You are currently browsing all entries tagged with 'Quentin Lee'

A Film Festival Odyssey (Part I)

  • March 16, 2011 12:05 am

When I heard that bootleg DVD copies of The People I’ve Slept With had appeared in Shanghai, I realized that that my journey with this film is coming to an end this month with its long anticipated DVD & VOD release. We shot People in the summer of 2008, and it literally has been over 5 years since actor Karin Anna Cheung and I first started talking about doing a project together.

(Photo Courtesy of CAAM/John C. Liau)

Making a movie is like giving birth to a child. Getting her into the film festivals is just like getting your child into college—would it be Harvard, UCLA or community college? Selling your film is like trying to set your child up with the right career or job. A director/producer is always an overbearing tiger mom fighting for her every need and privilege. Would you like to see her homeless or shooting up heroin on the street? No!

For the first part of “A Film Festival Odyssey,” I want to share with you my festival journey with People from the world premiere in Hawaii to the Hong Kong premiere so you’ll get a perspective of a filmmaker on the international festival circuit. For the second part, which I will post next week, I’ll be sharing with you a different perspective at the film festivals, particularly as a juror at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival where I just got back from.

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Slaying the Dragon Lady!

  • March 9, 2011 11:08 pm

From the title of my blog, you’d think I’m hating on Asian American women which is not the case. I’m really playing—or signifying to be specific—on the title of Professor Elaine Kim’s new documentary, Slaying the Dragon Reloaded, which will be world premiering this week at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival where I will also be serving on the Narrative Features jury.

I’m signifying on the title to illustrate a point about editing and misappropriation in filmmaking.

One night, when I was on Facebook, I received a message from Professor Kim asking me for permission to use an image from my film The People I’ve Slept With on the poster of her film Reloaded. I was puzzled wondering why she would want to use a picture from my film on her poster when my film didn’t have anything to do with her film. I immediately searched on-line and found the trailer for her documentary. I was surprised to find footage of Better Luck Tomorrow, which was directed by my fellow Offender Justin, in it:  Read more...

Why Am I Doing Canyon Sam?

  • January 5, 2011 12:05 am

Canyon Sam with Dalai Lama

In the summer of 2009, I met Canyon Sam at a Pride event in San Francisco where we were both reading our works at the San Francisco Public Library. As she was reading from her yet-to-be-published book Sky Train, Tibetan Women on the Edge of History, I was immediately engrossed by her story. At that point, I just finished post-production on The People I’ve Slept With and I was subconsciously looking for a new subject for a film. I was particularly drawn toward her multi-hyphenates as a Chinese American writer, a Tibetan activist, a performance artist and radical lesbian feminist. Canyon Sam is one of the first Asian lesbian activists in history.

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Why Not Start Your Own Film Festival?

  • November 29, 2010 12:08 am

QUENTIN

Quentin Lee is the film hustler. A severely edited-for-TV version of his latest feature “The People I’ve Slept With” that he directed and produced is currently on Logo. It will be due out uncut on VOD and DVD from Maya Entertainment. He writes for filmhustler.com when he’s in the mood.

Image courtesy of Daric Loo

Exactly. Why not start your own film festival if you have movies to screen that didn’t get into other film festivals? I have to say that’s the best motivation to start a film festival—having that passionate need of showing films (whether your own or others) that other film festivals neglected.

That’s how Slamdance started. It was a reaction against Sundance not accepting several filmmakers’ features. Those rejected filmmakers went to Park City in 1995 and started their own festival–Slamdance–which has become a bit of an institution of its own.

In the same fateful year, I remember that due to the limited slots in shorts programming, the then Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival ended up not taking Justin Lin’s and a few other Asian American students’ shorts. Jennifer Kim, Daric Loo, Justin Lin, a few students and I banded together to form APACT, the Asian Pacific American Coalition in Film & Television, at UCLA. We also started our own annual film festival to showcase the films made by both undergraduate and graduate film students of APA descent at UCLA.  Read more...

Random Tips on Self-Distribution

  • August 16, 2010 12:01 am

QUENTIN

Quentin Lee would like to think he’s a part-time drag queen and and full-time hustler moonlighting as a filmmaker. He went to UCLA Film School with fellow Offender Justin whom he co-directed his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS with. Subsequently, he made DRIFT, ETHAN MAO and THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH which is currently in theaters in New York and opening in L.A. (Aug 27), San Francisco (9/3) and San Jose (9/3). He also blogs as Film Hustler. Today, Quentin gives tips on self-distributing your own movie.

For The People I’ve Slept With, I wasn’t originally planning on doing theatrical self-distribution because we have already made a basic cable sale and were on the verge of finishing up the rest of North American sales. But when the fall cable date pressed closer, I wasn’t sure that our potential North American distributor would do a theatrical so I decided to take it on as a summer job. I had originally planned only to do San Francisco, but when I got a New York date I decided to also do Los Angeles.

New York and Los Angeles are often the toughest and most expensive markets. But if you don’t show in New York, you won’t really be taken seriously. Showing in New York can also help you get into other markets.

So ultimately why theatrical distribution?  Read more...

The Folly of Fangs

  • February 26, 2010 12:45 am

QUENTIN

Quentin Lee would like to think he’s a part-time drag queen and and full-time hustler moonlighting as a filmmaker. He went to UCLA Film School with fellow Offender Justin whom he co-directed his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS with. Subsequently, he made DRIFT, ETHAN MAO and the upcoming THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH. He also blogs as Film Hustler.

We made Shopping for Fangs in the summer of ‘96. And like everyone else, we had the dream of getting into the Sundance Film Festival. I was lucky enough to get a grant of 35K from the Canada Council for the Arts, and I scraped together another 50K from friends and relatives to complete the film. Justin and I canned Fangs under 40K on 35mm, which I thought was a pretty amazing feat.
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Part Time Drag Queen

  • February 10, 2010 11:43 pm


QUENTIN

Quentin Lee would like to think he’s a part-time drag queen and and full-time hustler moonlighting as a filmmaker. He went to UCLA Film School with fellow Offender Justin whom he co-directed his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS with. Subsequently, he made DRIFT, ETHAN MAO and the upcoming THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH. He also blogs as Film Hustler.

The first time I wore women clothes was when I was six. I was hanging out with my mom on a lazy Sunday afternoon while my dad was out. She let me try on her evening gown and carry my favorite glittery purse of hers. As I pranced around on her bed, I playfully dubbed myself “the nightgown chicken.” In Cantonese, “chicken” is the slang for “prostitute.” My mom was cracking up. We both had so much fun. I remember I really enjoyed playing a character… being someone whom I’m not.

But she only let me do it that once.  Read more...

’97 Roundtable Roundup

  • October 4, 2009 7:24 pm

Classof19972009
One of the more enjoyable things about growing old is you get to talk about and revisit the past. And usually you get to pick and choose what you want to revisit. I had the opportunity to catch up with everyone from our ’97 experience this past weekend but it was way too short. Part of it is that we haven’t seen each other in years. And if it were 1997 we’d be hanging out til the sun came up. But it’s 2009 and I gots a baby at home so it was bye bye by 11. Thank you Quentin and Koji at ID Fest for setting this up. Thank you Martin for moderating. And thank you everyone for taking your Saturday night out to hang with us. If you’re interested, Eric posted the discussion on his Giant Robot podcast.  Good times…

Class of ’97

  • October 2, 2009 1:48 am

About a month ago I got a call from my good friend Quentin that our little indie film SHOPPING FOR FANGS from back in the days was going to be screening at a film festival as part of its retrospective series along with Rea Tajiri’s STRAWBERRY FIELDS, Michael Aki and Eric Nakamura’s SUNSETS, and Chris Chan Lee’s YELLOW.
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The four films have since been dubbed by some as the “Asian American New Wave of 1997″.

To me it was a point of entrance into something I never thought I’d get a chance to be a part of and since then has played a huge role in shaping my perspective as not only as a filmmaker but as a person. So I thought it would be interesting to get in touch with the gang twelve years later and ask them what they took away from the experience.  Read more...

Phil’s Journal Entries Part I

  • September 30, 2009 2:30 pm

2712292-mIt may be hard to believe but I wasn’t always the cool and hip dude I am now. Believe it or not, I had awkward moments growing up and made my fair share of bad calls. So to help show that anyone can leave the shackles of pathetic-ness behind, occasionally I’ll post random excerpts from my journal so you can see how far I’ve come.  Read more...