Canada202393 minEnglish, Mandarin, CantoneseCanadian PremiereAvailable Online, Comedy, Drama, First Feature
Shan, an immigrant from Dongbei, China, settles in Markham, Ont., a suburb known for its welcoming Chinese community. There, Kevin, a fellow Dongbei local, pulls him into a scheme to rob a Japanese restaurant stealing business from Chinese locals. After the heist goes horribly wrong, they delve into the streets of Markham in a series of chaotic episodes. Fresh Off Markham functions as a satirical anthology, highlighting experiences and dilemmas that some Chinese immigrants encounter amidst relocation.
Paying homage to the best of modern cinema, Kurt Yuen, Cyrus Lo, and Trevor Choi’s feature directorial debut successfully interweaves stories of the diasporic experience in with Markham. They keep generational history in mind, while providing a meaningful look at greed, interracial conflict, and the cost of immigration. Daring, decisive, and tonally diverse, Fresh Off Markham’s charm is rooted in its bold specificity, bringing an often overlooked Greater Toronto Area community to film.
– Amreen Kullar
Nian Chang
Howard Li
Edmond Clark
Jessica Chan
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2024
Beijing International Film Festival, 2024
Kurt Yuen, Cyrus Lo, Trevor Choi
Kurt Yuen was born and raised in Hong Kong, and is a graduate of the Hong Kong Film Director’s Guild Masterclass.
Cyrus Lo strives to tell meaningful stories through film. His debut short Aftershock (2023) was an official selection at Vancouver Asian Film Festival.
Trevor Choi is a graduate of the Hong Kong Film Director’s Guild Masterclass, and his short film Ouroboros (2018) screened at the 42nd New York Asian American International Film Festival.
15 Nov, 2024 5:30 pm
TIFF Lightbox C3AA
Tickets for the in-cinema presentation have gone into advance rush. No more public advance tickets are available. Please join the rush line on the day of the screening when we will release unclaimed holds and reserves.
We can usually get everyone in the rush line in but rush tickets are strictly subject to availability and not guaranteed. Rush lines start an hour before the first screening of the day so the earlier you join the rush line the better your chances.
CONTENT ADVISORY
Nudity, violence, racist language; depictions of blood and gore, smoking, drinking
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This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated). Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the theatrical presentation with directors Kurt Yuen, Cyrus Lo, and Trevor Choi.
CREATURA is a multimedia cross-programming stream at the 28th Reel Asian Film Festival, spotlighting the strange, wild, and untamed — concepts historically used to marginalize. This session will explore how these concepts manifest through stories of endangered traditions and reimagined realities. The documentary THE LAST OF THE SEA WOMEN provides a vivid portrayal of South Korean fisherwomen preserving an ancient practice amidst modern developments. Meanwhile, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, set in a reimagined Canada where Farsi and French are official languages, presents a surreal world where societal norms are upended and loneliness is a common experience. Both films vividly embody the spirit of CREATURA by pushing the boundaries of human experience and challenging conventional perspectives.
What would you give up to ensure a world with no war, no poverty, and a stable climate? Your phone? Your car? Your life? That’s the question that looms over Ann Marie Fleming’s near-future fable, where the solution to our world's ills is for humans to die by their 50th year.
In 1923, Canada passed the ironically named Chinese Immigration Act — better known as the Chinese Exclusion Act — which for the next 24 years barred virtually any Chinese person from entering the country. They were the first ethnic group to be singled out in this way.
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, Asian diasporic, and Asian Canadian 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.
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Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
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info@reelasian.com
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