Private fest will bridge film gap

November 01, 2007 Organized by California radio station owner James Su and partner Steven Shen, a film producer and former writer for China Central Television, the inaugural 33-film festival will run at Laemmle Theaters, Santa Monica College and select theaters in San Francisco through Nov. 25. Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen is flying in from Beijing to screen his latest film, "The Sun Also Rises," at the DGA, alongside 2007 Oscar-winning documentary "The Blood of Yingzhou District," a film about China's AIDS crisis by Hong Kong director Ruby Yang. Organizers Shen and Su said they hope bringing Chinese and American filmmakers together in private meetings this year -- rather than in the gala banquet fashion favored by the largely official delegation that attended AFM in 2006 -- would foment deals by the end of the eight-day market.

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