan / Japanese

Director
Yukiko Mishima
​
​Starring
Rena Tanaka, Tadanobu Asano, Miu Arai
​AsianMoviePulse Review, Panos Kotzathanasis:

One thing is for certain: Japanese directors are in the top of the family drama genre, which they have been perfecting since the beginning of the country’s cinema. ...

The script is based on Kiyoshi Shigematsu’s 1996 novel 'Osanago Warera ni Umare'. Makoto is an assistant manager to a big company and a career man who separates himself from his colleagues by being dedicated to his family, meaning he does not go for drinks with them after work, but instead prefers on returning to his house and spending time with his family. His family situation, however, is quite complicated, since he currently lives with his second wife, Nanae and her two daughters from a previous marriage, Kaoru and Eriko, while his ex-wife, Yuka and his daughter, Saori live with the former’s new husband. When Nanae is pregnant again and Yuka’s husband is diagnosed with a serious illness, the situation becomes even more complicated, with the fact that Makoto is transferred to a warehouse to work adding to his circumstances. ...

Yukiko Mishima implements the usual tactics of the Japanese family drama, including some flashbacks and relatively slow pace, while Ryo Otsuka’s cinematography focuses on accuracy and realism, although some interesting framing is included, particularly during the violent scenes.

​'Dear Etranger' is a distinct family drama, that uses an 'extreme’ story to talk about a number of social aspects, transcending the ones revolving around the family. Fans of the genre and indie films in general are bound to enjoy it.

Sunday, March 3

The Return - 11:00am

From the Director’s Note:
We, the adoptees live as the hidden minority in society and therefore I want to shed light on our existence and write us into history. Up until now, we have been silent, but as adults we now have a voice through which we can express how it feels to be part of a social experiment that transnational adoption is.

THE RETURN is not only about getting access to your own history, but also about a loss of love and family, because it is not just your mother and father you lack, but also your sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins.

When you travel back, the loss of your original family truly becomes clear when you can visually mirror yourself in the bodies of others and recognize their features and expressions; and this is when you can start to grieve.

My intention with this film is to portray how traveling back to the country you come from will be a journey that you never completely return from, since a part of you will stay there. Also, the questions you had prior to this travel might never be answered, but instead more questions emerge.

THE RETURN is a film about longing for something without knowing exactly what it is until you return to this country, which you somehow know everything about; the air, the sea, the mountains, the food, the sun and the colors.

THE RETURN is about being unsure who you are and where you belong.
(2018)

Running Time
1h 25m

Country / Languages
Denmark / Danish, Korean, English

Director
Malene Choi

Starring
Thomas Hwan, Karoline Sofie Lee
​
Two Danish-Korean adoptees return for the first time to the country they were once born in. Confronted with the spirit of their motherland and the personal stories of fellow adoptees they meet in the city of Seoul, Karoline and Thomas are hurled into an emotionally disorienting journey that forces both of them to question and face their own destiny and identity. Operating in a hybrid field between fiction and documentary, the film is based partly on the director’s own experiences, partly on stories by other adoptees.

Awards
São Paulo International Film Festival / Mostra: Nominee, New Directors | Seattle International Festival: Nominee, Documentary Competition | International Film Festival Rotterdam: Bright Future Award, Special Mention | Jeonju International Film Festival (Korea): Special Jury Prize | Göteborg Film Festival (Sweden): Nominee, Best Nordic Film; FIPRESCI Award, Special Mention | Brussels International Film Festival: European Jury Prize

2019 Local Artist & Debut Film Shorts - 1:30pm
​Film Industry Talkback
Sunday, March 3

Post-Screening Talkback / Meet the Filmmakers
Join us after our shorts to hear expert advice on film production, screen projection, and submission to large film festivals! Our talkback panelists will critique the shorts made by our film makers and answer questions for our audience!
​
Questions must be pre-submitted before our screening. 
​
Full Program & Film Descriptions

My Escape | Boulder, CO (3 min)
Steven Thai

I Put the Bi In Bitter | Denver, CO (28 min)
Marin Lepore

Tears of the Sky | Denver, CO (3 min)
Eriko Tsogo

Runner | USA, 2017 (24 min)
Yung-Jae Chen

Village Rockstars - 4:30pm

Sunday, March 3
​Hindustan Times Review, ​Rohan Naahar:

Directed, produced, written, edited and shot by the one-woman army Rima Das. ...

To create something from nothing, that is the purest distillation of what filmmaking is about. To look at emptiness and imagine stories, to look at faces and imagine pasts, to look at a blank screen and see the world. ...

Director Rima Das made something from nothing and she expects the same of her characters. ...

Village Rockstars is a child’s perspective of our world and its people, told with a lump in its throat and hope in its heart. But instead of those films’ magic realism, Village Rockstars melds the dreamlike visuals of Sofia Coppola with the neo-realism of Vittorio De Sica, only the bicycle has been replaced by a guitar, and the music by images and sounds. ...
​
It is a film that is both challenging and inviting at the same time - the disregard for conventional storytelling could prove to be too wide a bridge to cross for some. But Village Rockstars rewards patience, and in its final moments, earns every right to be called one of the year’s best films.
Running Time
1h 27m

Country / Language
India / Asamiya (Assamese)

Director
Rima Das
​
​Starring
Bhanita Das, Basanti Das, Boloram Das

Closing Film: Men on the Dragon - 7:00pm

Sunday, March 3
An inspiring tale of 4 middle-aged men who rekindle their long-lost fighting spirit to deal with their respective mid-life crises when they start training for the dragon boat team at work.

Lung, Tai, Suk-yi and William are happy-go-lucky employees of a broadband network company who muddle their way through each day at work. When massive layoffs are expected, they pledge their loyalty to the company by signing up for the newly
formed dragon boat team. When they embark on their rigid training, they’re inevitably forced to face their respective mid-life crises they have been dodging. As they rekindle their long-lost fighting spirit, they begin to welcome the challenges in
life.
Running Time
1h 32m

Country / Language
Hong Kong / Cantonese

Director
Sunny Chan
​
​Starring
Francis Ng, Chan-Leung Poon, Kenny Wong

Closing Night Toast - 8:45pm
Sunday, March 3 @ BarFly

Our Closing Film, Men on the Dragon, celebrates the end of this year's film festival, and the start of the Colorado Dragon Boat spring season! Our non-profit organization Dragon 5280 also organizes the largest Dragon Boat Festival in Colorado and the US. Curious about what it takes to join a team? Want to learn how to paddle? Or are you just excited for the snow to melt so you can get on a boat? Men on the Dragon great movie to see! Join us after the film at BarFly (next to the theater) for a quick toast to the end of our film season.