Busy bodies, local bodies, mobile bodies, queer bodies - which bodies are busy? And with what? Under the title busy bodies, this year's international Asian Film Festival Berlin (AFFB) at Ballhaus Naunynstraße presents a unique selection of Asian, Asian-European and Asian-American documentary and feature films. The fifth festival edition presents polylocal identities and transnational personalities, shows cross-border family concepts as well as communities and discusses phenomena of the capital-driven busy-ness of our time.

The festival will open on October 7 with the visually and thematically spectacular feature film Gook (USA 2017) by Justin Chon. Set against the backdrop of the L.A. Riots (1992), Gook tells of violence and solidarity between two different post-migrant communities that feed on the racist logics and structures of society. During the Riots, two Korean-American brothers who run a shoe store in L.A. team up with a young African-American girl. The trio fights bitterly to keep the store open and must face the harsh reality of systematic discrimination, struggle for survival and (self-)deception.

The film festival will open with the performance Study# 1 by Olivia Hyunsin Kim. Afterwards, we cordially invite you to the reception. We are looking forward to an intense film week with over 40 short and feature-length films, performances, workshops, panels, audience discussions and a karaoke closing ceremony. With guests from Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Prague and Berlin.