Celebrating 30 Years of Women in Leadership

For three decades, Reel Asian has been shaped by an extraordinary lineage of women leaders. From the organization’s founding to today, every Executive Director has been a woman, each building on the work of those who came before to support Asian artists, stories, and audiences.

To mark this milestone, we’ve created a limited edition 30th anniversary tote bag featuring the names of every Reel Asian Executive Director over the past 30 years. Each name represents a chapter in the organization’s history and a reminder of the collective leadership that helped grow Reel Asian into what it is today.

All proceeds from the tote support Reel Asian’s 30th anniversary initiatives, helping us celebrate the past while investing in the future of Asian Canadian storytelling.

Tote bags are $40 CAD.

To purchase click here and please email online@reelasian.com to arrange pickup from Reel Asian (Suite 448 at 401 Richmond St W, Toronto). Alternatively, purchase at the TIFF Shop (350 King Street W, Toronto).

This tote is more than a bag—it’s a tribute to the women who helped build this community.

Stay tuned for more stories about the women behind the names.

Ali’s extensive body of work delves into themes of race, history, migration, and memory. His films offer a unique perspective on the past, providing fresh lenses through which we can view history. Whether exploring the historical injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, the racism endured by early South Asian immigrants on the Komagata Maru, or the challenges faced by Muslims in the face of prejudice as he does in the 3D short video Hazardous. Ali’s approach remains resolute and insightful. The unique relationships Ali has built with his subjects and communities over extended and ongoing periods of time and space are evident in his exceptional storytelling. Through his groundbreaking research with a sharp and deep understanding and appreciation of the craft of filmmaking, Ali fills critical gaps in the history of immigration in North America, offering narratives that are often overlooked. He meticulously unearths the core of these stories, peeling back layers to reveal the complexities at the heart of each issue.

Ali has influenced and helped shape the careers of his students but on the Canadian media landscape. In addition to his filmmaking, Ali was deeply engaged with the Documentary Organization of Canada (formerly the Canadian Film Caucus), serving on the executive board of the Toronto chapter in the mid-1990s and eventually as its chair (1996–1997). As a teacher, mentor, and guide, he has profoundly influenced the careers and artistic visions of numerous emerging filmmakers. One of his students expresses her gratitude, saying, “Ali Kazimi’s mentorship was foundational—not only to my film but to who I became as a filmmaker.”

For decades, Ali has been deeply engaged in the critical, intricate work of deconstructing colonialism and promoting cross-cultural dialogue, all while constantly challenging the limits of form and innovation in documentary storytelling. Ali connects us globally through his complex engagements with Indigenous peoples  and communities across Canada, the South Asian communities in India and Canada, and Chinese Americans in the USA. 

Ali Kazimi embodies the very best traits of a Fire Horse: passion, creativity, transformation, boldness and ambition. He is truly a unique Asian-Canadian documentary filmmaker, an immigrant who lives, works, thrives amongst us and who has contributed so much to the media art scene as a social justice activist, media arts advocate and university educator.  Congratulations and best wishes to Ali! 

The nomination for the 2025 Fire Horse Award was submitted by writer and curator Kerri Sakamoto and Karen Tisch, executive director of Toronto’s Why Not Theatre.

“Ali Kazimi is one of our most celebrated artists whose contribution to Canadian cinema and video art is remarkable,” said Sakamoto and Tisch in their nomination. “Spanning documentary, experimental film, photographic montage, and 3D media art installation, his work explores race, social justice, migration, history and memory. A master storyteller, Ali demonstrates deep empathy for his subjects, ethical engagement, and a beautiful cinematic eye, while exposing difficult truths. As both creator and educator, Ali has inspired and uplifted younger generations of media makers in true Fire Horse fashion.”

“I am deeply honoured to receive the 2025 Fire Horse Award. This recognition is not only a celebration of my journey, but of the many communities, collaborators, students, and storytellers who have shared their truths and trusted me with their voices. I have always believed that film is not merely about telling stories—it is about listening, witnessing, and amplifying those whose histories have been overlooked, erased, or misunderstood. My hope is that this award serves as a reminder that the stories we tell—and how we tell them—matter. Thank you to Reel Asian for this profound honour, and for continuing to create space for bold, necessary and authentic storytelling.”

“Recognizing Ali Kazimi with this award has been a long time coming,” said Deanna Wong, Executive Director of Reel Asian. “We first screened his work Rex VS Singh—co-directed with Richard Fung and John Greyson—back in 2009, and have proudly showcased his films over the years. Honouring him as our 2021 Canadian Spotlight Artist was a meaningful milestone in our ongoing appreciation of his work. He truly embodies the spirit of the Fire Horse, and we’re so proud to celebrate his legacy with this award.”

Ali Kazimi is a once-in-a-generation artist whose award-winning documentaries—including Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas (1997), Continuous Journey (2004), and Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence (2022)—have been widely screened, garnering over 30 awards, and taught across Canada and internationally. His groundbreaking film Continuous Journey exposed Canada’s role in the 1914 Komagata Maru incident and contributed to a national reckoning with anti-Asian racism and colonial policies. Beyond filmmaking, Kazimi has played a pivotal role in shaping the Canadian media landscape through his work with organizations like the Documentary Organization of Canada and as a professor at York University, where he has mentored a generation of filmmakers.

The Fire Horse Award recognizes one Asian Canadian member of the film and media-arts community whose work and leadership embody the qualities of the Chinese zodiac Fire Horse—changemakers, creative thinkers, and visionary leaders with lasting impact. The award was created on the occasion of Reel Asian’s 25th Anniversary in 2021 in honour of Anita Lee, founder of Reel Asian and a trailblazing figure in Canada’s media arts landscape.

The 2025 recipient will receive a $25,000 cash prize, generously supported by contributions from Golden Globe-winning actor Sandra Oh, Lap Chan & Ha-kyung Helen Song, and Pan Asia Food Co., Ltd., as well as continued support from the Reel Asian community. The recipient will also receive the Fire Horse Award sculpture designed by Toronto-based artist and curator Myung-Sun Kim.
The award design, a floating, malleable form, evokes the relationship between body and memory; our familial and cultural inheritances across the diaspora.

“I’m thrilled to join Reel Asian in wholeheartedly supporting the Fire Horse Award,” said Sandra Oh. “By honouring trailblazers of the Asian Canadian media arts community, we are recognizing ourselves. It deeply matters who makes our images, and to these pioneers we owe a debt—and our promise to keep striving to tell our stories to the world.”

Join us in celebrating the incredible legacy and ongoing work of Ali Kazimi—a Fire Horse in every sense of the word. Tickets and tables for the 4th Annual Fire Horse Award Ceremony and Fundraiser are on sale now.

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival (Reel Asian) is seeking their next Festival Creative Artist to create a 15 to 20-second animation as the foundation for the creative campaign for its 29th edition, taking place in November 2025.

As Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival, Reel Asian continues to provide a platform for Asian media artists worldwide, showcasing contemporary works from Canada, the U.S., Asia, and beyond.

This call for animators expands the search for a lead artist to shape the festival’s visual identity. Pitches are not required at this stage.

🔹 Deadline to apply: April 7, 2025, at 11:59 PM EDT
🔹 Learn about the 2024 Festival Creative Artist and their artwork here

Due to the high volume of applications, only selected candidates will be contacted.

Reel Asian is Nominated for a Canadian Screen Award

2022 Reel Asian Awards is nominated for Best Web Program or Series, Non-Fiction at the Canadian Screen Awards which will be televised in May. The 2022 Reel Asian Awards program serves as both a preservation and embodiment of our mission. It encapsulates the essence of what we stand for—providing a stage for Asian creatives to shine and ensuring their contributions are appropriately acknowledged.

We are grateful for this nomination. The Canadian Academy’s support means a great deal to us, and we look forward to the Canadian Screen Awards where we will be alongside our esteemed fellow nominees.

About the 2022 Reel Asian Awards:

The weeks leading up to our annual festival are undeniably the most hectic. Amidst finalizing details with speakers, venues, and worrying about ticket sales, we seized the opportunity to enhance our digital Awards show, something we were thrown into doing during the onset of the pandemic. Although we were thrilled to return with our first fully in-person festival, we recognized the significance of an online Awards show–each award sponsor and winner had their moment to speak, and we were able to incorporate live musical performances from an ever-growing network of Asian talent.

The decision to host a digital Awards show brought its own set of challenges, including assembling a crew, securing a studio, arranging camera equipment, and scripting the event—all amidst an already lengthy pre-festival to-do list. Despite the tight timeline, our community rallied behind us. Through calls for assistance, we were fortunate to have generous members step up willingly, contributing their time and expertise without hesitation and the show came together in about two weeks.

During the peak of our planning schedule, we set aside our day-to-day responsibilities to contribute to the Awards show. For the day, our director of creative marketing and communications assumed the role of director, our shorts programmer became our Covid-19 compliance supervisor, our artistic director took on the role of GAFF and lighting grip, and I took on driving duties and lunch orders. It was a testament to the collaborative spirit within our organization, and it was undeniably rewarding to step into the other side of things and see everyone come together in a new way.

Despite our diverse roles, our shared objective remained constant: to provide a platform for Asian creatives and to duly recognize their outstanding work and achievements.

For Reel Asian, Asian Heritage Month provides an opportunity to reflect on our community’s cinematic history and to revisit past favourites that have made historic contributions to the Asian Canadian experience.

Think of past trips you’ve taken across Canada, around the world, or even during a walk through your home city  — chances are, you’ve come across a Chinese restaurant. Surely you’ve wondered about the stories behind the people and the food.

In the early 2000s, filmmaker Cheuk Kwan travelled the globe over the course of four years and documented stories for his beloved Chinese Restaurants series, which takes us from Turkey to Mauritius, India to Norway, Trinidad to South Africa, and many points in between. Throughout the 15 episodes, Kwan weaves together profiles of these small businesses to tell the story of migration, adventure, and an enduring spirit of the Chinese diaspora.  

Reel Asian is proud to present the complete Chinese Restaurants documentary series for the first time since its initial release nearly 20 years ago. Grouped into five programmes of three episodes each, all 15 episodes are available exclusively online throughout the month of May. Enjoy the films, and please join us for a conversation between author and filmmaker Cheuk Kwan and Toronto Star food reporter Karon Liu on May 2nd!

Enjoy this free VOD pass to Cheuk Kwan’s entire Chinese Restaurants Collection. Your pass automatically enters you for a raffle to win Cheuk Kwan’s book Have You Eaten Yet? 

Your VOD pass also includes a live-stream of the Director’s Talk with Cheuk Kwan in conversation with Karon Liu. This live 2-hr event will stream starting at 7PM ET on Monday, May 2, 2022. You can join in the chat and even ask questions remotely!

A film from Daniels and starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., with James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE – In Theaters April 1.

Enter the Everything Everywhere All At Once Giveaway

Reel Asian is hosting a private in-person community screening of Everything Everywhere All At Once on March 30 at a downtown Toronto theatre. We’ve partnered with 4 local Asian-owned businesses in an I-spy style contest to increase your chance of winning a prize pack that includes tickets to the screening and top-secret swag from the movie.

Ways to enter:
1. Visit one of the 4 community partners (listed below) and snap a picture of the hidden googly eyes. Post the picture on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (stories or post) and tag the applicable business, @reelasian, and @elevation_pics.

• Ruru Baked (659 Lansdowne Ave)
• LA LA Bakeshop Annex (346 A Bloor St W)
• Cuchara (1102 College St)
• Shred (1265 Bloor St W)

2. Repost the giveaway post from @reelasian.

3. Comment and tag a friend on any of the Everything Everywhere All At Once Giveaway posts featuring artwork by jayymadethis on @reelasian or the community partners’ Instagram accounts.

Unlimited entries. Contest runs March 24 to March 27, 2022. All entrants will be entered in a raffle and winners will be notified by March 28, 2022 with event details.

Presenting Partner

Community Partners

In celebration of Reel Asian’s 25th Anniversary, the festival commissioned three short works to be shown before each film during the festival. Made with their own interpretation of this year’s theme, “Here for the Bigger Picture,” we are proud to introduce the artists selected and invite you to read their artist statement below. The full animations can be seen at the festival in the opening sequences and will also be revealed on Reel Asian’s Instagram as the festival days progress.

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is excited to announce this year’s Unsung Voices participants! The Unsung Voices Summer Youth Video Production Workshop will provide young Asian Canadians who have a keen interest in film and media art the chance to express themselves as artists, learn from professionals in the field, and to produce a distinctly Asian Canadian story on screen. The films made will receive a world premiere at the 25th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival in November 2021. Read more about the selected participants below!

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is pleased to announce the recent appointment of four new members to the current board of directors (above, from L to R: Kristle Bautista, Michael Fukushima, Aron Levitz, Sydney Wong):

Kristle Bautista is an award-winning author, course director at York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, and HR advisory within the Canadian Aerospace industry. Kristle’s published book, The Pivotal Moment, was celebrated as a #1 new release and bestseller within weeks of release in both Canada and the US, and is in the process of becoming a feature film. Her global HR advisory, mentorship and training experience spans across the aerospace, business consulting, not-for-profit, and food and consumer packaged goods industries over nearly 20 years. She has successfully delved into different industries, fascinated with what makes employees tick, and the common thread between HR professionals — the thing that makes us all human.

In his 36-year career, Michael Fukushima has been an animator, a filmmaker, a producer, and more recently, executive producer of the NFB’s English Animation Studio. He’s a member of the AMPAS® Academy, with over 200 films (and some nice awards) under his belt. His last films, by Oscar®-winners Alison Snowden and David Fine, and Torill Kove, were each Academy Award® nominees. His final NFB film is Joanna Quinn’s AFFAIRS OF THE ART. Freshly retired from the NFB, Fukushima is enjoying the freedom to ski all winter and cycle the rest of the time, cherry-picking the film work that most interests him. As a longtime member of Reel Asian’s advisory committee, Michael has already contributed to the organization as a years-long jury member for our Pitch! competition, a contributor to our AnimAsian award, and general all-around supporter.

Aron Levitz is President of Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, where he leads a visionary team of global entertainment and publishing experts to create data-backed, fan-driven hit TV shows, films, and books from WEBTOON and Wattpad. Levitz pioneered Wattpad’s adaptation business, launching Wattpad Studios in 2016 and serving as the company’s global studio head until the creation of Wattpad WEBTOON Studios. In just a few short years, Levitz grew Wattpad Studios from a concept to global leader in creating can’t-miss entertainment. 

 Prior to his role as Head of Wattpad Studios, Levitz was Head of Business Development at Wattpad, building the company’s monetization strategy and native advertising solution. He was also instrumental in launching the Wattpad Stars program that gives top influencers access to a variety of opportunities.

Sydney Wong is a Business Development Strategist at Corus Entertainment with the digital team. Her focus is on the Global News website and video licensing partnerships.

Her background in media and project management, has propelled her to work in television programming, producing live-action and animated shows, and short film distribution. Sydney has served on juries and panels at the Toronto Youth Shorts and Hamilton Film Festival. She is passionate about sharing the Asian experience through various forms of media in order to drive significant change in our community.

We very much look forward to working with these outstanding individuals as we move toward our special 25th-anniversary festival this fall, and beyond! WELCOME!

Last year we launched the #UntilTomorrow campaign, which took us through Reel Asian’s history as we revisited films from our past programming by launching the official Reel Asian online archive. What was initially a response to uncertain and unprecedented times has become a new tradition of taking the time to pause, reflect, and press play on old favourites. Scroll through old programme guides and revisit notes and details of the festival that has grown from a weekend-long event to a 10-day international attraction. Watch the films that inspire every aspect of our mission of championing diverse storytelling, and revisit the filmmakers whose stories lit up the big screen and ignited a passion for years to come.

These films touch on everything — family, friendships, identity, romance, race, politics, religion, unanswered questions, and endless “what-ifs.” Standing the test of time or as a clear capsule of the times, these cinematic gems from Asia and the Asian diaspora are yours to explore this Asian Heritage month.