Each year, Reel Asian celebrates Asian talent with awards for features and short films. Juried by distinguished creatives, filmmakers and industry professionals, these awards speak to the brilliant talent within our communities and the meaningful impact these stories leave with our audiences.
All feature works are eligible for this prize.
$2,000 cash prize
Li Yu
Jury Statement
In a film about the power of perseverance and the complexities of inter-generational relationships, this stunning narrative represents the best in global Asian cinema: master storytelling with a daring and distinct voice. Set in China after the 2008 earthquake, Director Li Yu focuses on the daily lives of some of the most riveting and charming characters in recent cinema.
All first feature films are eligible for this prize.
$500 cash prize
Park Jungbum
Jury Statement
In this raw and moving story of a quiet North Korean refugee we follow one man’s struggle to find his way in a new environment. The jury selected this film because of its honest and inspiring protagonist and the enduring spirit of survival.
All Canadian works are eligible for this prize
$1,500 cash prize
Koji Yamamura
Jury Statement
With exquisite artistry, the film takes the revolutionary work of sequential photography known for its historical and empirical value, and weaves them into a stunning tumultuous narrative. Through the time-based medium of animation, the film explores the essence of time, motion, musical rhythm and artistic expression.
All short films & videos are eligible for this prize.
$500 cash prize + opportunity for broadcast on Movieola
Aonan Yang
Jury Statement
The winner of this award is an intimate, quiet film. The director takes a familiar story of hardship and struggle and tells it with remarkable sensitivity. With its measured pacing and restrained performances, the film evokes the fragility of life with both melancholy and hope.
All animated works are eligible for this prize.
$500 cash prize
Atsushi Wada
Jury Statement
With a hand-drawn aesthetic, the characters were charming, playful, and whimsically nonsensical. The narrative reveals slices of life and/or cold cuts of a quirky family and their gigantic pig. The animation which has impeccable timing, features enigmatic characters who seem both oddly confused yet deliberate in their motivations. The filmmaker holds us captive in his imaginary world.
Lily Sun
Jury Statement
Sweet, humourous, and perfect in its simplicity. The film is visually adorable, and self-reflective in animation’s ability to bring something to life, in this case, back to life. It’s the story of a girl reconnecting with the memory of her dog through her own drawings. The film is both light-hearted and touching.
All films made by female-identified GTA-based artists are eligible for this prize.
$1,200 programming pass and one-year membership to WIFT-T
+ $1,000 in equipment rentals from Videoscope + 15% off rentals for one full year
Shasha Nakhai & Rich Williamson
Jury Statement
This beautifully shot documentary captures personal accounts of a bygone era within the context of local and global political change. It highlights the evolving relationships of people with land through compelling stories. The multiple perspectives reveal the complexities of preserving the past and the precariousness of what the future may bring.
All feature works are eligible for this prize, selected through a tally of votes from the viewers of the 15th anniversary edition Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.
$2,000 cash prize
Lin Yu-hsien
with support from
$2,000 cash prize + more than $8,000 in services
Stephanie Law
$2,000 cash prize + more than $16,000 in services
Keith Lock
King-wei Chu
King-wei Chu is co-director of Asian and martial arts programming and photographer at the Fantasia Film Festival. He also directed Flesh for Kung Fu, featuring Gordon Liu as part of the award-winning anthology Frankenstein Unlimited. He also programs for the Montreal Film Society and serves as a consultant for their archives. King grew up with Shaw Brothers cinema in Montreal and owns one of the largest Shaw collections in North America.
Masashi Niwano
Masashi Niwano is the Festival & Exhibitions Director for the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), the largest non-profit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian-American experiences. Niwano holds a Bachelor’s degree in film production from San Francisco State University. Prior to re-joining CAAM, Niwano was the Executive Director for the Austin Asian American Film Festival. He is also an active filmmaker who has worked on numerous films and music videos that are official selections at Cannes, Outfest, and SXSW.
Renata Mohamed
Renata Mohamed is a Toronto-based filmmaker and a graduate of the Integrated Media program at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD). Her first short film Coolie Gyal has screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide. Mohamed has worked with numerous arts organizations in Toronto and has served on juries for the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival. She has worked as the Membership and Volunteer Coordinator for the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) since 2003.
Jane Kim
Jane Kim was the recipient of the 2010 Reel Asian WIFT-T Award for her film Seeing Through The Spider’s Web. She has made independent short works and also worked as a freelance festival programmer and curator with numerous Toronto-based festivals and arts organizations. Kim is currently a PhD candidate at York University.
Jonathan Ng
Jonathan Ng is a Montreal-based animator. He directed his first film, Asthma Tech, at the National Film Board of Canada in 2006. He then worked in the live-action film industry as a pre-viz animator on features such as The Spiderwick Chronicles and The Mummy 3. He went on to co-produce and animate several breakdance films in a mini-series with Kid Koala, including Floor Kids and Just Another Floor Kids Battle. He won the Reel Asian So You Think You Can Pitch competition in 2009 to produce his upcoming independent short film Requiem for Romance.
Tam-ca Vo-Van
Tam-ca Vo-Van is a curator and film programmer based in Ottawa and is currently the director of SAW Gallery, where she has curated many exhibitions, including International Geographic, Drawing Restraint, and Moncton Rock. She is also a founder of the Electric Fields Electronic Music and Media Forum. She worked for many years as a programmer at the Festival International du Cinéma Frncophone en Acadie and organized teh On The Road Gay and Lesbian Film Fesitval in Moncton. She currently serves as the chair of the Association des Groupes en Arts Visuels Francophones.
Nobu Adilman
Nobu Adilman is a Toronto-based artist working in television, film, music, journalism, podcasting, and web interactive. He got his start as a writer for network television (Emily of New Moon, Cold Squad) and continued to act (Trailer Park Boys, Parsley Days) and host television shows (Smart Ask!, ZeD, Food Jammers, Invention Nation). In 2010 he directed an interactive web documentary with the NFB entitled Crash Course: Creative Lessons in Surviving an Economic Tsunami, and also produced and directed a short documentary film to celebrate the opening of TIFF Bell Lightbox, titled Starting Over: The Legacy of Leslie & Clara Reitman. Adilman most recently founded Choir!Choir!Choir!.
Eileen Arandiga
Eileen Arandiga is the Festival Director of the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, a festival with which she has been associated for over nine years in various capacities. Arandiga has previously worked for the Toronto International Film Festival in the area of industry programming and services, and with various arts organizations in Australia. She has also run filmmaking workshops for young women in Toronto, sat on festival juries, and programmed shorts for Signals Festival in the UK, NEXT Short film Festival in Romania, and the Austalian Canadian Film Festival in Sydney, Australia. Arandiga sits on the board of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
Lila Karim
Lila Karim has over 15 years experience in arts administartion, event management, and film development. Karim is currently the Managing Director of Arts North York with the Toronto Arts Foundation and teh Festival Director of the Toronto Irish Film Festival. She has previously worked for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, ReelWorld Film Festival, and Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund. Karim is active within the arts community as a juror and is also an independent photographer and filmmaker.
*All decisions made by the juries are final and binding and not subject to appeal.
Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from Asia and the Asian diaspora. Works include films and videos by artists in Canada, the U.S., Asia and all over the world. As Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival, Reel Asian provides a public forum for Asian media artists and their work, and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada.
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