CVK

Eric Byler’s new film Americanese, based on Shawn Wong’s novel American Knees is making its premiere at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival next month. Byler’s directorial debut, Charlotte Sometimes, was a critically acclaimed film about a love quadrangle. (Some Asian viewers were upset that one of the characters was mixed, leading Byler to write this article for EurasianNation about the intersection of race and sex in his film.) Here’s a synopsis from the SFIAAFF Web site about Americanese:

Raymond (Chris Tashima, VISAS AND VIRTUE) is a forty-year-old, divorced Chinese American college professor struggling with his recent break-up with the younger, half-Japanese Aurora (Allison Sie). For Raymond, Aurora needed some hard lessons on recognizing her own Asian identity; Aurora, however, would have preferred a lover, not an Ethnic Studies lecturer. As Aurora begins dating a Caucasian man, Raymond embarks on a new relationship with a Vietnamese co-worker (Joan Chen in a pivotal, haunting role) with a troubled history of her own. Struggling with their own pasts, lonely in their respective presents, each character seeks something more for the future, with—or without—their prior loves.