So as our readers know, some of the YOMYOMF crew headed down south this past weekend for the San Diego Asian Film Fest where we announced the five winning finalists of our INTERPRETATIONS Film Initiative: Aldous Davidson, Kha Do, Keith Eng, Andrew Oh and Joey Yee.

The finalists were announced at the fest’s big gala dinner on Saturday night. Guest Offender David Henry Hwang (Tony Award-winning writer of M. Butterfly) and INTERPRETATIONS commissioned filmmaker Danny Pudi (Abed on NBC’s Community) presented awards to the three finalists in attendance: Aldous, Andrew and Joey (Keith and Kha will receive their awards by mail).

Jon Chen (DP for Aldous’ film), Aldous, Andrew and Joey a.k.a. the finalists:

Andrew with musician Bobby Choi a.k.a. Big Phony who performed at the gala:

Aldous and Jon:

The finalists also received bottles of Remy Martin courtesy of SDAFF and gala sponsor Remy Martin. Prior to the event, SDAFF director and Guest Offender Lee Ann Kim asked us if it would be OK to present the winners in attendance with the Remy Martin. That may be the biggest rhetorical question we have ever been asked. And yes, Joey is of legal drinking age:

Before the gala, Danny, David (with Seema Sueko, director of his play Yellow Face playing one more week in SD) and Offender Iris Yamashita (Academy Award-nominated writer of Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima) took a walk down the red carpet looking as smooth as can be:

They were joined by other notable friends new and old including John Cho (Star Trek):

Leo Nam (Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift):

Ellen Wong (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) a.k.a. the future ex-wife of Offender Jerome:

Harry Shum (Glee):

SDAFF boss lady Lee Ann and Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii 5-0) who was honored during the gala:

Hip hop violinist Paul Dateh performs:

The People I’ve Slept With’s Lynn Chen and Karin Anna Cheung hand out more awards:

Aaron Yoo (Disturbia) and C.S. Lee (Dexter) hand out even more awards:

Violinist Paul with some of the awesome SDAFF staff/volunteers:

Iris hanging out with her posse including Heroes’ James Kyson Lee:

The gang’s all here:

The following afternoon, we held our INTERPRETATIONS panel where we screened the five winning shorts plus a few of our previously commissioned films. Because Offender Justin Lin couldn’t attend this year due to shooting Fast 5, we wanted to treat the audience to a surprise exclusive straight from the Atlanta set: a sneak peek of the upcoming Car Talk Discussion episode 2 starring Offender Sung Kang and actor and producer of the upcoming Koreatown reality show Tyrese Gibson; shot by Offender Anson Ho.

Car Talk Discussion 2 won’t be officially released for awhile so those in attendance will be the first and only people to see the short for some time (we’ll world premiere right here at YOMYOMF so keep your eyes out for that. Check out episode 1 here in the meantime). Here’s Anson introducing Car Talk Discussion 2:

The rest of the event was devoted to a lively Q&A moderated by me featuring a panel consisting of David, Danny and Iris as well as the three finalists in attendance: Aldous, Andrew and Joey. The discussion touched on everything from how the filmmakers approached their INTERPRETATIONS shorts, how the four-line INTERPRETATIONS script was created, the panelist’s long-term goals and the general state of Asian American filmmaking. Here are photos from the afternoon:

Thanks again to everyone who came out to San Diego and all who supported INTERPRETATIONS. We’ll try to post more photos on our Facebook page later this week. BTW, we set a record yesterday for most traffic/visitors ever to our blog. Thanks also to all our readers, new and old, for being a part of the YOMYOMF family.

(Photos courtesy of SDAFF)