Almost Perfect at SDAFF

It’s been a whirlwind few days with my cousin Bertha Bay-Sa Pan in town.  She wrote, directed, and produced a movie called “Almost Perfect”, which was the Opening Night Film at the 12th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. This was the third time we’d seen the movie.  We saw the premiere in San Francisco in March.  Then we saw it again a 2nd time at the Director’s Guild of America in LA in April.  When Bertha emailed and told me that the film was the opening night film at SDAFF and that she’s coming to San Diego, I was so excited to show her around town!  The question that I got the most often Thursday night at the after-party was “So, how are you related to Bertha?”  My mom and her dad are brother & sister.  There are 4 other brothers and sister in the same family, so total of 6 siblings.

Before the movie, LeeAnn Kim, former news anchor and Executive Director of the San Diego Asian Film Foundation, introduced Bertha and the cast.

I had actually met LeeAnn a few years ago on the set of Veronica Mars.  She was playing a news anchor in the same episode which I was an extra. 


From left to right:  Kelly Hu, Ivan Shaw, Christina Chang, Edison Chen, and Tina Chen.


LeeAnn and Bertha presenting the cast.

This was the third time I saw the movie, but I still laughed and cried during different scenes, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen!

After the movie, there was a Q&A session with Bertha and the cast. 


After that, we got to go to the after-party with Bertha and the cast at Maria Maria.  I felt very much like I was in the show “Entourage” as Bertha got us into the VIP part of the party by saying “these are my cousins, they’re with me”.  Heh!  Here is a blurry photo of me at the party, before Bertha and the cast arrived.


At our table, everyone was taking photos of everyone.  (Well, nobody was taking photos of me or Todd, but that’s the exception, LOL.)

From L to R:  Ivan Shaw, Tina Chen, LeeAnn Kim, Christina Chang, Edison Chen, Kelly Hu, and my cousin the director of the movie, Bertha Bay-Sa Pan. 

Christina Chang and Bertha went to high school together, so it was really fun to see them interact.  I told Christina that we saw her in the first episode of the new ABC drama Revenge.  Hopefully they’ll bring her character back later this season!

I got to eat lots of good food and drinks.  We hung out and chatted with everyone.  It was a really fun and memorable night!  

Me with Ivan and Kelly. 


Todd with Ivan and Kelly.


It was a late night.  When we finally got home it was after 1am already.  But the fun was worth the couple of hours of sleep that I gave up!