Please note this program is exclusively online. This event is a part of the Reel Ideas Symposium: Specificity Drives Authenticity programme.
Asian Canadian comics will discuss the ways they’ve broken down barriers to tell their jokes to a wide audience on stage, in sketches, and on film and TV. Together, they’ll discuss their individual approaches to the craft, how they navigate stereotypes, personal experiences in their work, and how comedy has allowed them to challenge, explore, and find comfort in their identities.
Alia Ceniza Rasul
Comedian, Tita Collective
Alia Ceniza Rasul is an award-winning Filipina artist based in Toronto. She is the current artistic director of Bad Dog Theatre and is a member of the Tita Collective. Her work centres the narratives of the Filipin* diaspora. She has recently published her first collection of poetry “Super Important Filipina Thoughts” and has come off a sold-out run of her debut solo show “Moro Girl” which won the Patron’s Pick at the 2022 Toronto Fringe.
Franco Nguyen
Comedian, Writer, Actor
Franco Nguyen is one of the co-creators, writers and stars of TallBoyz. He is a Bob Curry Fellow, and was a cast member of the Second City Touring Company Toronto and the Bad Dog Featured Players. His critically acclaimed one-person show “GOOD MORNING VIET MOM” had sold-out runs at the Toronto Fringe Festival, the Next Stage Festival and was picked up by Cahoots Theatre for a cross-country tour. He has been featured in the Huffington Post, CBC’s Exhibitionist and Thời Báo Media (hay quá!). You can watch him now on the third season of the award-winning series TallBoyz (CBC), as the voice of Allan on Uprooted: The Plantdemic (CBC GEM), and the reboot of the Kids in the Hall (Amazon). Franco lives in Toronto with his wonderful partner Thao, his toddler son Felix, and his soon to arrive daughter (name: TBD).
Rob Michaels
Writer, Director, Actor
Rob Michaels is an Iraqi-Canadian writer, actor, and director. He has written for Roku’s original series Children Ruin Everything, CTV’s Roast Battle Canada, the mobile game for the FXX series Archer, and has his own project in development. He also recently directed his first feature film with Vortex Media. He has performed with The Second City, and his sketch comedy channel Wishful Genies has amassed millions of views through features on Funny Or Die, 9GAG, CBC Comedy, and Al Jazeera.
Celeste Yim
Writer, Comedian
Celeste is a staff writer for Saturday Night Live. Celeste was a 2021 Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow and the 2019 recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Canadian Women Artists’ Award for Playwriting.
Celeste is an alumnus of the National MFA Playwrights Festival produced by Theater Masters and the Bob Curry Fellowship at The Second City Toronto. Celeste is a member of the Television Academy, The Writers Guild of America, and The Dramatists Guild of America.
Celeste received a B.A. from the University of Toronto and an M.F.A. from Tisch School of the Arts.
Celeste uses they/them pronouns.
15 Nov, 2022 4:30 pm
OnlinePlease note this program is exclusively online. This event is a part of the Reel Ideas Symposium: Specificity Drives Authenticity programme.
This year’s Reel Ideas Conference gathers industry professionals, filmmakers, and performers to reflect on the specificity in their works, representing their own nuances along with their communities' lived experiences.
A collaborative exhibition by Jasmine Gui (special projects programmer, RA) & keiko Hart (co-curator), RA:X Puncta aims to present a plurality of punctum moments (as defined by Roland Barthes) that disturb and prick at diasporic Asian narratives and slip beyond an easy legibility of “Asianness”.
Join us for a deep-rooted dive into Uprooted: The Plantemic, a show about houseplants surviving the pandemic. We’ll explore the narrative of this CBC Gem short-form series, the development from concept art to animation, and contextualize the series not only in its time, but also in contemporary conversations, as storytelling methods evolve. In an era of remote working, what would my houseplants think of me? Do they root for me? Find out from the creative team behind Uprooted.
Following three Muslim women activists who have come of age since 9/11, An Act of Worship is a unique glimpse into the lives of a new generation of American Muslims deeply impacted by over 40 years of history that has shaped their lives and trajectories in powerful and irreversible ways.
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.
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info@reelasian.com
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