Eve & the Fire Horse opens on Friday, July 6th in San Francisco at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. The producer, Erik Paulsson and director will be in attendance.

Please keep checking our website - www.eveandthefirehorse.com - for updated information on pre-ordering and purchasing.

Eve & the Fire Horse has won the Claude Jutra Award for Best Direction for a First Feature Film and has been nominated for five Genies (Canadian Oscars) for Achievement in Production Design, Costume, Sound, Best Supporting Actor for Lester Chan and Best Supporting Actress for Vivian Wu! For more info, please check out www.genieawards.com.

full house screenings, good films, karoake, beaches, spam wusubi, hotel parties, friendships ...

The awards ceremony at San Diego Asian American Film Festival turns out to be quite the extravaganza! Lee Ann Kim and the staffers and volunteers have put together a wonderfully posh event in the Doubletree ballroom. The current who's who of Asian American television/cinema is on hand to present the awards - from Daniel Day Kim of LOST to Justin Lin to Grace Park of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Happily, EVE & THE FIRE HORSE wins the Best Narrative Feature Award and I am presented the trophy by Roger Fan of BETTER LUCK TOMORROW and Dustin Nguyen of 21 JUMP STREET. On stage, I tell Dustin that I'm from Vancouver and when I was young, my friend and I snuck onto the Chapel set of 21 Jump Street. Another Vancouverite filmmaker wins the Best Narrative Short Award. The lifetime achievement award is presented to the very graceful actress, Kieu Chinh of JOY LUCK CLUB and JOURNEY FROM THE FALL.

As usual, the festival organizes a karaoke night, which turns out to be the best one of all. Lots of free-flowing soju and spirited fun. I put in a request to sing Kim Carnes' Betty Davis Eyes, but they don't get around to it on time. Throughout the year, I've been traveling to many Asian film festivals and there's this great sense of community and comraderie between the filmmakers. I feel like it's an exciting time for Asian North American filmmakers. Five years ago, there weren't even ten Asian North American feature films to consider for festivals. This year, there are at least ten quality Asian American feature films making the festival circuit this year - films like THE CONVENTIONEERS, COLMA, THE MOTEL, RED DOORS, PUNCHING AT THE SUN, etc. I feel so privileged to be a part of this group of filmmakers.

It's a short three days in San Diego. In a few days, I'm off to the Hawaii International Film Festival!

Flying from Vancouver, BC to Oregon provides the most spectacular aerial views. We fly over a semi-active Mt. St. Helen's, still emitting trails of smoke. Bend, Oregon turns out to be a cozy, warm community of 70,000 residents, who seem excited to be hosting the third annual bendfilm Festival. My guest house host is a lovely woman named Maeve who, along with her family, has generously put me up in her gorgeous home.

Eve & the Fire Horse is the opening film! I'm grateful to Katie and the staff at Bend for giving the film such a coveted spot. The film plays to a warm, responsive audience of 300 in a beautiful, old theatre.

Alas - in my all too short day and half at Bend, I do not get a chance to meet John Waters. I do walk by my childhood crush, C. Thomas Howell. "Outsiders" was one of my favourite films as a teenager. I wonder how many people have been tempted to say to him, "Stay gold, Ponyboy!" Happily, I befriend a John Waters doppelganger/filmmaker named Greg, who has a quirky short film here called UNCLE MANDO MOJO MAN, and we become fast friends. Along with Greg, his brother, Martin, Drew, another filmmaker with a lovely short called IN THE DETAILS and others, we form a merry band of filmmakers and film lovers. This festival is truly a filmmakers' festival where the emphasis is on the films and the artists. Lots of parties where hijinks ensue. (I end up with a whole cauliflower in my purse - thanks, Greg!) I even try to organize a karaoke night, inspired by my Asian American film fest. experiences.

The only unfortunate incident at the festival happens when my airport pick-up doesn't arrive. I wake up Maeve, who generously drives me to the airport. However, I miss the chance to check in my luggage and a particularly ungenerous inspector confiscates over $250 worth of lotions/gels/makeup including the great makeup swag I got in my Bend bag! To add salt to the wound, I walk by a pock-marked customs inspector exfoliating with my confiscated cleanser in the back room! Okay, that last part doesn't actually happen, but I have imagined it so many times, it feels like it did.

I had to fly out for the awards ceremony at the San Diego Asian Film Festival so I miss the closing night awards and ceremonies at Bend. I find out the next day that my twelve-year old lead actress, Phoebe Jojo Kut, wins Best Lead Female Actor at Bend! Congratulations, Phoebe!

I've run into the APA DC Asian American Film Festival gang at various Asian American film festivals over the year and the've gently tried to woo us into coming to their festival. It was an easy decision to come. Not only are Christian and his programmers and staff wonderful people, they also do a wickedly energetic rendition of Violent Femmes, BLISTER IN THE SUN, that I witnessed at a New York Asian American Film Fest karaoke party a couple of months ago. They've given us a very nice slot as the Closing Night film. Thanks to the generosity of the Canadian Embassy, I'm able to fly my twelve-year-old lead actress, Phoebe and her mother, Prinnie, out to DC. This is Phoebe's first time to Washington DC, just like it was her first time to Toronto, Park City, Seattle and Whistler when we attended those festivals.

Of course, I had to make a visit to the Washington zoo with Phoebe to see the panda cub as well as the three tiger cubs. I had already gotten her all excited about it. On the first day, we check out the historical buildings like the Washington Monument, Capitol Hill and the Lincoln and War Memorial. Traveling with an inquisitive eleven year old, I end up being her ill-informed guide and find myself scrambling to answer her questions and embellishing/making stuff up.

Phoebe: Can we go inside the Washington Monument?
Me: No, it's solid ... like that monolith in SPACE ODYSSEY 2001.
Phoebe: Oh, like a chocolate Easter bunny.

Turns out there's an elevator inside the Monument and even a gift shop on the top floor. All this is really boring to her anyway and she can't muster enough interest to walk over to see the White House up close. I would have liked to see the protesters though.

The zoo is much more interesting for Phoebe. On a crowded sunny Sunday afternoon, we zigzag through the crowds and find a comfortable spot to view the panda, Tian Tian and her cub. They are each blissfully licking away at a round apple juice popsicle when Tian drops hers. After half-heartedly looking for it under her feet, she reaches over and takes the cub's popsicle, much to the dismay of the numerous on-lookers who groan and moan at her not-so-generous display. How dare she act so ... animal-like?!  Unfazed, the fiesty cub digs around underneath her Mother's feet and manages to find the dropped popsicle.  Happy ending - people applaud!

At the festival, there is a great turn-out for the film and people respond extremely well. It's always a pleasure for me to have Phoebe at the q&a sessions because with Phoebe, I can take the backseat and just let her be the center of attention. People connect so much with her character and she deserves all the attention.

The festival folks are wonderfully hospitable and take out us for dinners and throw a fun closing night party at a club called Panache. Phoebe gets special permission to attend and she knows almost all the lyrics to the songs the DJ plays. She requests fellow Canadian, Nelly Furtado's song, PROMISCUOUS GIRL. I am a little mortified. Did I even know what "promiscuous" meant when I was twelve? She's definitely a lot more advanced than I was at her age. I am a little amused though when she innocently asks me what "lard" means. Apparently, someone at school called another girl a "lard-face".

Back in Vancouver again to decompress for a couple of days and then it's off to Bend, Oregon for the Bendfilm Festival. Hoping that I get to meet John Waters. E&F is the Opening Film!

This is the start of my five film festival run in five weeks! First up - The Lucas International Children's Film Festival in Frankfurt, Germany. It's my first children's festival. I..m excited to hear the response because children are funny, spontaneous and less censoring in their opinions. I once screened a short film at the Creteil Women's Film Festival in France and they brought in a busload of students to attend the screenings. I was so impressed by a 14-year-old French boy who asked such thoughtful questions to a filmmaker who had made this experimental, feminist short.

At my first screening, the front row is filled with eager brown and white German girls between the ages of 11-13. They constantly look back at me and wave. They also throw out every Asian phrase they know - nihao, moshi moshi, arigato. In fact, they knew a few more Mandarin phrases than I did! They are the epitome of sweetness. All the children are given a headset where they hear a live voice-over translation of the dialogue during the screening. I hit it off with the kids immediately and they applaud enthusiastically as I approach the stage for the q&a. Through a translator, they ask me the most adorable questions - Are you married? Do you have kids? Did you act in the film because I think you would make a good actress? Did your nieces act in the film? How old are you?  They were very interested in my personal life. At the end of the q&a session, they ask me how to say good-bye in Chinese. I tell them - joi gen - and as they file out of the theatre, they enthuastically shout back at me, joi gen, joi gen, joi gen! It's my favourite q&a session so far.

At the second screening, it's a larger crowd of about 250 children. A German translator sits in front of a microphone at the back of the theatre. As the film plays, he does all the voices - very surreal to hear two Chinese-Canadian girls' voices dubbed over by a young, male voice in German! The q&a was equally entertaining and at the end, I was swarmed by these German kids who wanted my autograph. The nature of celebrity is a strange thing. The kids work themselves up into a frenzy and I end up signing my Chinese name on children's biceps, hands, back packs and pencil cases!

The film that won the Jury Prize is the Korean film, LITTLE BROTHER, by Lim Tae Yong about a Korean boy fighting cancer. I was moved by the film and equally moved by his acceptance speech. The festival staff is wonderfully hospitable. It's been a quick five days.

Back to Vancouver for a few days to attend some Vancouver Film Festival events/films, do my laundry, and then I'm off to Washington, DC for my next festival!

The official DVD for Eve & the Fire Horse is now available for rental or purchase.  Special features include commentary, deleted scenes and the Canadian Film Centre short, Three Sisters on Moon Lake.