For her next standup routine, Filipino Canadian comedian Alia Rasul reconnects with her dad to mine stories about the ridiculous ways he almost died — but it unexpectedly turns into a record-scratch moment.
Join us for a crafty Happy Hour on Sun, Nov 17, at The Commons, 401 Richmond! Hosted by this year's Festival Creative Artist Agnes Wong, this event features a relaxed journaling and scrapbooking workshop. Bring your own stickers and ephemera to trade, share, or journal with.
On the brink of getting fired from her restaurant by its new owners, Marielle Lau, a visionary chef and master fermenter, develops an incendiary new dish with a bewitching ingredient she’s convinced will save her career.
This experiential and textural short film invites viewers into the inner workings of a mind, to ponder how we love and unlove ourselves.
A creepy clown-for-hire tries to stay true to his ghoulishness amidst a world that wants him to change.
What does greatness look like? What does it take to be great? In the documentary Ashima, greatness looks like Ashima Shiraishi, a modest but determined 13-year old Japanese American rock-climbing prodigy. For her demanding father, Hisatoshi, a former Butoh dancer and Ashima’s coach, greatness requires discipline and intense focus. Together, they’ve embarked to South Africa to climb Golden Shadow, a famous V14 boulder, for Ashima to become the youngest woman to ever climb it.
Take a deep breath. As you exhale, imagine that in about three years, anywhere you went on the planet, you found the molecules that are inside of you in this moment.
It’s the holidays, and Ben Santhanaraj shows up to Sri Lanka to see Suzanne Hopper, his long-distance partner who works there. Unfortunately, Suzanne’s been informed she now has to work through the holidays, thwarting their dream vacation plans (and his amorous intentions). They decide to go along with their itinerary, her laptop in tow, but nothing seems to work out as planned, leading to candid conversations and chaotic twists. Will their relationship endure — or have they grown too far apart?
We’re excited to be presenting “Bestiary” at this year’s festival, featuring a troupe of fantastical creatures in mid-flight, dreamed up by artist Wenting Li. Come experience them in transit, full of whimsy and uncanny energy at The Commons, at 401 Richmond during festival hours.
This experimental examination of threshold states moves through deep space time in underwater realms. Mirrored bodies spiral, suspend, and dance through Te Reo Māori and nêhiyawêwin lamentations.
Late at night, a desperate young man searches for a loud release in a motorbike repair shop.
On a seemingly prosaic day, Bita, an Iranian woman with terminal cancer, comes to grips with her changing relationships with her family as life transforms and slips away.
While picking juicy lychees on an endless summer day, Ting is uneasy. She’s on the verge of marriage in her hometown in mainland China. Before she ties the knot, Ting ventures to Hong Kong to find the father she’s never known. While on her journey, she finds she has other loose ends to tie up, too.
Join us for an in-depth conversation about Ann Marie Fleming's CAN I GET A WITNESS?, Reel Asian's opening night film this year. This thought-provoking movie examines a near-future society grappling with climate change, mortality, and the value of life. Fleming draws inspiration from her personal experiences, including her time in Vancouver's West End and the environmental upheaval of Stanley Park.
Amir is an aspiring chef trying to get ahead, but he can’t seem to break out and meet his own expectations or those of his parents, while his favoured younger brother Mahyar can seemingly do no wrong. When news from Iran arrives that a family friend has died and passed his entire inheritance solely to Mahyar, the mystery of the gift’s provenance begins to unravel the family's story, the image of their parents, and the relationship between the two brothers.
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.
This Bollywood-inspired hybrid animated music video features Aadarshini, an anxious Indian American girl who feels out of place at an Indian wedding, until she learns to make space for herself in her culture through Parvati, a traditional dancer who catches her eye.
A road trip traces a transition from grief to acceptance, through valleys, junctions, and detours. DETOURS AHEAD reflects the director's meditation on solitude, and articulates her shifting relationship with place.
We're welcoming back online screenings to the 29th edition of Reel Asian! This year, our virtual lineup brings the festival experience to your home with features and shorts. Grab your popcorn and enjoy cinema on your terms with flexible digital passes or individual feature tickets!
After losing faith, a senior in an instant noodle cult wanders in search of the true taste of MSG.
On the evening of the 1987 "Easter Epic" hockey playoff game, a young Cambodian girl grapples with her Canadian identity in a small town in rural Ontario.
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.
A burnt-out writer uses AI to deliver a script, only to discover the true essence of human creativity.
Join us for Festival Happy Hour between film screenings! Open to the public, come participate in casual activities every day.
The 28th edition of Reel Asian is about to unfold! Celebrate with us at our Festival Launch Party, co-hosted by New Ho Queen!
After accessing the 119-page custodial file of her great-grandfather in the National Archives of Canada, A.S.M. Kobayashi discovers new details about her Japanese family's history and their lives before internment.
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
So you have a great idea for a documentary—what’s next? Join our panel of Producers and Directors as they break down the journey of transforming a concept into a compelling finished project. From the early stages of research, fundraising, and story development, to navigating production challenges and securing distribution, this discussion will cover the essential steps and strategies for bringing a documentary idea to life. Gain insights on pitching to funders, the importance of crafting diverse and authentic narratives, and how to collaborate with key stakeholders in the industry. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your approach, this session will provide valuable takeaways from experienced professionals who have successfully turned their ideas into reality.
Fresh off its world premiere at TIFF, Amar Wala’s SHOOK serves as an ideal case study for filmmakers, particularly those transitioning from shorts to feature films. Set in Scarborough, Ont., the film captures the area's multicultural essence and reflects on identity, place, and personal growth through rich, site-specific details. This panel explores the craft of the film, the intricate score, and the writing process, capturing a slice of life that local audiences can resonate with. As a family story, SHOOK presents a narrative that showcases the beauty of everyday life, balancing complex personal narratives with broader cultural commentary. By examining Wala’s experience with Shook, we'll shed light on how an honest love letter to a city and its diverse communities can be crafted.
Feeling stuck in her limited immigrant status, a young Korean woman eats spicy fire noodles every day for the thrill, instead of taking risks in her own life.
At the heart of this captivating coming-of-age sports film is Ashley Chea, a Cambodian American basketball marvel whose high school career we follow. Hailing from a lower-class immigrant family that sought safety in the U.S. after the Khmer Rouge came to power, Chea is given the opportunity to attend a private school and thus pursue a coveted college basketball career. While her parents work vigorously at their doughnut store and can’t attend her games, Chea bonds with her Japanese American coach, who helps her with doctor's appointments and even attaining her driver’s licence.
A young girl's birthday overlaps a memorial service, and she struggles to blow out her candles while avoiding adults who prioritize rituals over birthday celebrations.
Yaya and Louie, two baby goths, prepare to summon the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, but a series of unexpected obstacles jeopardize the entire spooky spectacle — and maybe even their friendship.
Experience a bit of the Japanese tea ceremony and learn about its history and core philosophies.. Taste some whisked matcha. Hosted by Momo Yoshida, the founder and owner of Momo Tea, an online tea store based in Toronto. RSVP required.
Sit in on this exclusive screening and deep dive of LATE BLOOMER, the groundbreaking series from the creative mind of Jasmeet Raina (Jus Reign). Centred on Jasmeet Dutta's life, the show unpacks family expectations, intergenerational relationships, and racial identity in ways rarely seen on Canadian TV. We’ll screen Episode 1: "Nudes" and Episode 4: "The Turban," offering a glimpse into Jasmeet’s complex journey as he navigates personal desires that go against familial pressures. Stick around to hear from the creative team about how Late Bloomer has landed in the community, and how it will continue to shape these conversations in real life.
Layla is a struggling Palestinian drag queen who often finds creative ways to make ends meet, surrounded by a small, supportive group of close friends within the North London queer scene. A stuffy corporate event performance goes terribly wrong, making Layla and their outrageous antics go viral, and they meet the seemingly-dull-in-comparison marketing executive Max. Despite their very different worlds, a transformative love affair ensues, much to the annoyance of their close friends, who are highly skeptical of how healthy or affirming this relationship could possibly be.
Two young women from a small village discuss the recent mysterious vanishing of Leela. Is there any truth in the rumours about her disappearance?
Left home alone, 10-year-old Alex watches his older brother, Quinn, play video games. When his efforts for attention are neglected, Alex sparks a fight that takes a serious turn.
The lives of a Native woman and a troubled young boy intersect over the course of a school day on a reservation in Oklahoma.
Tessie, a 13-year-old science prodigy, journeys into her grandma's deteriorating mind to save one precious memory they have together.
Gaze into a wondrous abyss. But what happens when you look at something too hard for too long?
Ann Lai, a mature trans woman, navigates the complexities of her fading memory, delving into the intricacies of love and the burgeoning of her evolving gender identity.
Deep in debt, with a house and a university-bound kid, plus a marriage on the rocks, reformed gambler Lucky sees his luck run out after getting scammed in a tax-fraud scheme. Ashamed and desperate to keep it from his family, he returns to underground backroom gambling dens, playing for big payouts to relieve the debt and win back his family’s favour. Meanwhile, each family member, unaware of Lucky’s troubles but feeling the money crunch, too, resorts to unsavoury means to dig out of their hole.
Two friends living in Mānoa Valley spend a summer day together before one of them moves to New York City.
Together, Nawal, a young Palestinian woman, and Tanya, an older Indigenous woman, start a guerrilla garden on the lawn of their apartment building and battle middle management to make it to harvest.
Follow filmmaker Anna Quon as she journeys from her childhood conviction regarding her own specialness, symbolized by her “perfect” teeth, into the throes of mental unwellness.
A poetic narrative and self-portrait through experimentation in 2D animation, stop-motion and sound, this short film delves into a self-searching and healing journey, exploring the relationship between emotion and space.
A goldfish's dream of returning into her wild form uproars her long-forgotten memories, while a self-conscious monsoon is about to be uninhibited.
When his health starts to decline, a young man spirals into paranoia, and he blames a growing mould problem for his issues.
Join us for an evening of quiet time records! Kid Koala hosts a "quiet time" event, playing hours of his favorite music to work, draw, code, write or knit to. Bring your creative projects.
With Seoul under a UFO attack, will Soojin be able to find the green-glowing girl she slept with the night before? (Re)Discover the power of love in this alien invasion, student-drama, action-romance blockbuster short.
Grace Lee, an overworked mom in Singapore, collapses at work. She gets admitted into the hospital, where she finds newfound freedom as a patient.
A woman is playing an online game with her partner when she suddenly receives a call from her mother, who wants to set her up with someone else.
Dilber is 27 years old, preparing for her younger sister Rena’s wedding while contemplating her own future. Despite the recent nuptials in the family, their mother continues to put pressure on Dilber to find a husband soon, responding to the heightened anxiety during a time when Uyghur people are being arrested without process or reason. Dilber's friend in Paris convinces her to marry a young Uyghur man in France, a proposition that feels very attractive. But will it work out?
Through the lens of directors Tadashi Nakamura and Quyên Nguyen-Le, this compelling documentary captures the bold journey of visionary artist-activist Nobuko Miyamoto. From her upbringing in a Japanese American internment camp to her breakthrough as a performer in films and on Broadway, Miyamoto reflects on how her personal encounters with racial injustice inspired her blending of artistic endeavours with Asian American advocacy. Her thoughtfully created music, dances, and theatre productions carry on to bridge cultural divides and facilitate mutual support among BIPOC communities.
The music video for One Thing I Can Afford, by Louie Sanchez, broadly addresses queer and trans friendship in the diaspora, Filipinx masculinities, and everyday enactments of transgenerational care.
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.
A prismatic exploration recounting the 1950s visit of Parisian elites led by Chris Marker and Claude Lanzmann in the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the communist state that claims the allegiance of the filmmaker’s grandmother during the Korean War.
A daughter learns about her mother’s roots in Indonesia through a language lesson, unravelling the mother’s painful longing for home.
Trouble seems to follow Jie and his family. Training to be a competitive fencer, Jie is lost, haunted by the childhood memory of a near-drowning incident with his menacing older brother Han. Years later, a teenage Han is imprisoned after killing a competitor during a fencing match (by accident, he swears). Meanwhile, Jie's mother has been spiteful and distant ever since, with no love to give her younger son. So when Han is finally released from prison, Jie is desperate to have some family love restored — and eager for some helpful fencing and boyfriend dating tips, too. But is Han’s reformed presence for real?
Starring Sandra Oh and Adam Beach, this comedy-drama features a young woman who falls in love with a shoplifter at her family's convenience store, setting off a series of mishaps involving a lost doll, a loaded gun, and a grandmother who only speaks Korean.
Creatura is a multimedia stream of programming that draws inspiration from the strange, wild, and untamed: descriptions historically used to label, discipline and exclude people. Whether it be for unrecognizable ways of being, or unacceptable actions and behaviours, to be a creature is to exist at the edge of what it means to be human. Creatura programming aims to engage with all variations of this label across the spectrum, from the mystical and uncanny to the unruly and abhuman.
It’s no secret that filmmaking requires grit, stamina, and a whole lot of determination. Reel Ideas celebrates the behind-the-scenes perseverance that drive creators to follow their instincts and shape their stories.
After decades of separation, two brothers reunite at a rare event where families from both sides of the Korean border come together.
In 1998 Indonesia, two girls promise to stay friends forever. Twenty-five years later, after experiencing a traumatic event, Emily dreams about Rosa, her childhood friend.
Budi must convince his ailing father in Indonesia to take his medical treatment while cleaning up his wild party in the Netherlands. All in 20 minutes.
Experience a poetic journey of connection and entanglement inspired by the philosophies of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Set in the famous Tai-An teahouse, SEN takes us from joy and wonder, through carelessness and confusion, to peace and renewal, in a lush, visual homage to the expansive emotional interior
Closing out the 28th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, join us for the live So You Think You Can Pitch competition.
A burgeoning artist reckons with the struggle to find an audience for his art and his desire to reconnect with his mother in the afterlife.
Join us for an exclusive Work-In-Progress presentation of SPACE CADET, a captivating animated film directed by Kid Koala. Work-In-Progress events at Reel Asian give audience members a chance to explore the development stages of a piece of work. In this session, we will hear insights from the creative team of SPACE CADET, including director Kid Koala, head of story and production designer Lillian Chan, and artistic director Corinne Merrell, who will guide us through the artistic process and illustrate how animation brings this heartfelt narrative to life.
A little girl shoots down from the heavens to spend her birthday with her family.
Today is Parents' Day at the Sweetwater Boarding School for English Learners. When A, B, C, and D discover that none of their families are coming, they decide to hatch a different plan.
Photographic sequences painted with golds and greys animate the guilt from a childhood incident of killing an ant while washing hands in the sink, reflecting the realms of cosmos, power, guilt, prayers, and existence.
Five oblivious youths, a video camera, a remote rundown villa, and a creepy caretaker. Doesn’t it sound like the perfect recipe for a horror film? A mysterious death that soon follows takes the story on a route beyond the fourth wall. The group find out that they’re characters of The Draft! of a screenplay, and that their smarts will dictate their survival.
A young, gifted Vincent and his father Tomas run the finest glass workshop in the country, creating delicate, magnificent pieces of art. Their close bond is soon put to the test with the arrival of an army colonel and his young, aspiring violinist daughter Alliz, to their hometown. Amidst the rumblings of an impending war, Vincent and Alliz eventually fall in love, a relationship that is continually opposed and challenged by their fathers.
Feeling stuck, young fisherman Yong-su sees no hope in his future - like a fish in a net. As a last resort, he plans an insurance scam by staging his disappearance, hoping to provide a better life for his Vietnamese wife and his ageing mother. At the centre of this scheme is his captain, Yeong-guk, who reluctantly reports Yong-su missing. However, when Yong-su’s mother refuses to connect her son’s disappearance with his death, the white lie snowballs into something harder to chew.
After a mysterious encounter leaves her daughter Sumi in a coma, Sara rushes from South Korea to Winnipeg to be by her side. As Sumi heals, Sara begins to unpack details of her life that her daughter never shared with her. On a mission to find a husband to take care of Sumi when she wakes, Sara ventures into the daunting unknowns of dating apps and Winnipeg winters, and finds out more about herself than she planned.
Vega, a lonely programmer, falls in love with a beautiful popstar water deer. Constantly dragged back to reality by pigeons, Vega’s longing for warmth is in need of being sated.
Pressured into giving away his clothes, an emasculated young man obsessively attempts to reclaim his cherished sweater before it vanishes into the donation abyss.
For people living with structural dissociation, falling asleep can be a challenge, as multiple contradictory thoughts conspire to keep them awake. Director Michelle Ku draws on her experience with somatic healing to put these thoughts to rest, in a few vivid minutes of hand-painted animation.
Set in Malaysia's National Service training camp, Jia Hui, a female ethnic-Chinese trainee, is commanded by her teacher to lead her multiracial female comrades in washing stained sanitary pads in the middle of the night.
Loud and expressive, reflexive yet playful, this programme, in the spirit of Creatura, makes room for all our mushy and monstruous emotions. Come for the screening, stick around for the delightful arts activities for all ages to enjoy together!
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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info@reelasian.com
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