SFIAAFF Gala Party, Thursday, March 10, 2005:
Ah the best laid plans… Well Laura and I had hoped to be doing a daily blog starting opening night of the fest but here it is Saturday and thanks to allergies, day jobs, necessary life chores, attending events/movies and mad insomnia our world has been rendered writingless.
Due to being overbooked we missed the opening night of the film at the Castro. Even though we saw a press screening of Alice Wu’s wonderful debut film Saving Face it would have been too fun to see it with the Castro crowd and hear the cast & director speak. (Next year I’m taking vacation days during the fest so I can catch more of these cool happenings.) Later that night I talked to festival director Chui-hui Yang who said the house was packed and the crowd seemed to really love it. Well drop us a line if you caught this showing to let us all know if anything cool happened and what you thought of it.
We did pull it together enough to make the groovy gala party at the beautiful Asian Art Museum. As we walked up Larkin Street the banging sounds of SambAsia started rolling towards us. After a kick-ass mini concert and dance on the front steps outside, we finally pulled ourselves away. Inside there were enough delicious delicacies to feed Mao's army. Also, since I'm highly susceptible to suggestion, I had to try the neon blue beverage everyone seemed to be sipping – it was damn tasty.
After spotting a few local celebs like Roger Garcia and the gruff Castro Street dude that sells Laura her eyeglasses we headed off for a look around. The first thing we saw was Alice Wu and her two young leads being whisked up the main staircase. As they were stopped for a few photos Laura ran up to try and grab a couple herself but being out of position and rushed they didn’t turn out so good.
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| Bad photos of Lynn Chen, Alice Wu, & Michelle Krusiec |
In the DJ room the mellow tones of DJ King Kong were just giving way to Dhamaal; it was a pleasure to hear all those familiar Hindi beats tossed around in a funky fusion salad. We found last year’s SFIAAFF Outreach Coordinator and current chocolatier diva Joyce Guan sampling the finest in Charles Chocolates at the dessert table. I passed up the carrot cake for a heavenly slice of the Sugar Bowl Bakery’s tiramisu.
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| Dhamaal |
Sated we decided to check out some art and marched off towards the elevator and as the door was opening I glanced behind me and saw Joan Chen. Just as I thought to myself ‘shit we missed her’ she and her party of friends climbed into the elevator WITH US! She seemed exuberant but had that ‘please don’t bother me’ aura about her. We couldn’t help but hear their conversation as they made plans to go to one of their homes after the party. I glanced over and spied them passing around a plate of the carrot cake I’d just passed on so I gathered my courage (helped by several sleepless night and the vodka I just drank) and asked them how it was, saying I couldn’t resist getting the tiramisu instead. Ms. Chen smiled politely as her friends extolled the cake's virtues. The ride was suddenly over and off they went. What fun. She’s absolutely gorgeous and quite petite. I wanted to ask about her upcoming Chinese project but she really looked like she wasn’t in the mood. Oh well. I should’ve requested an interview when I had the chance. Just not enough time for everything this year…
So we did a quick tour of the large, almost empty museum (the best way to see it) and landed back in the DJ room just in time for Dan the Automator’s move bustin’ set. Quite a night and if you didn’t make it this year I highly recommend getting to the opening gala next year. -- jennifer young, 03.10.05 |
