The 48th edition of the Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF), presented by Asian CineVision (ACV), will run from July 31 to August 10, 2025, with screenings, panels, and community events held across New York City and online.

AAIFF is the nation’s first and longest-running film festival dedicated to works by and about Asians and Asian Americans. Since 1978, the festival has been a platform for diaspora storytelling, identity exploration, and bold artistic experimentation, building a legacy that continues to thrive across generations.

For its 48th edition, AAIFF will honor the beauty of repair and transformation — examine how personal and collective fractures can be reassembled into something stronger and more radiant than before. Drawing inspiration from Kintsugi — the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, this year’s theme asks how storytelling, dreaming, and creation can guide the community through rupture into renewal. It’s a celebration of resilience, imagination, and the radical act of envisioning a future shaped by the truths of the past.

This year marks a major milestone — the 50th anniversary of Asian CineVision, the nonprofit behind AAIFF. To commemorate this legacy, AAIFF48 will showcase special presentations including ACV 50 Retrospective Screening – Fruit Fly and Captain America: Albert Pyun Cut. Additional tributes, filmmaker panels, and community events will be announced in the coming weeks.

“On the 50th anniversary of our organization, AAIFF is harkening back to our underground origins by highlighting scrappy young AAPI filmmakers from New York and beyond. We are also showcasing a legacy of unsung and "sung" indies in our special presentations of Albert Pyun's recently unthawed Captain America director's cut and festival alum H.P. Mendoza's 2009 musical Fruit Fly. We hope to continue being NYC's number one festival for nurturing and celebrating the next generation of Asian American and Pacific Islander filmmakers” – Kris Montello, AAIFF Programming Director

Tickets are now available to the general public. Visit https://www.aaiff.org/program for full program details. Select highlights below.

FEATURED FILMS

Opening Night – Slanted (New York Premiere) - Directed by Amy Wang
An insecure Chinese-American teenager undergoes experimental surgery to appear white, hoping to secure the Prom Queen title and peer acceptance.

Closing Night – Moloka'i Bound (New York Premiere) - Directed by Alika Tengan
A wayward man recently released from prison struggles to reconnect with his son and Hawaiian heritage.

Centerpiece – Transplant - Directed by Jason park
A motivated surgical resident pushes himself to extreme lengths while training under a legendary heart transplant surgeon obsessed with protecting his perfect reputation. 

Full list of Feature Films can be found on aaiff.org/program.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

To celebrate 50 years of Asian CineVision, AAIFF will host a series of industry panels and events, as well as a retrospective spotlighting landmark works from its archives such as:

• ACV 50 Retrospective Screening – Fruit Fly - Directed by H.P. Mendoza
  Bethesda, a Filipina adoptee, moves into an artist commune in San Francisco, where she discovers queer family, artistic inspiration, and startling clues about her biological mother’s whereabouts. For its 15th anniversary release, Fruit Fly returns in a special song-along version. 

• Captain America: Albert Pyun Cut
  A rare screening of the late cult filmmaker’s never-before-released version of CAPTAIN AMERICA. Frozen in the ice for decades, Captain America is freed to battle against arch-criminal, The Red Skull. This is Albert Pyun’s legendary lost cut.

SHORTS PROGRAMS

• NYC Shorts: Sounds of the City
  ○ Back on the street, a chorus of languages coalesce into collective musing. In the city that never sleeps, nothing is ever silent.
  ○ Titles include: One Day I’ll Open My Fist, Babel, Ice Cream, Ice Queen, Soma, Énouement, VISA

• Ones to Watch: Filmmakers Under 21
  ○ Celebrate the future of AANHPI filmmaking as they take you on a coming-of-age journey through the modern conditions of youth and young adulthood.
  ○ Titles include: Silence, Son-Mat, Fool’s Gold, Forever My Boy, Pianissimo

• Mythbusters
  ○ Step out of the model minority myth and into the experiences and expectations of a generation of Asian Americans who walk the roads less traveled.
  ○ Titles include: Better Life, This is All You Are, Byway, Cherry-Colored Funk, Kumar Kumar, Kitchen Dialogue

• The Kids Turned Out Fine
  ○ Questions of faith, mortality, grief, stability, and coming-of-age take center screen in this celebration of the next generation of talent.
  ○ Titles include: SOUR CANDY, Single Residence Occupancy, Once Upon a Time There Was a Mountain, Paper Swords, God & Buddha Are Friends, Sorry For Your Cost

• This World & the Next
  ○ Films which explore the intermediate, indeterminate spaces between one another, the world around us, and even the worlds beyond.
  ○ Titles include: Vox Humana, Funeral of the Earth, Vic and his Naynay, Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites, We Used to Take the Long Way Home, Across the Waters

• For the Boys
  ○ Dissecting the Asian American crisis of masculinity in all its forms through the medium of cinema.
  ○ Titles include: Puberty for Humans, Walk on Water, TAL (mask), Five Star, A Thing About Kashem

• Love, Girls, Sex-cetera…
  ○ Join us for a journey through femininity in all its forms, from the tenderness of youth to the antics of young womanhood and beyond.
  ○ Titles include: They Call Me The Tattoo Watch, Rooftop Lempicka, Zari, Clementine, OK/NOTOK, Sex, Baseball, and All Pussibilities

• The Warrior’s Journey
  ○ This shorts block brings together the best of elaborate fight choreography, stunning animation, and a whole lot of style to the 48th edition of AAIFF.
  ○ Titles include: Check Please, No Trouble, Flavor of the Month, Chinatown Cowboy, Blacky the Metal Arm Cat

• Films on Films (Documentary Shorts)
  ○ With these short documentaries, go behind the curtain of some of the most famous films ever made.
  ○ Titles include: Paris to Pyongyang, Searching for Kurosawa, Goodbye Fiesta Twin Cinema, We Were the Scenery

• CUNY Shorts Showcase

○ The CUNY AAFF helps to promote artistic visual talents and stimulate communication among CUNY students who are separated by different campuses.

○ Titles include: Revolving Door, In this Corner of the City, It Happened in August, Home, Murphy's Law, We Both Went to School: Experiences of Student-Parents

Full details at https://www.aaiff.org/program