The screening for Bad Axe will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
USA2022102 minutesEnglishToronto PremiereDocumentary
How do you love a place that doesn’t seem to love you back Director David Siev broaches that question in Bad Axe, a complicated love letter to his hometown. Siev’s dad, a survivor of the Cambodian Killing Fields, has spent decades building a new life in Bad Axe, but the city is not always hospitable to immigrants. Siev’s sister’s outspoken support for Black Lives Matter puts her at odds with her family restaurant’s most loyal, Trump-supporting customers. Unfolding across the turbulent year of 2020, this personal documentary follows Siev’s family as they struggle to keep their restaurant afloat amid family tensions, neo-Nazis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
At times, the film is an unsettling portrait of racism’s existence in our everyday lives, but it equally insists on being about family and community. In his feature-documentary debut, Siev gives us an intimate account of a family in troubled times, fraught with uncertainty, yet held by a bond as deep as roots go.
– Ron Ma
AWARDS
Audience Award Winner, Documentary Feature – SXSW, 2022
pecial Jury Recognition, Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling – SXSW, 2022
David Siev
David Siev holds producing, camera, and consulting credits on everything from hidden-camera blockbuster comedies like Bad Trip (2021) to rock-and-roll biopics such as The Dirt (2019).
11 Nov, 2022 9:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox 4The screening for Bad Axe will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
Rated PG
Content Warning: Racist language and situations
This film is not captioned.
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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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