TRT: 18:00
Genre: Experimental Documentary
Exhibition Format: Color / 4K UHD / 23.98fps / LoRo & 5.1
© S.K.Y. Productions and Pacific Arts Movement

“What’s the cost of the American Dream?”

SYNOPSIS :
TWO MILES EAST is a film essay that revisits a tragic F/A-18 jet crash in San Diego to contemplate our civilian relationship with the military and re-examine the suburban dream.

Produced as part of PacArt’s 20th Anniversary omnibus film, THE PARADISE WE ARE LOOKING FOR.

San Diego has been called many things – including a paradise. It’s also a refugee city, a cluster of neighborhoods, a militarized zone, a border town. And Asian American. This collection of four short documentaries, commissioned on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, maps many such San Diego’s – across ethnicity, geography and history. At the same time, they hold on to some notion of paradise, however illusory: a haven from war, the dreams of an immigrant, precious teenage reminiscences, solace in the afterlife, and spaces for creative expression.

CREW :
Director / Camera: Norbert Shieh
Producers: Brian Hu, Benjamin To
Editors: Angela J. Park, Norbert Shieh
Music By: Alex Zhang Hungtai
Sound Mixer: Ugo Derouard
Sound Recordists: Joseph Mangat, Angela J. Park
Drone Operator: Binh C. Than

PRESS :
”It’s quiet and somber storytelling: patchwork vignettes of press conferences, the communities affected by the loss, cockpit recordings and the repetition of a vast horizon over the ocean seen from a re-enacted plane. Filmed on the 10th anniversary of the crash last year, it’s a reminder that isolated tragedies can seem intensely personal but have a lasting, broad reach.”
—Voice of San Diego

SCREENINGS / ACCOLADES :
- San Diego Asian American Film Festival, “Opening Night 2019” Program
- SDAFF May Madness 2020
- Los Angeles Asian American Film Festival
- Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival
- The Asian Pacific Virtual Showcase
- Kansas City Underground Film Festival, “Best Short Film (Audience Award)”