Seven days of film festivaling at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Fest made me one happy but tired gal. Though the festival ended last week, I'm just now getting around to recovering and putting a few photos up here on the Hyphen blog. It's not just that there are lots of films to see. There's also so many people in town to catch up with, and events and get-togethers every night. I don't know how the staff at the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) do it. They're such troopers.

These photos (except for the first photo taken on opening night at the Asian Art Museum) were taken on Saturday, March 13. That afternoon, Hyphen's publisher, Lisa Lee, moderated a panel: Changing Da Game: YouTube Legends and the Future of Online Media. The panel was sold out and a crush of young people who couldn't get inside the panel waited outside the building. Panelists included: Kevin Wu aka KevJumba, Wong Fu Productions, Ryan Higa aka Nigahiga, and Timothy Chantarangsu aka Timothy DeLaGhetto. Like their YouTube personas, they were funny and personable. I wish there had been some women on the panel, though.

Lisa asked thoughtful questions about representation and media and encouraged the audience to do the same. (She put the kibosh on any silly questions about shoe size and personal trivia.) Here's video of the first 9 minutes of the panel.

Much of the crowd who didn't get into the panel waited for it to end so they could catch a glimpse of their favorite YouTube stars. It was kind of crazy leaving the Sundance Kabuki theater and seeing all these young people of both genders eagerly waiting to pounce on the panelists.

Feeling a little old, I retired to the festival's guest services lounge. Lisa and the panelists eventually made their way over too:

While there, I ran into Konrad Ng, the first brother in law! He's on the board of CAAM and was in town to celebrate their 30th anniversary. He is super nice and very supportive of Hyphen. Here's me and Lisa with Konrad.

I also found this Nakamura sandwich:

Eric, the publisher and co-editor of Giant Robot, and I like to commiserate over the trials and tribulations of magazine-making.

Talking about magazines makes one hungry. So it was off to dinner before catching some films at the festival and then seeing Dan the Automator at Yoshi's. Here's musician Goh Nakamura and Kevin Lim (formerly of the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, now getting his Ph.D in American Studies) chowing down.

It was a long, but fun, day.