Eighteenth Annual 72 Hour Shootout Filmmaking Top Ten Premiere: Joyful Resistance

MANHATTAN, N.Y. - EntSun -- The winners of the Film Lab's 18^th annual 72 Hour Shootout filmmaking competition (the "Shootout") premiered at the 45^th annual Asian American International Film Festival in New York City today at noon.  The premiere, at The Asia Society, showcased compelling and nuanced stories from underrepresented filmmakers.  The premiere screening was followed by a filmmaker panel, moderated by Virginia Myung of CAPA (Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans).  The films will be available on VOD for the next week through the festival.  All films were based on the theme "Joyful Resistance," which, as actor and Film Lab President Jennifer Betit Yen explained, constituted a "way of reconditioning by taking a positive emotion – joy – and attaching it to reactions to terrible things, to injustice.  We used this theme to reinvent the negative framework to create control in chaos and to take joy from the ability to stand up and take action, joy from the ability to resist, joy from the opportunity to create justice or help to create justice."

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The winners of the 2022 72 Hour Shootout were:  Top 8 (draw): Team Minjo, "Dandelions" by Team Leader Min Ding; Team Cleaver Crew, "Inner Peace" by Team Leader Lily Liu; and Team Chew Tube, "The Joy of Resistance" by Team Leader Kevin Chew.  Top 7: Team A Reel Company, "The Builder" by Team Leader Dillon Herbig.  Top 6: Team Wise Owls, "SAD" by Team Leader Aimiende Negbenebor Sela, which also won Most Original Use of Theme.  Top 5: Team No Fun No Game, "Frapp Gab" by Team Leader Yiqing Zhao.  Top 4: Team Story Mode, "Honhyeol" by Team Leader Michael Hyon Johnson, which also won Best Director and Best Screenwriting.  Top 3: Team Agu, "Agu" by Team Leader Di Quon.  Top 2: Team Spirit Prince, "They Meet at Night" by Team Leader Cameron Kalajian, which also won Best Cinematography and Best Southeast Asian Content Creator.  Grand Prize: Team Monkey King Productions, "Moving On" by Team Leader Kevin Leung, which also took Best Actors, Best Woman Content Creator (Kimi Rutledge) and Outstanding LGBTQ Content Creator.  Film Lab's Shootout Coordinator, Ariel Urim Chung, noted, "[t]his year's theme, Joyful Resistance, evoked honest stories that were urgent and complicated, and exactly what we needed during this time."

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The Shootout is a worldwide filmmaking competition celebrating gender and ethnic diversity in film in which filmmaking teams are given this common theme at the start and have 72 hours to write, shoot, edit, and complete short films up to five minutes in length.  More information at www.film-lab.org (http://www.asianamericanfilmlab.com/72-hour-shootout/) and https://www.facebook.com/72hrshootout.