CENTERPIECE: CHARACTERS DISAPPEARING

For his visually rigorous debut feature, director Connor Sen Warnick crafts a meditative portrait of young people grappling with disillusionment and failure as they navigate collective and individual desires. Touching upon the history of Basement Workshop and the I Wor Kuen, he brings Asian American movement building to life through Mei (Yuka Murakami), a radical leftist activist, Chris (Warnick), her mixed-race Chinese American cousin, and her partner Leonard (Dylan Breaux). 

After Mei and Chris’ grandfather goes missing, Chris becomes obsessed with following the teachings of a 250-year-old monk their grandfather once knew. As more people disappear, the film focuses on the ways that politics and grief affect young people’s personal lives. These characters’ struggles, divisions and attempts at solidarity linger like ghosts as the film unfolds ambiguously between the 1970s and the present.

The world premiere of Characters Disappearing will be preceded by the short film, ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong, another portrayal of Asian American youth in 1970s Cold War New York.

Director Connor Sen Warnick will be in attendance for the screening + Q&A.

Preceded By

ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong

Directed by Daphne Xu

The ping pong table at Seward Park in New York City and the in-between space of a Cold…