Here's the announcement from the San Diego Asian Film Festival, which announced its award winners in a ceremony last night.
__________Congrats to last night's award winners!
A red carpet lined with screaming fans. A white tent with stars twinkling above and seated below it. A night to celebrate the best of the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the up-and-coming journalists of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). This was the setting for BACKSTAGE 2002, our Gala Awards Dinner.
We presented seven awards in the following categories:
Best Experimental Film: STILL I RISE by Umesh Shukla
Best Animation: VESSEL WRESTLING by Lisa Yu
Best Short Documentary: BLT GENESIS by Evan Leong
Best Feature Documentary: JOURNEY FOR LOTUS by Enhee Cha
Best Dramatic Narrative Short: BARRIER DEVICE by Grace Lee
Best Dramatic Narrative Feature: CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES by Eric Byler
Grand Jury Award (SDAFF's highest honor): SOPHIE by Helen Lee
SDAFF Presents First VISIONARY AWARD
For the first time, SDAFF presented its first Visionary Award. Recognizing an enormous contribution to the state and future of Asian American cinema and media arts, the 2002 Visionary Award was presented to none other than JUSTIN LIN, the director and co-writer of BETTER LUCK TOMORROW.
Those of you that had a chance to see BLT last Thursday will have no difficulty realizing why Justin simply HAD to receive this award: his talent, passion for excellence, and desire to create a film about Asian Americans that seems actually about Americans that are all Asian. Moreover, a film that explores the dimensions of young Asian American males, a type of character that Hollywood traditionally sees as "Stockboy", "Take out guy", "Thug 1/2/3", etc.
Variety Magazine dubbed Justin Lin as one of the "Directors To Watch", and SDAFF has every confidence that he, his cast and crew, and BETTER LUCK TOMORROW will see nothing but continued success when MTV films brings it to theaters next year.