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Unsung Voices 11

Canada202260 minutesEnglish and various languages with English SubtitlesWorld Premiere

Six first-time and emerging filmmakers embarked on a summer-long filmmaking journey online with Reel Asian's Unsung Voices Youth Video Production Workshop. We’re proud to present their world premieres here.

DUTAR
دوتار

Roda Medhat Profile Image

Canada, Kurdistan20228 minutesEnglish, Farsi, Kurdish with English Subtitles World PremiereExperimental

A young woman escapes into a fantasy world where she imagines what life would have been like if she never left her birth country. Faced with who she wants to be, she must come to terms with the in-between.

 

Director Bio

Roda Medhat

Roda Medhat is a Kurdish Canadian multidisciplinary artist mainly working in photo and sculpture based work. Dutar (دوتار) is Roda’s writing and directing debut, a story that reflects on his own life living in between cultures.

perennials

Hannah Polinski Profile Image

Canada20226 minutesEnglish with English Subtitles World PremiereDrama, Family, Women Filmmakers

After a pineapple shows up at her front door, Lia returns to her childhood home in search of her father, who hasn’t been seen in months.

 

Director Bio

Hannah Polinski

Hannah Polinski is a writer currently based in Montreal. Her work explores familial memory, shifting landscapes, and poetry as a daily practice.

IN SILENCE, WE SING

Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li Profile Image

Canada202212 minutesEnglish, Cantonese with English Subtitles World PremiereFamily, Music, Women Filmmakers

Following her grandfather’s death in China during the pandemic, Ai is forced to confront her depression, the silences in her home, and her parents’ unsung frustrations—including the ancestor ghosts now possessing them.

 

Director Bio

Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li

Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li is a queer writer, director, musician, and interdisciplinary artist. A third-year MFA candidate at the UBC School of Creative Writing, her first chapbook will be released in fall 2022, and she is working on her thesis novel engaging with Chinese philosophy themes. In Silence, We Sing is her debut short film.

māyā

Samyuktha Movva Profile Image

Canada20229 minutesEnglish, Telugu, Hindi with English subtitles World PremiereWomen Filmmakers

As a wife prepares to celebrate her wedding anniversary, a painful reminder threatens to spoil the evening.

Director Bio

Samyuktha Movva

Samyuktha Movva is an Indo Canadian writer and filmmaker based in Toronto. In her work, she seeks to explore our complex experience of time, memory, beauty, love, and loss through intimate character studies that traverse languages and cultures.

 

PAPAYA

Dédé Chen Profile Image

Canada202211 minutesFrench with English subtitles World PremiereDance, Experimental, Women Filmmakers

A dancer breaks the silence of incest by responding to her family archives through dance. In the ritual sacrifice of a papaya, she reenacts her traumatic past to emancipate her adult self.

Director Bio

Dédé Chen

Born in Nanchang, China in 1995, Dédé Chen now lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal where she creates works about the performance of filiation. As an anthropologist, she is interested in autoethnography as a source of creative writing.

 

ONCE IN A RED MOON
月出几时

Yi Shi Profile Image

Canada202210 minutesEnglish, Mandarin with English subtitles World PremiereDrama, Non-binary Filmmakers, Romance

As Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, a lonesome young Chinese immigrant finds comfort in a whirlwind romance with a mysterious hometown queer crush who seems too good to be true.

 

Director Bio

Yi Shi

Yi Shi is a queer Chinese multidisciplinary artist and tattooer born and raised in Hangzhou, China, currently based in Tkaronto, aka Toronto, Canada. Their works seek to investigate the complexity of human emotions—vulnerability, grief, and diasporic longings.

12 Nov, 2022 3:45 pm

TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
350 King St West
Toronto

IN-PERSON TICKETS

This shorts programme will also be shown as an online screening from Nov 14 – 20. Purchase the shorts VOD pass to watch this programme online and all other shorts in selection at the festival. In person screening has now gone to rush

Rating

PG

Program Funded By

Lead Sponsor

In-person Q&A with filmmakers

Join us following the Unsung Voices 11 for an in-conversation with the filmmakers of Unsung Voices 11 and hear all about their unique filmmaking processes.

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