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Following two event-filled weekends, March 1-4 and 9-11, the third edition of the AmérAsia Film Festival has come to a close. This year the festival featured about 50 Asian and Asian-Canadian films including Cannes and Academy Award-winning productions from China, Kyroskistan, India, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, as well a number of Quebec-origin films. Over 100 invited guests from as far as Japan and South Korea were in attendance at five different venues across Montreal, mixing with homegrown filmmakers and academics. Sound On Sight contributor Edgar Chaput was present for the majority of the event, providing some excellent coverage. Here is a quick break down of some of his reviews:

Pearls of the Far East

Directed by Cuong Ngo

Written by Minh Ngoc Nguyen and Matt Guerin

Vietnam, 2011

Any young director is faced with a steep challenge when shifting his or her focus from the realm of short films to that of the feature length.

Pearls of the Far East

Directed by Cuong Ngo

Written by Minh Ngoc Nguyen and Matt Guerin

Vietnam, 2011

Any young director is faced with a steep challenge when shifting his or her focus from the realm of short films to that of the feature length. Suddenly, the economy required in the storytelling takes on an entirely different facet, with the director now having to let his characters breath a little more. Vietnamese director Cuong Ngo arrives on the international stage with his first ever feature-length movie following two shorts, The Golden Pin and The Hitchhiker Project, which both saw the light of day in 2009 and each an exercise within familiar genres, not to mention that they utilized some Canadian talent. The result of his efforts for this latest endeavor, Pearls of the East, is unquestionably skewered towards a different audience. Curiously enough, even though the movie is 103 minutes long, has actually made an anthology film,...