Brian Hu
Curatorial Philosophy
Hu is interested in experiences that shock the audience out of their comfort zones, and suggest playful, interactive, and accessible ways to rethink filmmaking and filmgoing. Both of his selections are deceptively simple, but, in their own ways, joyously and confidently point to new ways of finding pleasure in the medium.
Biography
Brian Hu is the Artistic Director of Pacific Arts Movement, presenters of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Previously, he was the co-editor of Asia Pacific Arts, an online magazine published through the UCLA Asia Institute and later the USC US-China Institute. Brian received his PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA, where, with the help of a Fulbright grant, he completed a dissertation on cosmopolitanism and cinema in Hong Kong and Taiwan. His writings on film have been published in journals such as Screen, Velvet Light Trap, and Senses of Cinema. He has lectured on film around the world and teaches at the University of San Diego.
See Brian’s interview with UCSD senior Emilyn L. Edquilang below.
photo: Rebecca Webb
Artist Interview
1. Why did you want to be a part of Filmatic Festival?
Because it’s about re-imagining both film and film festivals. And because it’s at UCSD, one of the most dynamic and synergistic centers for art and technology anywhere.
2. What themes do you explore in selections?
I’m interested in experiences that shock the audience out of their comfort zones, and to suggest playful, interactive, and accessible ways to rethink filmmaking and filmgoing. Both of my selections are deceptively simple, but, in their own ways, joyously and confidently point to new ways of finding pleasure in the medium.
3. Who inspires you?
People who breach borders not because it’s sexy to be transnational or transmedia, but because defying categorization is the only way they can be truly free. People like filmmaker Jafar Panahi who makes “films” under house arrest and smuggles them out via USB drives hidden in cakes; people like my friend Dan AKA Dan, who tells his story of being a Korean adoptee via hip-hop and web videos.
4. What advice can you give to aspiring artists?
The majority of entries we receive at the San Diego Asian Film Festival feel like directing, acting, or DP resume reels for industry jobs. Way too much effort is spent on flaunting technical “competence.” I don’t care if you can grow into the DP of the next glitzy Hollywood romantic comedy or the director of the next Hollywood blockbuster. Most young filmmakers, especially those trained in Los Angeles film schools, are so beholden to the aesthetic regimes of Hollywood that they overlook other modes of media production that are innovative, personal, and even sustainable.
5. “If you could have one drink with one person, who would it be and what would you two be drinking?”
Director Edward Yang, circa 1982. Taiwan Beer.
6. “Where is the future of digital media heading?”
Corporatization under the fiction of access, freedom, progress, and diversity. And artists working on the margins, exploring alternative forms of expression and engagement. In other words, the same story as analog.