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Love Buzz: 2025 Mill Valley Film Festival
The 2025 Mill Valley Film Festival is upcoming this weekend and there is a treasure trove of Asian and Asian American films on the docket. Among these are some of the buzziest films from the current film festival season.
The festival’s opening night film is Hamnet, Chloe Zhao’s interpretation of the backstory of the creation of Hamlet. Zhao has a decidedly singular vision and the film promises to be an eye-opening and unexpected journey. Hamnet premiered at the Telluride Film Festival a few weeks ago and as with all of Zhao’s films it garnered a lot of attention for its unconventional vision and storytelling.
Probably one of the most talked-about films at the recent Venice Film Festival, Park Chan-Wook’s newest joint No Other Choice has its Bay Area premiere at MVFF ahead of its theatrical release later this year. With an A-list cast toplined by Lee Byung-Hun (Squid Game; Mr. Sunshine; A Bittersweet Life) and Son Ye-Jin (Crash Landing On You: The Pirates), the film is a black comedy about a white-collar worker (Lee) whose world is turned upside down when he suddenly loses his cushy corporate job. As expected in a Park film, things go sideways quickly. No Other Choice garnered a long standing ovation (reported as anywhere from six to nine minutes) at Venice and has presold to 200 countries.
Taiwan represents at MVFF with Left-Handed Girl (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou), another festival favorite that premiered at Cannes. Set in the night markets of Taipei, the film follows a single mother and her two daughters as they navigate life in the big city. The film is Taiwan’s nominee at the Academy Awards for Best International Feature.
Diamond Diplomacy (dir. Yuriko Gamo Romer) looks at the popularity of baseball in Japan as well as among the Japanese American community, exploring the ways that the game reflected and facilitated US-Japan relations both on and off the field. An encyclopedic look at its topic, the film spans more than 150 years from just after the Civil War to the present day, with appearances by Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ichiro Suzuki, Masanori Murakami, and many more. The film is an intriguing examination of how sports, politics, celebrity, and soft power intertwine.
Chang Chen (A Brighter Summer Day; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Soul) stars in Lloyd Lee Choi’s directorial debut, Lucky Lu, which also premiered at Cannes. The film follows a New York City delivery driver, played by Chang, through a harrowing series of events as he roams the city in search of an acquaintance who’s run off with a large sum of his money.
Living The Land premiered at the Berlinale last February where director Huo Meng won the Silver Bear for best directing. The film is set in 1991 and looks at life in a small village in China as its inhabitants live through the vast changes in the country at the time.
Along with these feature films there are a plethora of shorts by Asian and Asian American directors among the festival’s several shorts programs. It’s a great chance to see these films in the friendly confines of MVFF, since unlike the feature films many of them might not get widespread distribution.
All in all, this year’s MVFF is an excellent opportunity to catch the newest and hottest Asian/American movies.
beyondasiaphilia 
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