PRESS

2008 FRAMELINE32—The SenseiI befriended Diana Lee Inosanto a little over a year ago over drinks at Delirium when she and the rest of the talent for William Kaufman’s The Prodigy attended their Dead Channels screening at the Roxie Film Center. As associate producer and actress in that dark and somewhat violent vehicle, it surprised me to hear her speak of her committed interest to spiritual cinema, and that she had been working for many years on a film based on the life of Matthew Shepard. I asked her to please keep me posted on the project, which—true to her word—she has done.

Mid-October of last year The Sensei (site) had a private screening at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, as part of a Martial Arts Festival and the Dallas AIDS Walk. The Sensei—which pulls no punches criticizing the male-preferential hierarchical structures of the martial arts world—was encouragingly received by that community, much as the trailer had been earlier at a martial arts convention in Las Vegas.

Set in the late ’70s and early ’80s when AIDS was first ravaging both urban and rural communities throughout America, The Sensei recreates the intolerant hysteria that ostracized those who first took ill, and the rampant homophobia within martial arts schools that denied young gays the opportunity to learn how to defend themselves against hate crimes accelerated by fears of the disease. Though nearly 30 years ago, attitudes have not changed as much as one might expect. When The Sensei screened in early December on World AIDS Day at the Anchorage International Film Festival, Inosanto received an enthusiastic standing ovation even as one guy told her his black belt would be stripped away if he took in a gay student. Since then she has received support from gay martial artists who remain closeted or others who feel they cannot openly take a stance.

What has been, perhaps, the most ironic upset of the last few decades in terms of rights for the Queer community is that—while Queers have come out of the closet—hatred and bigotry, far from erased but censured by legislation, have taken their place. Hate and intolerance, unfortunately, prevail, albeit in the closet. All the more reason why The Sensei’s sentiments—even when they veer towards the melodramatic—bear the sharp edge of continuing necessity.

At another special screening mid-December at the STARZ Film Center in Denver, Colorado as part of the Untitled Film Festival, The Sensei was screened to benefit the GLBT Community Center of Colorado’s Rainbow Alley Program, which assists Queer youth around such difficult issues as drugs and alcohol, HIV and AIDS, coming out, suicide prevention, personal safety, and school struggles. The screening, co-hosted by The Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Denver Film Society, came at a poignant time as 2007 marked the historic passage of The Matthew Shepard Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 or LLEHCPA). The passage of this Federal bill was due to the diligent work of Judy and Dennis Shepard, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, along with U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Gordon Smith, and U.S. Representatives John Lewis, Christopher Shays, and Tammy Baldwin. Matthew Shepard’s case influenced the themes of tolerance and compassion in The Sensei. Once again, the film received a rousing standing ovation.

The Sensei’s Official World Premiere was held Sunday, May 4, 2008 at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, California, as part of the 24th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Philip W. Chung championed the film for Asian Week.

The Sensei has since been accepted into the Hoboken International Film Festival where it will screen Saturday, May 31st, 2008, 4:00PM at the Hoboken Multi-Service Center in Hoboken, New Jersey; Newfest 2008 (sponsored by Showtime) where it will screen Saturday, June 7th, 2008, 5:45PM at the AMC 13 in New York City; and San Francisco’s Frameline32 where it will screen at the Roxie Film Center on Saturday, June 28, 9:15PM.

Clearly, The Sensei—which has taken seven years to complete—is a labor of love from a woman with a commanding capacity to love. It has survived a small budget and many setbacks along the way; but, arrives with an ensemble cast committed to its simple but stern message. Without tolerance, we are all undone. With disciplined blows, compassion both wrathful and righteous, and the discernment to know how to throw off the weight of outmoded hierarchical values, The Sensei moves gently and surefooted out from underneath an unresponsive patriarchy to claim its own field of defense. As the film emphasizes, every individual has the right to defend themselves against hatred and self-hatred. The Sensei does a masterful job of restoring spiritual integrity to the martial arts, de-emphasizing the testosteroned athletics that have pared the spiritual discipline down to a competitive sport. This is a commendable trend, seen as well in David Mamet’s recent Redbelt where—coincidentally enough—Diana Lee Inosanto’s father Dan Inosanto plays martial arts master Joao Moro. Both films might be accused of being more true than real; but, without truth to guide the real, where will we be?

ASSOCIATE PRESS

Colo. District Nixes School Bullying Film

Sun Jun 5, 3:23 AM ET

LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Officials in the school district that includes Columbine High School have nixed the idea of filming a movie at another school in the county because it deals in part with bullying. Jefferson County school officials said they were concerned that filming “The Sensei” at Alameda High School would reopen the wounds of Columbine, where 12 students and one teacher were fatally shot by two students in 1999. The teen gunmen, who also shot and killed themselves, had complained that they were bullied. “Our understanding is the scenes that were going to be filmed in the school were violent scenes,” Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said Friday. “We are still a healing community.” The movie by writer-director Diana Lee Inosanto is about a gay teenager who learns martial arts after being bullied by high school athletes in the early 1980s, at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Stevenson said the board’s denial last month had nothing to do with the film’s treatment of controversial subjects such as homosexuality and AIDS. “Nationwide, what I see consistently is, whenever there is any issue with school violence, it gets connected to the Columbine community. In thinking of the good of the entire community who are very tired of being connected to school violence, it would just be better if it were filmed in a different location,” she said. Inosanto wrote in a letter to the school board that its concerns were unwarranted. “My film bears no resemblance whatsoever to what happened in that tragedy. There are no guns, no cults, and no extreme violence. ‘The Sensei’ is a movie about respect, tolerance and personal growth,” she wrote. Inosanto said she wanted to use Alameda for her film because the building fits the 1980s timeline and the school has a diverse student population. Alameda Principal Dale McCoy had wanted the movie filmed at the school, saying it would give students opportunities to be extras and learn about film production. “This proposal presents a safe, wholesome learning experience for AHS and the community it serves,” he wrote in a letter to the board.

IMDIVERSITY

GRRRRRRRRRL Power! in the Year of the Dog

APA Women on the Verge of Success

By Erin May Ling Quill, for IMDiversity Asian-American Village

March 12, 2006 – It’s the Year of the Dog now, and all I can say is: Hollywood and Asian-American women are off to a great start!

Sandra Oh leads the pack (let’s not forget A-BOaT her being Canadian). How HOT is it that Sandra Oh won her Golden Globe and SAG Award, and Chloe Dao walked away with Project Runway’s top prize? Damn hot.

Nothing happens overnight, though, and what I want to do is to highlight some Asian-American women whose success stories are still in the making, but who we need to get behind as a community, because they are our future representation. Here for starters are three women who are making their dreams come true in a viable way, step by step: writer/director Georgia Lee, producer/actress Mia Riverton, and producer Jane Chen.

These three women produced the indie film, RED DOORS, which has playedand won awards all over the country, including a nod at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York for Best Feature in 2005. In addition, CBS Network commissioned a pilot script based on the movie – which means, should it go forward to series, we will see a dysfunctional Chinese-American family vying for Nielson ratings alongside all the other dysfunctional families that litter our television landscape. All three women will write the pilot script.

sandra o
“On a Roll”: Sandra Oh will appear (as Judy Tokuda) in Hard Candy. coming in April from Lion’s Gate Films. Photo credit: Mark Lowry / Lion’s Gate

red doors

If you missed RED DOORS at the film festivals, you will be pleased to know that Polychrome Pictures purchased the U.S. distribution rights, and plan a release in April 2006 I’d like to switch to theater for a moment, if I may, to a very exiting play called YOU PICK COLOR, by Marita de Lara. Marita has worked as an actress for several years, as well as a professional dancer, and entered the writing program at East West Players. A graduate of Syracuse University, she is a great example of the merits of training to mold talent. I recently saw a reading of this play and fell in love with it. Its fast, funny, and furious pacing packed with hip cultural references while chronicling dueling Vietnamese nail salons had me literally gasping for breath in certain places.
Jen Chen, Mia Riverton, Georgia Lee of Red Doors. Image courtesy: Blanc de chine Entertainment

This play has an exciting future, Ia m sure of it. Established playwright Alice Tuan has a new play dealing with Compton and race relations. Any year that brings new work from Tuan – who remains a distinct and relevant voice – is a great year.Let’s go back to Laos-born “no, she’s not just a good pattern-maker’ Chloe Dao. I had hailed her as the one to beat for Season 2 of Project Runway because of the second challenge of ‘Clothes off Their Backs,
” where she took her dress and coat and created a fabulous swing dress. Time and time again, I marveled at the ingenuity and technical skill that Chloe infused in her women-friendly designs. I was thrilled that she won, and I have text messages on my phone from a bunch of different Asian-American friends that were equally as pleased for her. Hey Santino….suck it! This next woman is a whirlwind of a person, and thus, we should all be aware: Diana Lee Inosanto is a mother, a wife, a writer, a director, an actress, and the livingembodiment of the power of martial arts. The daughter of living martial arts legend, Dan Inosanto, and the goddaughter of the one-and-only Bruce Lee, Diana is well versed in many martial arts forms. She is also passionately committed to her feature film, THE SENSEI, which is currently seeking

red
Marita de Lara, creator of You Pick Color

finishing funds. Diana wrote, directed, and stars in the film, alongside a multiracial cast. And the subject? Tolerance. The film deals with small-town prejudice – both racial and sexual –
inosanto
and how two people are able to find their paths through it using the martial ways. This film initially made the papers when it was first interrupted by the small Colorado town where it was set – overzealous townspeople yanked permission to film in the school after lifting pages of the script and deciding the subject matter was not to their liking. This, despite the fact that the principal of the school was enthusiastic about an opportunity to open up a dialogue the film would have created. In an era where we are beset by lies from all sides, where we are constantly seeing on the news the depraved depths to which people will go to harm one another, it is refreshing and encouraging that an Asian-American woman is not
Diana Lee Inosanto sets up a fight scene on the ground between Mark McGraw and Mike Olaskey for The Sensei

only ready to take on a feature film, but small-town prejudice. I wish her very well, and I hope her dream comes through. The footage I have seen is very promising.

So there you have it – six Asian-American women taking the Year of the Dog by the collar and running with it. None of it was easy – each one has persevered through the agony of the blank page through to a realized production. Brava!