This film is part of the Muscle Memory shorts programme.
Cambodia202224 minutesKhmer and Bunong with English subtitlesDrama
Indigenous Bunong siblings spend one last day in their rural village in northeastern Cambodia, before an impending move to the capital city in search of a more prosperous life.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open English subtitles in-person and digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Polen Ly
Polen Ly paused his studies in medicine to pursue filmmaking in 2012. He has directed several shorts and documentaries, exploring environmental and human rights issues, including LGBTQ+ and Indigenous experiences.
This film is part of the Muscle Memory shorts programme.
Amidst a mountain of food, jokes, prayers, joints, songs and Filipino Elvis impersonations, Lolo's Child questions, criticizes and celebrates the intricate underbelly of the Filipino-Canadian community. Reel Asian's Opening Night Film in 2002.
A recent report released by the DOC Institute points to the lack of data on funding for documentary content produced by Indigenous, Black or racialized filmmakers. This panel will discuss why it's important for agencies and broadcasters to collect and share race based data in order to achieve their stated equity goals. The panel will also analyze the stories and experiences shared by BIPOC filmmakers which speak of systemic barriers to funding.
Set in the 1990s, South Korean immigrant and single mother So-young looks to make a fresh start in a West Coast Canadian suburb with her son Dong-hyun.
Cambodia, Canada, French Polynesia, Singapore, USA202275 minutesEnglish and other languages with English subtitlesAnimation, Drama, Family, Women Filmmakers
How do our bodies and environments absorb and hold onto repetitive patterns, habits, and routines? This presentation of shorts exercises the capacity to confront harmful structures, encourage reflexivity, and affirm the embodied knowledge we carry.
Canada, French Polynesia202212 minutesEnglish and French with English subtitlesAnimation, Dance, Drama
A Tahitian dancer tries to reclaim her identity by confronting a tourist audience with a dance of her own.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Content Warning: Sexist situations
Wei Li
Wei Li is an Emmy-winning storyboard and comic artist. His work includes Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego, Cleopatra in Space, and Blue Eye Samurai. Tehura is his debut film.
Canada20229 minutesEnglish and Urdu with English subtitlesDrama, Family
Sania must take her mother, Noor, for a doctor’s appointment—serving as her parent and translator.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Haaris Qadri
Haaris Qadri is an emerging filmmaker based in Brampton and a graduate from York University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production Specialized Honours. Qadri is drawn to diasporic stories, contemplating questions of identity, home, and belonging.
Canada20213 minutesEnglishDocumentary, Experimental, Women Filmmakers
A fleeting and poetic retrospect of a young woman who develops a chronic illness.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open English subtitles in-person and closed English subtitles digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Shubhi Sahni
Shubhi Sahni is an Indian Canadian filmmaker based in Los Angeles and Toronto. She makes intimate films in the space between documentary and fiction. Sahni is an Annenberg Fellow at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Canada, USA202210 minutesEnglish and Mandarin with English subtitlesDrama, Family, Women Filmmakers
In the face of uncontrollable sorrow, Bo desperately suppresses a “grief flower” sprouting from his face before his big speech at his father’s funeral.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Wendy Xu
Wendy Xu is a rising Chinese Canadian filmmaker whose narrative recipes never fail to include just a pinch of absurdity and humour.
Singapore202210 minutesEnglish and Mandarin with English subtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Women Filmmakers
Following three separate stories, four average Singaporeans encounter a sexual situation in the course of their day.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open English subtitles in-person and digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Content warning: Self-harm, blood, sexist language and situations, abortion, strobing lights
Calleen Koh
Calleen Koh is BAFTA-nominated animated-film director and artist from Singapore. She loves to make people laugh but also be disturbed by her sexy, manic, animated films.
Cambodia202224 minutesKhmer and Bunong with English subtitlesDrama
Indigenous Bunong siblings spend one last day in their rural village in northeastern Cambodia, before an impending move to the capital city in search of a more prosperous life.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open English subtitles in-person and digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Polen Ly
Polen Ly paused his studies in medicine to pursue filmmaking in 2012. He has directed several shorts and documentaries, exploring environmental and human rights issues, including LGBTQ+ and Indigenous experiences.
11 Nov, 2022 6:45 pm
OnlineThe screening for Night Shifts will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
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.
Rated PG
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the theatrical presentation with attending guests from this shorts programme, moderated by Angela Sun.
Angela Sun
Angela Sun is an actor, theatre creator, producer, and writer of East Asian descent. Her multidisciplinary, multilingual artistic practice focuses on cultural dissonance and mental health. She is also known for her advocacy for cultural diversity, size-inclusivity, and access for the invisible disability community. She has worked with many emerging and established artistic organizations throughout her career. She is currently the Community Engagement Coordinator at Theatre Passe Muraille and is working on a one-woman show about trauma, representation, and storytelling entitled The Glass Eye.
This year’s Reel Ideas Conference gathers industry professionals, filmmakers, and performers to reflect on the specificity in their works, representing their own nuances along with their communities' lived experiences.
Hye-jeong leaves a protest group of closely knit families, mourning the victims of an industrial accident, to which she also lost her husband.
These films do not shy away from difficult and layered stories, distant memories, and buried feelings. Our characters ground, trace, and reconnect pathways toward recognizing the resiliency within oneself through their roots and relations to the places around them.
Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, China, Philippines, South Korea, USA202176 minEnglish and various languages with English SubtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Women Filmmakers
Recognizing the in/tangible ways feelings and relations can influence one’s actions, these six films tenderly hold the complexities of characters, places, and memories that are more than enough just as they are.
Canada, South Korea202112 minKorean with English subtitlesDrama
Actors Ahn So-yo and Kim Jae-rok return in director Albert Shin’s latest film as two anonymous strangers who meet in a motel room by the sea.
This presentation has English subtitles.
An Active Listener will be available to offer one-on-one peer support for viewers who may find the content of this presentation triggering. More info on how to access here.
This film contains the potentially triggering topics of suicide.
Albert Shin
Albert Shin is a Toronto-based filmmaker. His films include In Her Place (2014) and Disappearance at Clifton Hill (2019).
Belgium, China202016 minMandarin with English subtitlesNorth American PremiereDocumentary, Women Filmmakers
Wistful and witty, director Viv Li succinctly recounts the nine days she spends in her hometown of Beijing after being abroad for 10 years.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Viv Li
Viv Li is a Chinese filmmaker, writer, and comedian based in Berlin and Beijing. Before turning to film directing, she was an active standup comedian and performed around the U.K. and China.
South Korea20203 minKorean with English subtitlesAnimation, Music, Women Filmmakers
One night, Seolgi is lying on a grass field with friends when a shooting star falls and dark intrusive thoughts hit her, bursting with movement and blooming bright colours.
This presentation has English subtitles.
An Active Listener will be available to offer one-on-one peer support for viewers who may find the content of this presentation triggering. More info on how to access here.
This film contains the potentially triggering topic of suicide.
Sasha Lee
Sasha Lee directs and animates short films that explore the connection between humans, using dramatic motion and vibrant colors. During her free time, she writes idiosyncratic songs that make her happy.
USA20214 minEnglish, Tagalog with English subtitlesToronto PremiereComedy, Women Filmmakers
Looking to pick up something new? In this lesson, Kayla teaches you conversational phrases, common expressions, and much, much more in Tagalog.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Kayla Abuda Galang
Kayla Abuda Galang is a second-ish-generation Filipino American making films rooted in nostalgia, everyday absurdity, and girlhood. She is based in Austin, Texas, with her partner and two cats.
Cambodia202014 minKhmer with English subtitlesOntario PremiereDrama, Women Filmmakers
Amid a textured beauty salon and late-night vibes full of tension, Pich navigates her restrained interest in the delivery man, who spends his evenings driving through Phnom Penh's streets.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Danech San
Danech San has worked on projects with Anti-Archive since 2015, including Diamond Island (2016). Her first and previous short film, A Million Years (2018), won Best Southeast Asian Short at Singapore IFF 2018.
Philippines202027 minTagalog with English subtitlesCanadian Premiere
Set in a rural coastal village in the Philippines, Mona trains under her mother to start work as a professional mourner for hire.
This presentation has English subtitles.Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan
Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan is an independent filmmaker, musician, and poster designer of Ifugao and Visayan descent. Eblahan’s works explore themes of trauma, spirituality, and nature, told through the cosmic lens of post-colonial spaces and Indigenous identities.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
AA
Aman, a young aspiring writer, moved to Kuala Lumpur to follow his dreams, but all he has is his late father’s old car and nowhere to live. To make ends meet, he uses his room on wheels to illegally earn money through a driving-service app. This is how he meets Bella, a student from Penang.
First programmed as part of last year’s festival, this panel continues to reckon with the function of art, festival, and gallery spaces in a time of crisis.
Narrative in Other Mediums is a panel that brings together creatives working in formats like video games, music videos, and commercials to discuss their experience and expertise with narrative construction and creative direction.
Cambodia202014 minKhmer with English subtitlesOntario PremiereDrama, Women Filmmakers
Amid a textured beauty salon and late-night vibes full of tension, Pich navigates her restrained interest in the delivery man, who spends his evenings driving through Phnom Penh's streets.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Danech San
Danech San has worked on projects with Anti-Archive since 2015, including Diamond Island (2016). Her first and previous short film, A Million Years (2018), won Best Southeast Asian Short at Singapore IFF 2018.
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.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
