A Complete Success of the 2020 UMFF&SDIKFF

Award-winning Film Screening

July 14, 2021

Since the beginning of 2020, with the global spread of the epidemic, public activities and gatherings around the world have had to be suspended. After the 2020 Universe Multicultural Film Festival and San Diego International Kids’ Film Festival turned to be online mode, on July 10, 2021, the first day of reopening to the public in Rolling Hills Estate, the venue of the UMFF, Maeya Group successfully held its first onsite activity since 2020.

 This screening included films from the 2020 UMFF&SDIKFF. Accord to the international travel ban, most attendees are from California or domestic states. After screening, each film had a Q&A session with all the audience and filmmakers.

 The first film was 2020 UMFF official selection film “Barrio of Mansions”. This film told a story about a young immigrant. Battling racism for the first time in his life, Ricardo Catro is the first in his family to ever attend college. Ricardo’s households’ tremendous sentimental value for him because he’s lived there his entire life and, now that his parents are gone, he wants to keep it to remember them by. The director of this film, Diane Revilla, came all the way from Texas to the screening and enjoyed a great time with the audience. With her passion for filmmaking, Diane has been working on her path to the film industry and this is her first credit as a director. With unconditional support from her family, Diane would love to join the 2021 UMFF&SDIKFF event later in August and hope to honor her family with more and more great projects directed by her.

The second film “Swimming” was the winner of the 2020 UMFF Best Drama Short Film. This film told a story about Michelle, a 17-year-old Chinese American girl, is trying to figure out her sexual identity while her mother and her stepfather are busy with her almost 4-month-old baby sister. One day Michelle is left in charge of the baby on her own, she gets frustrated with the crying baby and takes the baby to the beach. While Michelle thinks the outing created a special bonding between her and her baby sister, her worried parents blame her for being irresponsible. They fight. Michelle’s mother is confronted with the fact that Michelle has been hurting herself and she is gay. With her professional credits long from The Joy Luck Club, director Anna Chi dedicated her own experience of life to this fantastic script. The producer of this film, Ming, also shared her behind the scene story with the audience and other filmmakers. Telling a great LGBTQ story with beautiful shooting, countless invisible efforts made by the film crew finally got told through the Q&A session to the public.

Michael Matteo Rossi, the winner of the 2020 UMFF Best Achievement in Directing brought his award-winning film “Shadows” to the audience at the screening. As a young filmmaker, Michael started his professional journey all the way back to 2007 and his IMDb credits demonstrated his profession as both director and producer. Many of Mr.Rossi’s family and friends attended the screening and this is a terrific opportunity for them to enjoy this film especially after a long break without public film screening anywhere. During the red-carpet interview after the screening of the film, Mr. Rossi also shared the anecdotes and hardships of the filmmaking process with the media.

Glorious Cal Arts alumni, young animator Asavari Kumar impressed the audience with her great animation short, “Passage”, which was the winner of the 2020 UMFF Best Animated Short. This animation told a story based on Ms.Kumar’s life which was very touching and inspiring - Finding herself in a state of limbo, an Indian woman revisits her immigration journey and voyages through a tempestuous emotional landscape of memory, identity, belonging, and the illusion of the American Dream. Ms.Kumar majorly finished this project on her own and the very high quality of the result was recognized by the Hollywood jurists last year of the UMFF. No doubt Ms.Kumar’s work will keep shining on more and more stages and the UMFF would always be honored to see our participants take off in their careers.

The founder of Debonair Productions, Mr.Mario Bobino came to the screening with his film “My Culture”, which was the winner of the 2020 UMFF Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Cinematography Feature Film. The film focuses on a transracial love story in the context of American culture. Growing up in Oakland, California, with a strong and admired father, working as a Bay Area Fireman, and a successful college-educated mother, has made Athedral and his sister very proud. But since his father's heroic death in 2002, Athedral has spent his life pursuing his baseball career and helping run his mother's upscale apartment complex in Oakland, California, not leaving him much time to find love. With an indescribable passion for film, Mr.Bobino even mortgaging his own property to make this film. His dedication and love for film infect everyone at the screening. After sharing all his joys and hardships of filmmaking, Mr.Bobino thanked the UMFF for recognizing his work with honor. He has to attend this screening all the way from Bay Area to LA to express his appreciation and support for the festival.

Although the event was slightly smaller than a regular annual film festival, every filmmaker who attended made unforgettable memories from the Q&A session to the red-carpet interviews. Later this year in August, many more people will come from all over the world to participate in the 2021 UMFF&SDIKFF. The deadline for the 2021 UMFF&SDIKFF will be July 31st. Seize this last precious opportunity to draw worldwide attention on the top film festival stage in Hollywood!

Submission:

https://filmfreeway.com/UniverseMulticulturalFilmFestival

https://filmfreeway.com/SDIKFF

The event sponsored by Maeya Fashion