Love Korean culture? Love film festivals? Love checking out something new and inspiring? If you said “yes” to any of those questions, then you’ll want to check out the inaugural Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival (AKSFF) tomorrow – Friday May 11 – at 6:30pm. It’s being held at Innis Hall and it’s FREE! So why not check out the first ever smartphone film festival in Toronto, and bring your friends too.

Want to know more about what to expect? I know I did, which is why I asked Mingu Kim, Director of the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival, a few questions so I would be better prepared to enjoy the festival. And since he gave such fabulous answers, I thought I would share them with you all. Keep reading to learn more about the AKSFF from Mingu Kim. All answers are Mingu Kim’s.

How did you come up with the idea for the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival?

We wanted to encourage and challenge local filmmakers and/or the general public by utilizing a fairly new device used in filmmaking. There are many film festivals of specific categories in Toronto, yet there is no film festival specializing in smartphone filmmaking. So my wife and I thought it’s worth trying it out since no one has done it yet in Toronto.

Why did you get involved with the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival?

I’ve had passion for filmmaking ever since I started my career in broadcasting in 2007. I participated in many film festivals as a filmmaker, media and member of a marketing committee. However, there was no film festival focusing on a Korean theme. As a producer of a Korean language programming on OMNI TV, it is my duty to preserve and develop the Korean cultural identity, language and customs. That’s why I got involved with the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival.

What is the purpose of the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival?

The purpose of the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival is to introduce Korean culture through filmmaking and encourage local artists. Through the festival, we are hoping to build personal and professional relationships among emerging and established artists in the GTA. It is exciting to build a strong community together.

How many submissions were there?

We’ve had 18 submissions in total. 15 films were selected for screening.

How are you judging the submissions?

We have 4 categories: Concept/Idea, Korean Element/Key Creative, Story, and Cinematography. 3 jury members have juried all submissions independently and picked top 3 of their own choices. Then we had a conference meeting to agree upon 3 winners, who will receive Arirang Korea Award ($1,000), Samsung Galaxy Tab (2nd Place), and Pico Dolly System (3rd Place).

Who’s judging the submissions?

There are 3 jury members whom I’ve met in the professional settings.

• Sun-Kyung (Sunny) Yi is the president of Aysha Productions Inc., and the founder of the Documentary Filmmaking Institute at Seneca College.
• Lance Carlson is an award winning cinematographer and filmmaker. He currently teaches at Centennial College and George Brown College and continues to write and produce independent film and interactive projects.
• Min Sook Lee is an award winning filmmaker with a diverse and prolific portfolio of multimedia work. She has produced and directed numerous critically acclaimed documentaries, including TIGER SPIRIT, HOGTOWN, EL CONTRATO and many more.

What are some of the themes or stories (from the submissions) that we can look forward to at the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival?

There are some films that reflect historical and cultural perspectives of Korea. One film is based on the issues of comfort women during the Japanese colonial period. Also a short documentary of grandparents well reflects culture that is no longer present in Korea. I am happy to see the variety of submissions from documentary to music video. They are all worth checking out.

Are you planning on the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival being an annual event?

Of course. It’s not going to be just a one-time event. We are planning to host the event annually. To give you a heads up, we will extend it to a weekend festival (2 to 3 days) and have more programming and special events. We will open submission call early so the contestants have more time to work on their projects.

There has been an increase in Korean-themed or Korean culture related events in Toronto in the last year, why do you think that is?

There are multiple reasons. K-pop phenomenon is one factor. I am surprised to see many non-Koreans imitate K-pop dance and speak Korean in Toronto nowadays. This spread of Korean pop culture is called Hallyu, also known as Korean Wave. Also, 2013 marks the 50th year of diplomatic relationships between Korea and Canada. I know there are many organizations preparing to host the events in 2013 to cement relationships between two countries.

Any last thoughts?

It’s going to be a wonderful event. Please come and celebrate the 1st Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festval on May 11 at 6:30pm @ Innis Town Hall. (2 Sussex Ave.) Admission is free of charge so bring your friends along. You will not regret it!

Cindy Zimmer: @cindyinTO
Life’s an Adventure 2: @lifesadventure2
Banana Times: @bananatimes
Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival: @AKSFF

I have heard in passing about the dolphin killings in Taiji, Japan but never got the grasp with the whole situation until a friend sent me this trailer. I am not a huge animal-hugger and I do believe that natural selection or survival of the fittest applies somewhat to modern life. This film is dolphins, conspiracy theories, poison, public jeopardy and ultimately, a documentary. This I have to see.

Critics say its a cross between Flipper and The Bourne Identity, because of all the state-of-the-art surveillance equipment they use. I can’t even picture how Flipper and Bourne are able to intertwine, which is why I need to watch this.

I don’t think you have to be an activist or a documentary-phile to enjoy this movie. Its about a real issue and a group of people who break the law for the greater good. Then again, the situation in Taiji should not be seen as a generalization for the whole of Japan. Every country has its secrets.

I haven’t been so excited about a documentary since Fahrenheit 9/11.

-phibz.

As I made my way to CineFocus, I spotted something that looked very familiar. Something that transported me for the slightest moment back to Hong Kong. Funny how text can make you feel like you’re in a different continent altogether.

A little plagiarism never hurt anybody. I honestly do not know which one came first, could be the chicken or the egg. But one thing I do know is that in a suing situation, my money is on the one with wings. In this case Discount is wingless.

One2Free is mobile service provider under CSL Limited, the first mobile operator in Hong Kong going on 26 years of business. Discount is a car and truck rental company that started in Hamilton, Ontario and is going on 29 years of business (So I guess the egg came first. You hear that Aristotle? Plato? The egg came FIRST!).

Maybe I’m biased (actually, I know I am), but One2Free is the name of their company while Discount uses it as a slogan. So I would place the winner of a possible lawsuit as One2Free. Imagine the employee of either company stumbled across this lonely blog and decided to sue the other or change their slogan. I’d be the cause of all the heartache headache. Funny.

-phibz.

First, the Texans are telling Chinese people to change their names, now the Chinese government is commanding their own people to change their names. We/they can’t catch a break, can we/they?

China has been working towards modernizing their enormous database of 1.3 billion citizens by replacing their hand-written identity cards to computer-readable versions. One major downfall of this system is that the program that scans these high-tech cards can not register all Chinese characters. Meaning that citizens whose names are more obscurely written than others, due to the individuality their parents wanted them to embody, cannot get the new identity card. Much more at New York Times.

Well of course, unless they change their names, which is what the government wants them to do. Miss Ma in the image below you has a obscurely written Chinese name (her name is very cool).

Her surname, Ma, is the character that means horse. The other character of her name is Cheng, which means “galloping steeds” and is essentially written exactly like the character for horse but three times and squeezed together. So the new card-reading system cannot read the Cheng character, so they want her to change her name into something more simple.

Communist China borders on totalitarianism in many cases, but how much more can you strip from your people? I remember reading a passage in the bible that says that people would be recognized as nothing more than numbers. According to the NYTimes article, there are enough Zhang Wei’s in China to populate Pittsburgh. If this continues, the Chinese people will be simplified into something very similar to plain numbers. Is it too difficult to input the missing Chinese characters into the new system?

With a loud shout calling “Chan Ming”, 50 million would turn to react. Chaos? I only dare to think of conspiracies regarding the simplification of identity.

Thanks to Val for the article.

-phibz.

Philbert Lui from our The Banana Times team recently signed on to work with CineFocus Canada, a veteran documentary production company based in Toronto. Along with the several new productions lined up with The Banana Times Productions and Lemon Meringue Productions, Philbert will be assisting CineFocus with their Green Heroes project.

Green Heroes is a multi-platform media project that collaborates online social networking, documentary styles and television to promote, create and inspire environmental content.

Look out for updates from Philbert about this soon.

-TheBananaTimes

Japanese company SoftBank will be picking a school with 1000 students to experiment and track how a virus spreads across a concentrated community, writes SCMP. Every student will be given a cell phone with GPS tracking capabilities so their locations and movements can be recorded. A few are chosen to be the “infected” (wait, what?) with the digital virus and their movements compared with others to see who they crossed paths with and are at risk of contracting the disease. The families of the infected will be notified so that they can take their children to the doctors, hence reducing the rate of infection in an outbreak situation.

Okay. First thing I thought of was Battle Royale versus 28 Days Later. I swear Danny Boyle added too many zombie connotations to the word “infected”.

This experiment was devised before the outbreak of the Swine Flu and has resurfaced now that Japan has the most confirmed cases of the disease outside of North America.

Umm. How about privacy? Oh right, zombies don’t care about that. Also, the WHO recently elevated the Swine Flu to the “pandemic” level. Meaning it is a disease new to a population, that infect humans and causes serious illness while spreading easily. An epidemic on the other hand is subjective as it describes something that is expected and at times local rather than global. Epidemics can even describe something non-infectious such as obesity (thank you Morgan Spurlock).

Wait. Wasn’t the Swine Flu new, infects humans quickly, and fatally since the first we heard about it? Sugarcoating a pandemic, are we now? Hmm.

-phibz.

In celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Mobile Suit Gundam space opera franchise, a 18-meter (59 feet) tall life-size Gundam statue is built and almost near completion. It is set to unveil in July and be open for public viewing for two months on Tokyo’s artificial Odaiba island. More at ANN.

More awesome pictures at Mainichi.

I believe when the global technological conflict of World War III comes around, Japan will clearly have an advantage. They have their life-size Gundam unit ready to deploy at any moment for aerial battle, and they have old men building 15-ton Armored Beetle Tanks to fight on the ground. Its only a matter of time before they build life-size EVA units to take over the world, colonize the moon while harvesting minerals from Mars and refurbishing Pluto as a gigantic nuclear explosive to repel Angels from invading. AH!

At least the Chinese have giant Buddhas to defend themselves…oh crap Japan has way more giant Buddhas than us. India and Afghanistan have them too! NOOOOO!
Hides in cave like a terrorist.

-phibz.

The following post exemplifies the type of image we try to deliver at The Banana Times. Although not necessarily in the same political and serious tone as news pieces like this, but we try our humorous best.

China and Japan pledged to save the diminishing economy hand-in-hand yesterday as Vice-Premier Wang Qishan and Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone concluded after a meeting in Tokyo. This Sino-Japanese agreement responds to the consensus at April’s G20 summit in London. As the countries involved at G20 aim to commit US$1 trillion to help under-developed countries in light of the failing economy, Japan and China agree on elevating each other’s economy as well. More at SCMP.

As a Chinese person who has heard many prejudiced opinions of how they hate the Japanese, and also as a person who passionately studies Japanese culture, this piece of news brings peace to my heart. Many Chinese people discriminate against the Japanese for their crimes during World War II, which is valid due to the brutality many veterans and families experienced back then. Even in a modern age such as ours where globalization evaporates the constraints of language, distance and culture, the history of war and death is not easy to forget.

But at the same time, forgetting is not the solution but rather understanding, and I think this Sino-Japanese pledge is a start to something. I hope it won’t fade away as a temporary solution just to fulfill the capitalistic greed of the economy. I guess in times of need, differences of race, history and culture cease temporarily in order to overcome a conflict. But then again, bringing up my cynicism, once the conflict is over will these differences resurface again?

Here at The Banana Times we attempt to provide news, analysis and a little bit of humour to all Asian-Western related topics. And we try not to favor a certain culture even though sometimes it seems that way. Many Asian nations gather in North America and Europe with countless experiences that involve both their ethnicity and the Western influences that surround them. At TBT, we try to project those experiences.

This piece of news in a way validates what we do. So we hope that the few who log onto this website can help us with their voices and experiences, to add fuel to our fire while bringing others along for the ride.

-phibz.

Dubbed the “Project Natal” It looks like the boys at Microsoft have something amazing up their sleeve.

A new motion sensor technique, that frankly sounds like it puts the Wii to shame. The technology is able to track depth, room acoustics, multiplayer support in the same room!, a specialized microphone that accurately capture voice commands. It even has the capability to tell how various joints in your body are moving to capture the slightest movements and translate them into the xbox.

DUN DUN DUN!!!!

read about it at http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1902208,00.html

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait…

The Banana Times presents,
INTER: Uninstall Alex

The first of a two-part sequel to INTER: Installation, starring Alex Chung and Lester Calleja from the Awkward Compilation (check out their comedy series on Facebook, its hilarious, and I help out with cinematography).

A vivid textual description of everyday computer and Internet activities.
Written, Edited and Directed by Philbert Lui.

A behind-the-scenes clip will be posted in a week’s time similar to INTER: Installation’s behind the scenes footage. More at The Banana Times Productions.

Enjoy!

-phibz.