Bertha Bay-Sa Pan has been a staple in the independent film world in New York for over a decade. She was educated at the prestigious Columbia University Graduate Film program, where she received an MFA in Directing. It was when she was at Columbia that she made her thesis short film Face.

As a student filmmaker she received the Directors Guild Award for Best Asian-American Student Filmmaker, the Polo Ralph Lauren Award for Best Screenplay, as well as numerous other awards at film festivals worldwide.

Fast-forward some years and that short was made into a feature film also titled Face. Her feature film debut starred Bai Ling and Treach of Naughty by Nature, and was one of the official dramatic competition selections at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

Genie (Kristy Wu) is a hip Chinese American teenage girl, who falls for Michael (Treach),an attractive young DJ, who happens to be black.So Genie,by dating him,is breaking chinese traditions,but finds true love. Both mother and daughter fight the eternal struggle between tradition and freedom and are unequally successful. And even though the stories take place in a chinese family,they really could take place in any other culture, if Italian, Jewish, Greek,.....The themes have a global appeal and many viewers will identify automaticly. Director Bay-Sa Pan directs very self-assured,knowing when to dramatize and when to slow down and is rewarded by strong performances from her actors, especially Kristy Wu, who's keen on demonstrating her talent. You'll absolutely will enjoy this movie!!!

You can check out the film trailer and look for it at www.indicanpictures.com.

I recently had time to sit down and chat with Bertha and talk about her film from it’s creation to it’s success and her future plans as a director.

Why did you want to make the feature Face?

Because I really wanted to direct a feature and that was the first feature script I actually completed writing.

Tell me some of the hardest parts about making an indie movie?

It's ALL hard!! No, actually, the creative process was really fun, the collaboration with all my amazing creative partners throughout the different stages of production was fun.... other than that ---- raising the budget was hard; finding good producers who really knew what they're doing and also share similar principles but is willing to work with a first-timer doing a movie that does not fall into any conventional marketing category is hard; securing distribution was really hard; once distribution was secured, the process of actually getting it into theaters was another long and winding journey full of trials and tribulations.... Now that it looks like everything's finally really happening - keeping the movie in theaters, opening in different cities without much financial resources is going to be hard too... That's why I appreciate folks like you who are willing to help spread the word!
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