With exciting premieres of film and television productions, the 15th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival kicks off Thursday at the Gaslamp Quarter.

This year's edition features more than 140 films from 12 countries across nine days at nine different San Diego locations. It's the largest showing of Asian films on the West Coast.

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A highly anticipated film leading off the festival comes in the form of the Martin Scorsese produced "Revenge of the Green Dragons." Star Harry Shum Jr. of "Glee" fame and co-director Andrew Loo are scheduled to be at the Reading Cinemas Gaslamp screening.

One of the highlights promises to be the world premiere of "Fresh off the boat." This ABC-TV show is based on celebrity chef Eddie Huang's autobiography. It will be shown 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8 at the University of San Diego's Shiley Theater. It's the first Asian-American themed show on an U.S. TV network in 20 years.

A much-anticipated documentary making its West Coast premiere at the festival is "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness." It's the story of Hayao Miyazaki, an animation legend and his Studio Ghibli.

The festival presents its first digital pioneer award to Anna Akana, a YouTube star and writer. It also highlights gay cinema, including short films called "Shorts: Gay of Thrones," and documentaries "Limited Partnership" and "Kumu Hina."

The festival concludes with "Meet the Patels," a documentary screening on November 15 at La Jolla's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Festival artistic director Brian Hu said staff discussed the possibility of expanding the festival to two weeks, deciding against it for now in order to concentrate better on fewer offerings. Festival organizers, however, decided to expand the number of participating venues.

Home base is the UltraStar Mission Valley. Other films will be shown across San Diego from downtown's Reading Gaslamp Cinema to La Paloma Theater at Encinitas. Films also will be shown at the University of California San Diego campus.

For more information, visit the official festival website at http://festival.sdaff.org/2014/.

TagsSan Diego, asian, film festival, scorsese, television, cinema