Accessibility
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This programme is presented with a mix of open captions and English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Canada, Japan, South Korea, USA2023TRT: 1h37Japanese, French, Korean, English, Tagalog, Arabic
These shorts look at the soft to even slightly off-kilter bonds we find in one another, the realms we exist in, and ultimately, ourselves, despite ongoing change—no friendship bracelets required.
*Directors in attendance starred.
Japan202220 minJapanese with English subtitlesComedy, Drama, Science Fiction
In the peripheries of near-future Tokyo, high schoolers Kou and Yuta practice a prank that begins as a faux argument and involves a prop glass bottle stolen from their theater department.
Neo Sora
Raised in New York and Tokyo, Neo Sora is a filmmaker, artist, and translator living between the two cities. He is in development for his debut feature as a writer-director, Earthquake.
Canada202312 minFrench with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Documentary
Kathy Tran and Agnès Gaudreau work as auto mechanics at Bâtiment 7, a collective-run space where they can truly be themselves.
Namaï Kham Po
Namaï Kham Po is a self-taught video director and editor based in Montreal and born in Thailand.
USA202316 minEnglishDirected By Women, Drama, Family-friendly
Flaming lobsters and menstruation woes plague 12-year-old Yuki’s doomed Hawai'ian beach vacation.
Maya Tanaka
Maya Tanaka is a Japanese and Lebanese American filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her work uses writing and film to question historical narratives around cultural legacy, gender, and sexuality.
South Korea202214 minKorean with English subtitlesAnimation, Drama, Family-friendly
A boy longs for his father's affection, but he is only interested in fishing.
Jinman KIM, Jiyoung CHON
Jin-man Kim and Ji-young Chon both work at HUMUHUMU Stopmotion Studio as directors.
USA202213 minEnglish and Tagalog with English subtitlesComedy, Directed By Women
Teenager Ly and her cousins get high before a boisterous family Thanksgiving at their auntie’s house in southeast San Diego in 2006.
*Kayla Abuda Galang
Born in Olongapo, Philippines, and raised in San Diego and Houston, Kayla Galang is an Austin-based filmmaker exploring themes of femininity, home, and belonging.
USA20227 minEnglishAnimation, Directed By Women, Experimental
A crush gone mouldy…
Zhen Li
Zhen Li is a Chinese American animation artist based in L.A. whose work centers around expressing the in-between, with an affinity with darkness, misalignment, warping realities, and folded feelings.
Canada202215 minEnglish and Arabic with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Romance
Grinding away at the inherited family business, Mohamed works tirelessly making sales of knock-off perfume, while living as a knock-off version of his true self.
*Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller
Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller is a Queer mixed-race Palestinian Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work explores themes of fragmented identity, isolation and connection through grounded “oh no, should I laugh?” comedy.
PG
11 Nov, 2023 12:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox 4–
This programme is presented with a mix of open captions and English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
A job interview, a children’s clothing store, a government registry office. These are just some of the everyday sites for which the characters of Terrestrial Verses must navigate cultural, religious, and institutional constraints imposed on them.
In our inaugural First Films event, award-winning Asian Canadian filmmakers show the first films they’ve ever made. They will reveal their origin stories—that time they caught the movie bug; the place their creative voices first started cracking.
There’s no need to be certain about what’s next as this collection of shorts places us in a position to face specific pivotal moments of reckoning. Whether we’re feeling stuck or turbulent in the chaos of transition, can we remain gentle to ourselves?
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian and Asian diasporic artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
