What does it mean to be an American of Asian descent? To judge from the 12 movies featured in the Museum of Fine Arts’ Boston Asian American Film and Video Festival, it means wrestling with the classic immigrant conundrum: how to remain true to one’s roots while taking part in the great American pageant. It also means coming to terms with being considered a “model minority,” a categorization that, at its worst, has sparked horrifying scapegoatism (in the case of the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II) and still fuels misperceptions and patronizing attitudes.

The festival’s crazy quilt of offerings includes feature-length films and shorts, polished productions and DIY videos, fiction and documentary. The filmmakers are Indian-, Chinese-, Japanese-, and Korean-American. What binds the films together, aside from the central themes of assimilation and stereotype shattering, is labor-of-love infectiousness. Passionate, personal, and decidedly not mainstream, these films are independent in the truest sense.

The “let’s make a movie, kids” spirit of indie filmmaking is embodied by True (1999; April 13 at 6 p.m.), Jay Koh’s portrait of three Korean-Americans struggling to come to terms with their identity. The stars all did double (and quadruple) duty: Jesse Wine as gaffer, Alda Yu as chief make-up artist, and Koh as writer, director, and producer. The acting may be a little stiff and the score’s Casio noodlings a little cloying (both attributes that seem endemic to indie films), but True’s warmth and gentle humor save the day.

I did find myself craving the crackling irreverence of last year’s I’m the One That I Want, in which stand-up comedian Margaret Cho exploded Asian American stereotypes. Bugaboo (1999; April 12 at 8 p.m.), an affectionate critique of the Dilbert-esque lifestyle of émigré Indian software programmers, offers some clever moments, courtesy of director/writer/star Sujit Saraf. For my money, the funniest film of the series is a smart zany short made by Columbia University student Ted Kim. It’s almost impossible to describe the plot of the 15-minute-long “The Uncertainty Principle” (2000; April 6 at 8 p.m.), which is set in a diner and interlinks five seemingly unconnected characters: two lovers, a dying man, a femme fatale, and a slacker hitman.

Kim should hook up with Philip Kan Gotanda, whose Life Tastes Good (1999; April 5, at 8 p.m.) abounds in zaniness and, like “Uncertainty,” constructs an almost all-Asian universe. Gotanda, however, gets time to develop his characters and his plot. Dying mob courier Harry (Sab Shimono) seeks resolution in this life before he moves onto the next — which means mending ties with his dysfunctional children (Tamlyn Tomita and Greg Watanabe), battling his insane former business partner (played by Gotanda himself), and falling in love with a mysterious beauty (Julia Nickson). Although all the performances are wonderful, Shimono resonates in his portrait of a sensitive, gourmet-loving tough guy. Gotanda provides snappy direction and a stylish, evocative atmosphere that draws on both film noir and surrealism. Aside from his deficiencies in titling films (Life Tastes Good? C’mon!), Gotanda is a singular talent.

It’s back to earth with Edward Wong’s Comrades (1999; April 14 at 3:45 p.m.), a poignant documentary about how China’s Cultural Revolution affected two very different men. The first, Wong’s father, was a recent high-school graduate in 1949, when Mao came to power. Swept away by the movement’s optimism, Yook Wong eagerly joined the army — only to become disillusioned by the Communist Party’s seemingly illogical decisions and brutal crackdowns (one is reminded of the Cuba in Before Night Falls). A generation later, Alex Hing, a teenager in San Francisco, sees Maoist Communism as the solution to racist attitudes and capitalist misdeeds. As violence escalates during the turbulent ’60s and ’70s, he too experiences disillusionment with the movement, but he comes away with his activism intact.

The tearjerker of the bunch is Of Civil Rights and Wrongs: The Fred Korematsu Story (1999; April 7 at 1:45 p.m.). Eric Paul Fournier’s documentary tells the story of a young blue-collar worker from California who resisted being sent to the internment camps. The ACLU took his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him 6-3 in an ominous landmark decision, leaving Korematsu with a criminal conviction that dogged him the rest of his life. Nearly 40 years later, a lawyer researching the case uncovered incriminating evidence against the Justice Department and persuaded Korematsu to pursue a retrial for his “crime.” When his conviction was overturned, he scored a major victory for Japanese-Americans. Korematsu is an enormously appealing subject, not only for his amazing story but also for his lively humor and good nature. In the grand tradition of Jefferson Smith, Norma Rae, and Erin Brockovich, he is a very American kind of hero: an average Joe brave enough to take on the Man and tough enough to win.

Issue Date: March 29-April 5, 2001