Upcoming Screenings and Events

Stream Online!

Stream online from May 11-May 31 2020 during Pacific Arts Movements' May Madness!

Join us for a Virtual Q&A

FREE Live Q&A on Sunday, May 31 @6:30p PT with the filmmakers from THE PARADISE WE ARE LOOKING FOR: Norbert Shieh, Quyên Nguyen-Le, Joe Mangat, and RJ Lozada, and guest moderator Erin Chew, writer for AsAm News.
Stream Online!
This film is available to viewers in the United States from October 22, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 25, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Pay what you can!
San Diego has been called many things – including a paradise. It’s also a refugee city, a cluster of neighborhoods, a militarized zone, a border town. And Asian American. This collection of four short documentaries, commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, maps many such San Diego’s – across ethnicity, geography and history. At the same time, they hold on to some notion of paradise, however illusory: a haven from war, the dreams of an immigrant, precious teenage reminiscences, solace in the afterlife, and spaces for creative expression.

This collection of four short documentaries, commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, maps many such San Diegos— across ethnicity, geography and history. 
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At the helm are four emerging cinematic voices who grew up in San Diego, have studied here, or who have once called it home. Norbert Shieh’s stirring film essay Two Miles East recalls a 2008 University City plane crash that cast a somber shadow over a military city. Quyên Nguyen-Le’s The Morning Passing on El Cajón Boulevard introduces us to the City Heights mortuary workers who help refugee families grieve. Joseph Mangat’s rousing observational piece Bidyoke thrusts us into the electric immigrant space of a karaoke-restaurant in National City. Lastly, in Reunion ‘99, R.J. Lozada interviews former classmates at his 20th high school reunion in the South Bay, and finds that memories, including his own, are not always reliable.
Sáng đi qua trên đường El Cajon
(The Morning Passing on El Cajón Boulevard)
produced, directed, edited by:
​​QUYÊN NGUYEN-LE

co-produced by:
BRIAN HU
​BENJAMIN TO
​
director of photography:
KAYLA TONG

additional cinematography:
​​QUYÊN NGUYEN-LE
​ 
sound editor:
LIEN BAO DO

PRESS MENTIONS

Voice of San Diego. "Culture Report: Refugee and Immigrant Stories Take the Big Screen" November 5, 2019
NBC News. "Asian American film festivals launch careers, bridge gulfs and foster careers" November 6, 2019
KPBS. "City Heights Mortuary Featured In San Diego’s Asian Film Festival" November 8, 2019
KPBS. "PacArts Hosts Online Discussion For ‘The Paradise We Are Looking For’" May 22, 2020