As far as film festivals go, Colorado Dragon Film Festival is incredibly modest.
Its inaugural program features a mere seven films playing in a single theater, the King Center on the Auraria campus, May 20-22. Executive director Erin Yoshimura will be pleased if 750 people attend the event, which is co-sponsored by University of Colorado Denver.
Compare that to the Denver Film Festival, which sold about 47,000 tickets in November, or the Boulder Film Festival, which sold 25,000 in March.
But Yoshimura has a knack for growing cultural events far beyond their modest beginnings. Her film event’s big sister, the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, welcomed more than 125,000 people last year to Sloan’s Lake Park to celebrate Asian and Asian-American culture amid the country’s largest dragon-boat race.
“We know how to do boat festivals really well,” said Yoshimura, who started as volunteer in 2001 and took over in 2010. “And it’s our cultural programming that draws so many people. But the first year of anything is always hard.”
Despite the proliferation of niche events such as Mile High Horror Film Festival, Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, DocuWest and CineLatino, Denver has no Asian-centric film event. That’s why Yoshimura is keeping expectations low while striving to make the festival deserving of its unique title.
“Asian things have become very cool — food, tattoos, gardens, video games, comics, clothing — but nobody really understands the people,” Yoshimura said. “We are the most diverse ethnic group out of everybody. But there’s still this mystery about who we are and what we do, these stereotypes about being the ‘model minority’ that’s good at science and math. There are infinite shades of gray there.”
While the Dragon Boat Festival doesn’t return until July, Yoshimura chose May to debut her film event to coincide with Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
“I’m fourth-generation Japanese-American, and you’d be surprised how often I still get asked, ‘Where were you born?’ “
As a result, the programming at Colorado Dragon Film Festival will reflect a number of Asian cultures. Opening-night film “Uzumasa Limelight” (which also screens May 21) pays tribute to samurai films and includes an in-person Q&A with Japanese director Ken Ochiai, who is flying in from Los Angeles. The festivities include Asian food and traditional Japanese performances and demonstrations that attendees are encouraged to join.
“We’re importing a bit of that from the Dragon Boat Festival, where people can actually jump into Japanese folk dancing or learn how to hit a taiko drum,” Yoshimura said.
Before Saturday morning’s screening of the family-friendly anime “Wolf Children,” kids and their parents can make wolf ears to wear during the film. The documentary “Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” examines an issue that affects both sides of the Pacific, directed by Chinese-American Angela Sun. “Winning Girl” follows a teenage judo and wrestling athlete from Hawaii fighting for the world championship. And Sunday’s closer, “Off the Menu,” traces family history through food, with sushi from Kokoro and food trucks on-site throughout the weekend.
Yoshimura, 53, plans to step down from both events in August to focus on leadership training — which she incorporated into her tenure at the Dragon Boat Festival. As the first Asian/Pacific Islander recipient of the Livingston Fellowship from the Bonfils Stanton Foundation, and a winner of the 2013 Impact Arts Award (from the Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in Arts & Culture), it’s likely she’ll never be too far from the events she helped grow and create.
“It’s funny, because what I was doing before all this was training, so I’m hoping to get back into that,” she said.
One could argue she never left.
COLORADO DRAGON FILM FESTIVAL. Inaugural celebration of Asian and Asian-American cinema from the creators of the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival. Various screenings May 20-22 at the King Center on the Auraria Campus, 855 Lawrence Way. Tickets: $6 for children and seniors, $8-$10 for adults. cdfilm.org.
