2021 Chinese film My Country, My Parents (我和我的父辈) in Pittsburgh, from October 8.

The 2021 Chinese film My Country, My Parents (我和我的父辈) will play in Pittsburgh from October 8. It's the third installment of the "National Day Celebration" series, after 2019's My People, My Country (我和我的祖国) and 2020's My People, My Homeland. From a distributor:

Actress Zhang Ziyi, actor-and-director Wu Jing, comedian Shen Teng, and actor-and-director Xu Zheng come together to direct four short films as part of a new anthology drama paying tribute to China’s families.

It will play at the AMC Loews Waterfront, and tickets are available online.

"Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) Info Session," October 12 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host a Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) Info Session on October 12. It will be an online meeting by the Consulate General of New York and JET alumni.

Please join us at this information session to learn more about the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in the Global Hub, 1st floor Posvar Hall. To register for Zoom virtual attendance, click here

The session will be held at the Global Hub on the first floor of Posvar Hall (map). It is not open to the public, only to the Pitt community following university COVID safety protocols.

1926 Japanese silent film A Page of Madness (狂った一頁) at Row House Cinema for Silent Sunday 2021, October 24.

The 1926 Japanese silent film A Page of Madness (狂った一頁) will play at Row House Cinema on October 24 as part of the theater's Silent Sunday 2021.

A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife in this Japanese silent film, but a strange storm has an odd effect on the patients.

Tickets are $22 and allow guests to see as many films as they wish. The day of movies starts at 12:05 pm, with A Page of Madness beginning at 2:15 pm. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street (map) in Lawrenceville.

"Pitfalls of Parental Pressure" (within Asian-American communities), October 6 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh will host "Pitfalls of Parental Pressue" on October 6 as part of its Mental Health Awareness Month programming.

This event focuses on parental pressure within the Asian American community (specifically in East/Southeast Asian families) that leads to students becoming workaholics and having a toxic relationship with rest. We will also be providing resources on how to talk to parents about mental health, with mental health vocabulary words and sentences translated into different Asian languages for family members who do not understand English.

It begins at 8:00 mp in 548 William Pitt Union and is free for the Pitt student community.

Kelly Yang part of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures series, October 24.

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures will present Kelly Yang on October 24 as part of its "Words & Pictures" series.

New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang is back with another heartwarming and inspiring story of Mia and friends!

Mia Tang is going for her dreams! After years of hard work, Mia Tang finally gets to go on vacation with her family — to China! A total dream come true! Mia can’t wait to see all her cousins and grandparents again, especially her cousin Shen. As she roams around Beijing, witnessing some of the big changes China’s going through, Mia thinks about the turbulent changes in her own life. Mia is more determined than ever, now that she finally has . . . room to dream!

Kelly Yang is the author of Front Desk, which won the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and was chosen a Best Book of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Public Library, and may others. Kelly’s family immigrated to the United States from China when she was a young girl, and she grew up in California, in circumstances very similar to those of Mia Tang.

The online lecture starts at 6:00 pm and is free, and will be available online for one week.

Virtual Reading & Conversation: "Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief” by Victoria Chang (w/ Kao Kalia Yang, “The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir”), October 27 online with White Whale Bookstore.

Bloomfield's White Whale Bookstore will host an online reading and conversation on October 27 with Victoria Chang and Kao Kalia Yang.

We’re looking forward to virtually welcoming Victoria Chang to Pittsburgh in celebration of her most recent book: Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief. She’ll be joined in conversation by Kao Kalia Yang, who’s the author of The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir.

Both books are available for purchase via White Whale. The talk begins at 7:00 pm and registration is required.

OCA Pittsburgh Free Medical and Dental Clinic, October 18.

The Organization of Chinese Americans Pittsburgh Chapter is hosting its annual Free Medical and Dental Clinic, with Chinese-language support, on October 18 at Montefiore Hospital in Oakland (map). The clinic takes place from 6:00 to 10:00 pm on the hospital's 9th floor. Registration is strongly encouraged and can be completed by calling the numbers on the flyer: either Tong-change Lee at 724-309-5942, or Ru Tong at 412-403-4166.

"Asian American shorts," part of SCREENSHOT:ASIA film festival, October 10 in Aspinwall.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center and SCREENSHOT:ASIA will present a collection of Asian American short films on the 10th as part of October's inaugural SCREENSHOT:ASIA film festival.

The first annual SCREENSHOT: ASIA Film Festival will take place October 6-10, 2021. In its inaugural year, the Festival will screen features from all over Asia as well as highlight some lesser-known Asian filmmakers through a shorts program.

This screening is a variety of shorts from the Asian diaspora. In Koreatown Ghost Story, a young woman gets more than she bargained for at the acupuncturist. Hawaiian Soul tells a fictionalized account of 1970s native activist George Helm. In Tammy, a skater learns what it's like to be upstaged by another Asian American girl. These and more in our shorts program!

For more information about the film festival, click here.

The event starts at 2:00 pm at the Outdoor Pavillion at Aspinwall's RiverTrail Park (map), accessible by city buses 1, 75, and 91. Registration is required and can be completed online.

Chinese film Back to the Wharf (风平浪静) at Pitt, October 7 and 9.

The Chinese film Back to the Wharf (风平浪静) will play at the University of Pittsburgh on October 7 and 9 as part of the SCREENSHOT:ASIA film festival. From a January Variety review:

The son of a midlevel official in a coastal fishing town, Song Hao (Zhou Zhengjie) is a bright student who’s robbed of the automatic college place he has rightfully earned. His position has been given to close friend Li Tang (Gao Yuhang), the son of powerful local mayor Li Weiguo (Jin Hui). In a feeble attempt to dress up his unethical decision as some kind of long-term benefit for the school, Song Hao’s headmaster (Zhou Jianya) tells the boy, “I prioritize the collective over the individual.”

Things go from bad to catastrophic in the first of many scenes taking place in pelting rain and howling wind that serve as visual metaphors for the protagonist’s sorrows and struggles. Intending to visit Li Tang’s upmarket home, Song Hao accidentally enters the wrong house and is mistaken for a burglar. In the confusion, Song Hao stabs owner Wan Yuliang (Zhao Longhao), who later dies. With his father Song Jianhui (Wang Yanhui) also implicated in this crime, which could ruin his career and destroy the family’s reputation, Song Hao flees to faraway Guangzhou, where he takes a lowly job in a masonry factory. Unbeknownst to father and son, Li Tang is aware of their transgressions and has chosen to remain silent.

It plays at 6:30 pm on the 7th and 12:00 pm on the 9th, at the Frick Fine Arts Buliding (map) both days. Tickets may be purchased online.

2020 Japanese film Wife of a Spy (スパイの妻), October 9 at Pitt, part of SCREENSHOT:ASIA film festival.

The 2020 Japanese film Wife of a Spy (スパイの妻) will play at the University of Pittsburgh on October 9 as part of the inaugural SCREENSHOT:ASIA film festival running October 6 through 10. From an NPR review:

Wife of a Spy is a Hitchcockian thriller by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a top Japanese filmmaker whose work has never gotten the attention that it deserves in the U.S. His heroine is Satoko — superbly played by Yu Aoi — the innocent, big-hearted wife of Yusaku Fukuhara, a prosperous import-export merchant and amateur filmmaker in the city of Kobe.

In a 1940 Japan bursting with nationalistic fervor, the Fukuharas tempt fate by pointedly living in a Western-style house, wearing Western clothes, and sipping Western whiskey. Things get even stickier when Satoko's husband returns from Japanese-occupied Manchuria with a beautiful young woman and evidence of military atrocities.

Faced with this, Satoko doesn't know how to react. She and her husband launch into a marital dance of trust, suspicion and betrayal. Is Yusaku abandoning Satoko for a new woman? Will he sell out his country, and their shared life, by revealing the army's abuses? Will Satoko help him do so, or will she save herself by turning her husband in to the righteous military policeman who has fancied her since childhood? The answer will involve deceit, torture, murder, hidden manuscripts and midnight escapes.

It plays at the Schenley Plaza Tent at 8:30 pm. Tickets are required and can be purchased online.