LOADING
Co-presented by Sydney Underground Film Festival
Directed by Jon Moritsugu | 60 minutes | 15+ | Australian Premiere
1.00pm, Sunday, 19 November | Buy Tickets | Buy Passes
Premiering at IFFR, before taking home an award at TIFF, this PBS-funded (and, later, disowned) fever-dream askews and skewers good-taste as it takes a hatchet to the notion of the 'model minority' family.
In a Japanese-American family, the mother is stealing the terminally ill grandpa's morphine, the airhead sister is having sex with the family lawyer, one brother gets perfect grades but is hiding a secret gay love of skinheads, and the other brother is a junkie. Over the course of one evening, the family falls apart due to their bizarre behaviour. Newly restored in 2K from its original elements, Terminal USA caused a stir upon its premiere in 1994 - partially responsible for a full review of the project funding practices of The National Endowment for the Arts. A film that needs to be seen to be believed, Terminal USA finally (officially) lands on Australian shores, 30 years after its creation.
"An acerbic, black satire about a Japanese American family on the verge of post-apocalyptic meltdown... unlike the serious historical documentaries that form the basis for the genre, Terminal USA delves in abject imagery and parody in order to emphasize the absurdity of 'positive image'."
- Jun Okada, Making Asian American Film and Video: History, Institutions, Movements
Country: USA
Year: 1993
Language: English
Co-presented by Sydney Underground Film Festival