Louis Vuitton Hawaii International FIlm Festival 2008

After the grandmother she has been taking care of dies, 'thirtysomething' Karen needs to look for a new job and pick up the pieces of her life.

Tae (Korean heartthrob Jang Hyuk) has always fantasized about becoming a ballroom dancer. He's a natural and completely self-taught, but eventually, the young man realizes there's only one way to take his dancing to the next level - he must leave Korea. His lifelong dream takes him to Singapore where he's able to take lessons from Emi Lim (Fann Wong), a former ballroom dancing champion. Before long, Tae falls deeply in love with Emi. Sadly, the timing just isn't right. Emi is focused on the upcoming national ballroom dancing championships. What's more, Emi's dreadful boyfriend Cheng (Jason Scott Lee) is the jealous type, and a former martial arts champion. As the affection between Tae and Emi grows, Cheng becomes wildly possessive and will stop at nothing to quash the budding romance... -- Jason Soeda

Clara, a forty year old 'tai tai' (wealthy lady of leisure) faces a mid life crisis and decides to run away to the only place that has ever made any sense to her – the shopping centers. As she lives there, Clara crosses paths with Renu, an eight-year old latchkey kid who has been abandoned by her parents in a 24-hour mall and Aaron, an angst-y twenty three year old who skives work to hang out at the mall with his friends. Together, they find love, loss and liberation in the heart of Singapore.

On a hot, humid day in Singapore, two teenagers decide to skip school and idle the day away.

A boy returns to Singapore from his studies in Europe, two days before he is enlisted into the army.

Every day, the Police Force receives 185 phone calls. 180 of them are about burglaries, murders, rapes and kidnappings. The remaining 5 begin with: "There is something strange in my house, can you please send someone over to take a look?" For rookie Sergeant Lee, being a cop means running down crooks and upholding the law. Injured in a shoot-out, he finds out to his horror that he is reassigned to the dubious-sounding Miscellaneous Affairs Department (MAD). There, he is paired up with Inspector Wong, a jaded and alcoholic veteran who explains that MAD's role is to answer supernatural calls. Wong explains MAD's rule number one - there are no ghosts. For every seemingly inexplicable phenomenon, there is a corresponding scientific and rational explanation. MAD begins investigating a string of bizarre teenage suicides - impossible suicides -- unless the victims were possessed. As Lee and Wong follow the clues, they realize something sinister is heading their way.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN – A lonely man in a cold and lonely place is sent on a secret adventure to a tropical locale, where he happens to save the life of a dishonored beauty queen – or did he? Director: Brett Wagner, USA, 2008, 4 min. DAY MY SOUL BECAME A STAR - A dog's beloved owner, separated from him by death, explores the beauty, freedom, and enlightenment that come with passage into an afterlife. Director: M. Eastling, USA, 2008, 9 min. HAZE - On a hot, humid day in Singapore, two teenagers decide to skip school and idle the day away. Director: Anthony Chen, Singapore, 2008, 15 min. HOMECOMING (KELUAR BARIS) - A boy returns to Singapore from his studies in Europe, two days before he is enlisted into the army. Director: Boo Junfeng, Singapore, 2008, 16 min. KIDS + MONEY - LA teens - rich and poor alike - address the ways in which they are shaped by a culture of consumerism and discuss the role money plays in their life. Director: Lauren Greenfield, USA, 2007, 32 min. SIKUMI (ON THE ICE) - In a close-knit Inuit community, one hunter witnesses a murder and is forced to navigate the uneasy morality of honoring the body and memory of one friend and destroying the life of another. Director: Andrew Okpeaha Maclean, USA, 2008, 15 min. SLOW – 'Slow' is the story of a traffic safety worker who is accidentally caught in a newspaper photograph -- and his life is changed forever. Director: Kurt Kuenne, USA, 2008, 8 min. TERMINUS - A 1970s businessman's offense toward a strange being embroils him in a bizarre predicament and sends him on a rapid descent into madness. Director: Trevor Cawood, Canada, 2008, 9 min.

THE AVIATRIX – Lonely Anne, suffering from cancer, finds escape with The Aviatrix, a superhero alter ego. Director: Toddy Burton, USA, 2008, 10 min. BEIJING HAZE – For a Chinese immigrant, one dream ends and another one begins. Director: J.P. Chan, USA, 2008, 9 min. CHIEF - Samoan chief Semu Fatutoa retreats to Hawaii in an attempt to forget his painful past - until a series of events causes him to confront the very responsibilities from which he is trying to escape. Director: Brett Wagner, USA, 2008, 21 min. CITY OF CRANES – 'City of Cranes' is a poetic celebration of the lives of crane drivers, whose work brings them hundreds of feet above the ground. Director: Eva Weber, UK, 2007, 14 min. KJFG NO. 5 – Three "professional" musicians, the Bear, the Rabbit and the Wolf are practicing their art in the forest, but suddenly the hunter turns up on the scene... Director: Alexei Alexseev, Hungary, 2007, 2 min. PETER AND BEN – 'Peter and Ben' documents the relationship between reclusive Welsh Peter, and Ben, the foundling sheep that became his inseparable friend. Director: Pinny Grylls, UK, 2007, 10 min. SMILE – A Chinese family living in culturally-disparate 1980s Vancouver prepares to take a family portrait. Director: Julia Kwan, Canada, 2008, 18 min. THIS WILL ALL MAKE PERFECT SENSE SOMEDAY – A man imagines the kind of life he might have had with a woman he met years earlier in his youth. Director: Long-Cuu Phan, USA, 2008, 13 min. THE VULNERABLE ONES – A young boy in the Democratic Republic of Congo helps his handicapped once-famous father smuggle goods over the Congo-Rwanda border. Director: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, USA & Congo, 2007, 14 min. WET SEASON – 'Wet Season' is a stop motion animation piece about the filmmaker, who is trying to make a short film about his late father. Director: Michael Tay, Singapore, 2007, 6 min.

THE BRACELET – After the grandmother she has been taking care of dies, 'thirtysomething' Karen needs to look for a new job and pick up the pieces of her life. Director: Daniel Hui, Singapore, 2007, 18 min. COFFEE AND ALLAH - When Oromo Ethiopian Abeba Mohammed moves to suburban Mt Albert, From behind her purdah, and no knowledge of English, she must struggle to make a connection with the people of her new homeland. Director: Sima Urale, New Zealand, 2007, 14 min. FIRST HAWAIIAN SNOWBALL FIGHT - On the day Hawaii discovers it will become the 50th state, a father gives his son a gift of snowballs from Mauna Kea - and both discover that history is unforgiving. Director: Michael Wurth, USA, 2008, 17 min. LEGEND OF CHANG APANA – Honolulu, 1920s: One man was feared more than any other in Honolulu's Chinatown: HPD Officer, Chang Apana! Director: Michael Wurth, USA, 2008, 7 min. RIDE THE WAKE – From the director of HIFF favorite KAMEA comes a story about Jessica, a wakeboarding star-on-the rise who discovers her skills with the boys aren't quite what they are on the water. Director: Jennifer Akana Sturla, USA, 2008, 23 min. RUN – A Samoan brother and sister, who live in fear of their over-protective widowed father, learn that only together can they show him that he is their biggest obstacle. Director: Mark Albiston, New Zealand, 2007, 15 min. TEXAS GIRL - Mi-sook, a Korean girl with a questionable past, and her husband Charlie, a former American serviceman, have a new start in rural Texas, but as Charlie adjusts back into civilian life, the newlyweds begin to drift apart. Director: Hyung Hyup Kim, USA, 2008, 19 min.