Schedule:

Thursday, April 18, 2024

7:00 pm | 97 mins
Opening Night Film
The Queen of My Dreams
Azra isn’t exactly the perfect Pakistani daughter. Thoroughly Canadian, queer, and now pursuing an MFA in acting, she’s the apple of her mother’s eyerolls. When her father suddenly dies of a heart attack on a trip to Pakistan, Azra and her family go for the funeral, and Azra is forced to confront a culture that feels both distant and an inerasable part of her DNA.

9:15 pm | 120 mins
Mystery Kung Fu Theater
A wise man can learn more from a mystery question than a fool can learn from a mystery’s answer.

Friday, April 19, 2024

6:00 pm | 90 mins
The Missing
Iti Mapukpukaw
The same night that Eric starts a budding romance with his cute coworker, he discovers that his uncle Carlo has passed away. As Eric grapples with loss and love, comings and goings, he starts to hallucinate of an alien visitation – a shadowy figure from his hazily-remembered childhood. A thrilling blend of rotoscoping and 2D hand-drawn animation, and co-starring the award-winning Dolly De Leon, THE MISSING is romance, science fiction, and family drama in one.

8:00 pm | 91 mins
Smoking Tigers
Hayoung is 16 years old, coming to grips with her parents’ separation, and not particularly enthused that her mom has signed her up for an SAT prep camp. For her financially-strapped parents, the camp is an investment in a future they can’t immediately provide. For Hayoung, the camp is a glimpse into the lives of rich Koreans, their house parties and cute boys, and a mirror unto a version of herself as elusive as it is seductive. The award-winning debut from UC San Diego alum So Young Shelly Yo.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

12:30 pm | 108 mins
The Moon Thieves
Vincent may be an expert watch forger, but he doesn’t have the disposition of a criminal. So when an underworld boss strongarms him into joining a watch heist in Tokyo, he’s caught way out of his league. But the temptation of getting his hands on the holy grail of rare timepieces keeps him going even if it means he’s locked in the crosshairs of gangsters and yakuza. A rollicking fun caper of safecrackers, Cantopop stars, and double-dealers going for the gold while the clock goes tick, tick…

2:45 pm | 115 mins
Seagrass
Judith and Steve are off to a weeklong couples therapy retreat – with their two daughters in tow. It’s a picturesque locale for letting it all out – a cabin by the Pacific, a beach for the kids. There, the couple meet the charismatic Pat, who Steve sizes up with suspicion. And 6-year-old Emmy encounters a ghostly presence, conjuring unspoken histories that haunt the biracial Canadian family. Featuring Ally Maki (Shortcomings) and Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians).

5:35 pm | 116 mins
A Normal Family
Jae-gyu (Jang ****-gun) is the principled brother. He’s a pediatrician with a strict moral code. Jae-wan (Sul Kyung-gu) is the pragmatic one. He’s a lawyer who will take any case, like that of a rich man’s son, who rams his Maserati into a stranger and his daughter. When the injured daughter is brought to Jae-gyu’s ER, the two brothers face off in a delicious moral drama as operatic as it is tense, with egos afire and twists abound. From the acclaimed director of Christmas in August and The Last Princess (SDAFF ’16).

8:00 pm | 115 mins
And So It Begins
With President Duterte’s term expiring, 2022 was supposed to mark the end of despotism in the Philippines. But for director Ramona Diaz, who has spent a career documenting the entrenched taste of authoritarianism, the fight was just re-emerging with new colors. Like pink. Diaz follows the presidential run of Leni Robredo, the opposition candidate whose supporters paint the city in her signature pink as they mount a resistance to the ominous rise of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who takes the early lead in the race.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

12:30 pm | 105 mins
The Search
A Tibetan filmmaking crew has found the perfect actress to play the wife in their adaptation of the Drime Kunden story, but she refuses the part unless her ex-boyfriend is cast in the lead. And so they hit the road to find him. Along the way, a businessman tells the story of his first love, while the crew auditions ordinary villagers at pit stops. With Abbas Kiarostami’s eye for enchantment and a local’s ear for the everyday, THE SEARCH marks the arrival of a Tibetan New Wave.

2:45 pm | 123 mins
Tharlo
All his life, Tharlo has been a solitary shepherd. When he’s required to get an ID card, he travels to the village, a Kafka-esque mundane modern world, culminating in an encounter with a flirty hairdresser who will leave Tharlo forever changed. A stark and utterly original vision of Tibet losing its identity, told without nostalgia or sentimentality, only the shattering calm of a world quietly fraying at the seams.

5:20 pm | 87 mins
Jinpa
On a lonely Kekexili road, a truck driver picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be no ordinary wanderer. Somehow, he has the same name as the truck driver (Jinpa), and he is revealed to be on a revenge mission to commit murder. Is this a dream? A karmic manifestation of moral destiny? After dropping the stranger off, the truck driver knows that he can’t simply walk away. Pema Tseden’s Tibetan allegory meets the evocative stylishness of Wong Kar-wai, who boards as the film’s producer.

7:15 pm | 109 mins
Snow Leopard
A snow leopard breaks into a sheep pen, killing nine rams and setting off a debate about what to do next: kill the intruder or set it free. A TV news crew arrives, as does a young monk who also happens to be an amateur photographer of snow leopards. As the debate boils, tensions between human and animal, tradition and modernity, law and spirit, emerge through an unforgettable blend of the real and surreal.

Monday, April 22, 2024

5:30 pm | 112 mins
Old Fox
As many 11-year-olds do, Liao Jie looks up to his dad, who teaches him the virtues of modesty, thrift, and integrity. But the economy is shifting, there is money to be made, and Liao Jie starts to gather that if they are to open their dream business, they need to pounce. Enter the mysterious landlord known as “old fox,” whose Rolls Royce and noir villain affect seduce Liao Jie with hard truths that counter his dad’s idealism. A moral drama of winners, losers, rigged games, and a most unique coming of age.

7:55 pm | 80 mins
Celluloid Underground
An Iranian exile in London pays tribute to his enigmatic friend Ahmad, an avid film collector who hid thousands of 35mm prints after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when private stashes like his became illegal. In his fading celluloid prints are mementos of a cosmopolitan, movie-mad Iran. Through interviews and a touching narration of time regained, the story of two cinephiles and their decades-long journey through film history and the brutal whims of political change blooms into a documentary elegy for friendship and movie love.

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

6:00 pm | 116 mins
A Normal Family
Jae-gyu (Jang ****-gun) is the principled brother. He’s a pediatrician with a strict moral code. Jae-wan (Sul Kyung-gu) is the pragmatic one. He’s a lawyer who will take any case, like that of a rich man’s son, who rams his Maserati into a stranger and his daughter. When the injured daughter is brought to Jae-gyu’s ER, the two brothers face off in a delicious moral drama as operatic as it is tense, with egos afire and twists abound. From the acclaimed director of Christmas in August and The Last Princess (SDAFF ’16).

8:25 pm | 90 mins
The Missing
Iti Mapukpukaw
The same night that Eric starts a budding romance with his cute coworker, he discovers that his uncle Carlo has passed away. As Eric grapples with loss and love, comings and goings, he starts to hallucinate of an alien visitation – a shadowy figure from his hazily-remembered childhood. A thrilling blend of rotoscoping and 2D hand-drawn animation, and co-starring the award-winning Dolly De Leon, THE MISSING is romance, science fiction, and family drama in one.

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

5:40 pm | 108 mins
The Moon Thieves
Vincent may be an expert watch forger, but he doesn’t have the disposition of a criminal. So when an underworld boss strongarms him into joining a watch heist in Tokyo, he’s caught way out of his league. But the temptation of getting his hands on the holy grail of rare timepieces keeps him going even if it means he’s locked in the crosshairs of gangsters and yakuza. A rollicking fun caper of safecrackers, Cantopop stars, and double-dealers going for the gold while the clock goes tick, tick…

7:55 pm | 118 mins
Falling in Love Like in Movies
Jatuh Cinta Seperti Di Film-Film
Bagus knows he is destined to be more than a screenwriting hack, churning out film adaptations of bad soap operas. He’s given the chance to write something original – a truly unique romance film – only he needs some cues from real life. Enter Hana, his old high school flame, the one who got away. As his rekindled interactions with her find their way into his script, is he still a hack, copying lines from real life? And worse yet: is he not the lover in real-life that he is in his imagination? A clever meta-rom-com and one of the most acclaimed Indonesian films of 2023.

Thursday, April 25, 2024

7:30 pm | 86 mins
Closing Night Film
Ashima
14-year-old Ashima Shiraishi seems to have nowhere to go but up. Already hailed a rock-climbing prodigy, she is the idol of other young climbers and spends most of her time competing with – and beating – adult men. Perhaps inevitably, she has her eyes on the next summit: the V14 boulder, a climb so difficult, only 0.01 percent of climbers have surmounted it.

Date: April 18-25, 2024

Location: UltraStar Cinemas Mission Valley, 7510 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92108

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