Centerpiece Shorts Part 2 – Bold, Intimate AAPI Stories Take the Spotlight
HAAPIFEST 2025 presents Centerpiece Shorts Part 2, a powerful film block featuring seven emotionally resonant and visually arresting stories that explore themes of family, identity, mental health, grief, and transformation. Told through the lens of Asian and Pacific Islander filmmakers, these shorts offer fresh perspectives and universal truths—each one capturing the complexities of the human experience.
Whether you’re seeking heartfelt drama, introspective character studies, or poetic storytelling, this program delivers some of the most compelling AAPI cinema of the year.
📅 June 8 @ 1:45 PM
📍 DoubleTree by Hilton – 10609 Westpark Dr, Houston, TX 77042
🎟️ Get tickets/passes: www.haapifest.org/tickets
🌟 Featured Short Films:
🎴 Jin
📽️ Director: Hsiao Hsia Huang | ⏱️ 20 minutes
A Korean American girl, burdened by guilt over her brother’s death, faces a Korean traditional exorcism led by her mom. Will she hold on to logic and reality, or embrace her mother’s ritual for healing?
🏡 Daly City
📽️ Director: Nick Hartanto | ⏱️ 16 minutes
An Indonesian boy and his mother attend a church potluck and lie about their dish.
🎨 One of My Own
📽️ Director: Analei Song (Turnbull) | ⏱️ 19 minutes
When a young Chinese girl becomes more aware of her differences in her adopted Caucasian family, she attempts to find her place of belonging with others and herself through artistic expression.
🇰🇷 Cheol
📽️ Director: Yeajoon Cho | ⏱️ 18 minutes
A Korean son returns to his estranged father’s home bearing news that he’ll be conscripting the way he thinks his father would’ve wanted—only to discover his father’s objection and late-stage leukemia.
⚰️ Peace Funeral Home
📽️ Director: Megan Lim En | ⏱️ 15 minutes
Chinese American teenager Sherry is forced to help her family’s funeral home business and confront her fear of death by embalming her beloved Aunt Peipei’s corpse.
🍵 Wabi-Sabi
📽️ Director: Josephine Green Zhang | ⏱️ 20 minutes
When an insecure, half-Japanese woman is invited on a date to a traditional tea ceremony, her best friend’s advice on how to avoid white-guys-with-Asian-fetishes threatens to ruin her love life and sanity.
🧁 Introducing Mimi
📽️ Director: Emai Lai | ⏱️ 14 minutes
An Asian American musical comedy that follows a high school student who writes a college admissions essay about her life as a "normal" Asian American girl... but there's nothing normal about being Mimi.
🎟️ Don’t miss one of the most emotionally powerful blocks of HAAPIFEST 2025—stories that will move you, surprise you, and stay with you.
🎬 Join us for Centerpiece Shorts Part 2 and experience the depth and beauty of AAPI storytelling.
🎫 Reserve your tickets: www.haapifest.org/tickets
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