Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival
Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival (PAAFF) is one of the largest festivals dedicated to celebrating and elevating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander filmmakers and other creatives. Starting as Programming Director in the 2013 Festival, Rob went on to serve as Festival Director for six seasons 2014-2019. In that time PAAFF grew from a small regional festival that took place over two weekends to the third largest AAPI film festival in the country in terms of both audience size and scope of programs. Spanning eleven consecutive days, under Rob’s leadership PAAFF expanded beyond onscreen programming to include musical concerts, theater performances, chef tastings and cooking demonstrations, visual art gallery shows, an academic conference, and other live cultural programming by and about persons of AAPI descent in the United States and living elsewhere in diaspora.
Of the years he was involved, the 2018 festival was Rob’s favorite program, which focused on the Music of Asian America. In collaboration with Music of Asian American Research Center, PAAFF hosted its annual academic conference and a robust series of concerts that explored genres ranging from traditional cultural music to hip hop and R&B.
Recap video by Maestro Filmworks.