This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: UNDERCURRENTS shorts programme.
Hong Kong202314 minCantoneseAnimation, Available Online
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.
IN PERSON & ONLINE: this film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)
Jay Hiukit Wong & Ellis Kayin Chan
Jay Hiukit Wong is a Hong Kong animation director, animator, illustrator, and comic artist.
Ellis Kayin Chan is a Barcelona-based Hong Kong animation director, animator, and visual artist.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: UNDERCURRENTS shorts programme.
17 Nov, 2024 4:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4
Canada, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, South Korea2023-2024TRT: 89 minVarious languages
Seemingly stagnant on the surface, in motion underneath. These five short films trace and retrace what movements and stories might exist within us and beyond, pulling us in unexpected directions.
For: those asking questions; seeking mood-setting films and non-linear narratives
Canada202418 minEnglish, Indonesian2slgbtq+, Available Online, Directed By Women, Drama, Experimental
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.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
*Amanda Ann-Min Wong
Amanda Ann-Min Wong (they/she) is a Toronto-based filmmaker. Originally from Southeast Asia, their work often explores memory, nostalgia, and community from a tenderly crafted diasporic perspective.
India202415 minKonkaniAvailable Online, Drama
Two young women from a small village discuss the recent mysterious vanishing of Leela. Is there any truth in the rumours about her disappearance?
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)
ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)
Tanmay Chowdhary
Tanmay Chowdhary is a filmmaker who works across a breadth of mediums including music videos, narratives, documentaries, and commercials. He founded a boutique production house called Peru Films in 2020 to champion underrepresented voices.
Hong Kong202314 minCantoneseAnimation, Available Online
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.
IN PERSON & ONLINE: this film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)
Jay Hiukit Wong & Ellis Kayin Chan
Jay Hiukit Wong is a Hong Kong animation director, animator, illustrator, and comic artist.
Ellis Kayin Chan is a Barcelona-based Hong Kong animation director, animator, and visual artist.
Myanmar202310 minBurmeseAnimation, Available Online, Directed By Women, Experimental
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.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)
Moe Myat May Zarchi
Moe Myat May Zarchi is a filmmaker, cultural practitioner, and audiovisual artist from Myanmar whose practice spans 10 years.
Canada, South Korea202432 MinEnglish, Korean, FrenchAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Documentary, Experimental, History
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.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
*Helen Lee
Helen Lee is a Seoul-born, Toronto-based filmmaker whose works explore intersectionalities of place, identity, and sexuality. She works in fiction and essay films, featuring diasporic gendered subjects from feminist and transnational perspectives.
17 Nov, 2024 4:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4PG
Tickets for the in-cinema presentation have gone into advance rush. No more public advance tickets are available. Please join the rush line on the day of the screening when we will release unclaimed holds and reserves.
We can usually get everyone in the rush line in but rush tickets are strictly subject to availability and not guaranteed. Rush lines start an hour before the first screening of the day so the earlier you join the rush line the better your chances.
DIGITAL SHORTS
All shorts are available online via a Shorts VOD Pass. Valid from 10AM on Monday, Nov 18 thru 11:59PM on Sunday, Nov 24, 2024.
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This programme is presented with a mix of open captions, English subtitles, and no captions. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Six emerging filmmakers embarked on a summer-long filmmaking journey. We’re proud to present their world premiere here, in the 13th edition of Reel Asian’s filmmaking program.
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 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.
Hong Kong20229 minCantonese with English subtitlesAnimation
Things that we thought were gone may not truly leave us—perhaps they are still with us somehow.
Step C. & Kai Chung Ng
Step C. is an animation director, illustrator, educator, and art director based in Hong Kong.
Kai Chung Ng is an animation artist and the founder of Point Five Creations.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
For our Closing Night Event, come celebrate the live So You Think You Can Pitch competition at the 27th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. Reception to follow.
Directed by Meredith Hama-Brown. Judith, a Japanese Canadian woman, and her reluctant white husband attend a week-long couple’s retreat on a coastal British Columbia island, their two daughters in tow. With Judith grieving the recent loss of her mother, and her connection to her Japanese Canadian identity, the couple’s disconnect grows as she finds herself infatuated with another, seemingly perfect, interracial couple at the retreat.
Free-spirited 12-year-old Zaffan is the first of her friends to get her period and experience the body-changing horrors that come with puberty and menstruation.
Hong Kong2021112 minCantonese with English subtitlesOntario PremiereDrama
Deep in the night, Fai and his friends are sleeping on the streets of Sham Shui Po, the poorest district in Hong Kong. The police arrive without notice and clear out their belongings, their makeshift homes reduced to roadside trash. With the help of social worker Ms. Ho, Fai takes the case to court, while he and his friends struggle to create a new home.
Based on a true story from 2012, Drifting sharply observes Hong Kong’s inequalities and injustices. Shot during the 2019 protests, without directly mentioning them, the film has clear resonances with its social milieu. Featuring stellar performances by Hong Kong actors new and old, including veteran actor Francis Ng and rising star Cecilia Choi, Drifting is a quietly raging film about dispossession, justice, and the right to live in an unlivable world.
- Ron Ma
Francis Ng
Cecilia Choi
Loletta Lee
OFFICIAL SELECTION
International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2021
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2021
Far East Film Festival, 2021
Jun Li
Jun Li studied journalism in Hong Kong and gender studies at Cambridge. In 2017, his short film Liu Yang He won the Fresh Wave Award and Best Director at the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. He made his feature-directing debut with Tracey in 2018, which received nine Hong Kong Film Awards nominations, and followed it up with Drifting. Li has also been a reporter, a playwright, an actor, an essayist, and a film critic.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
AA
This presentation has English subtitles.
In this artist talk, Golboo Amani introduces us to her body of work, which often addresses and challenges the formal conditions of knowledge production and invites us to consider the power of alternate sites of pedagogy in creating collective agency and community building.
Mi-yeon seems to be living the perfect life as a choirmaster and the wife of a successful man. In comparison, her sisters Hee-sook and Mi-ok seem to be miserable, making Mi-yeon frustrated. But in the shadow behind her perfect smile, Mi-yeon’s also suffering from the three sisters’ shared childhood trauma that they’ve yet to come to terms with.
(re)Rites of Passage is a special anthology published as part of our 25th-anniversary celebrations, and a follow-up to Reel Asian: Asian Canada on Screen (published in 2007 for Reel Asian’s 10th anniversary).
Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, USA64 minEnglish and various languages with English subtitlesAction, Closed Captions, Comedy, Descriptive Captions, Drama, Experimental, Fantasy, Horror, Open Captions, Reel Asian Award Winner, Thriller, Women Filmmakers
A retired hitman, telephone counselor, Ronggeng dancer, and pug take the lead in these four cult-worthy shorts that are bound to make you question everything you thought you knew. Includes winners of Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020 RECEIVER and RONG.
Hong Kong, USA2020 14 minCantonese, Mandarin with English SubtitlesToronto PremiereDrama, Open Captions
Rated 14A
CW: Guns
Our focus shifts from the oversaturated cityscape of Hong Kong to the mundane, yet peaceful fisherman’s life of a retired hitman. When his apprentice arrives unannounced, will the tranquility last?
Tai Bo 太保
Wang Yang 汪洋
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Tribeca Film Festival, 2020
Cannes Cinéfondation, 2020
Palm Springs Shorts Fest, 2020
Calgary International Film Festival, 2020
Linhan Zhang 張林翰
Linhan Zhang 張林翰 is a film and television undergraduate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, a 2017-2018 Sundance Ignite Fellow, and a recipient of the 2019 Adobe Creativity Scholarship.
Canada2020 15 minEnglish with English Subtitles World PremiereClosed Captions, Descriptive Captions, Horror, Reel Asian Award Winner, Thriller
Rating 14A
CW: Psychological horror, Manipulation
Addressing the harm racialized women as professional and informal caregivers face and can internalize, Tahirih Vejdani delivers a resonating performance as Sriyani, an overtaxed social care worker.
Tahirih Vejdani
David Tompa
AWARDS
Winner of Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020
Cavan Campbell
Raised on Prince Edward Island by his Island father, a painter, and his Sri Lankan mother, a writer, Cavan Campbell has worked on It, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and Star Trek: Discovery.
Indonesia2019 13 minIndonesian with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereFantasy, Horror, Open Captions, Reel Asian Award Winner, Thriller, Women Filmmakers
Rating 18A
CW: Sexual assault and violence, Genital mutilation
Blending Indonesian tradition and culture with fantasy and mysticism, RONG is a terrifying yet satisfying take on a girl who walks home alone at night as the hunted becomes the hunter.
Maryam Supraba
Ancoeamar
AWARDS
Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020
Indira Iman
Indira Iman is a director and writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia, who believes film can inspire social change.
South Korea2019 22 minKorean with English SubtitlesInternational PremiereComedy, Drama, Experimental, Fantasy, Open Captions
Rated PG
If three dogs who dabble with dog-ception to save their fellow four-legged friend isn’t enticing enough, it’s also a musical with some animation and features Donggyu Lee, the Korean Benedict Cumberbatch.
Kang Chan
Lee Donggyu
Park Shinyoung
Ko Hyungkyung
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Chungmuro International Musical Film Festival, 2020
Hyungnam Pak 박형남
Born in 1990, Hyungnam Pak is a film major at the Korea National University of Arts. His previous films include Sailing A Paper Boat and When We Meet Us.
12 Nov, 2020 10:00 am
to 19 Nov, 2020 11:59 pm
Join us in conversation with directors and special guests in attendance! ASL interpretation will be made available thanks to Toronto Sign Language Interpreter Services. Ticket holders can watch on the CineSend Reel Asian portal.
November 15, 2020 at 10am
What does a hot bowl of lovingly prepared soup remind you of? The taste of home? The warm embrace of a loved one? For Long, a widower and cook at a Vietnamese restaurant in Warsaw, his famous pho is his pride, and his grade-school daughter Mia is his joy. But their world changes when the restaurant is sold, forcing Long to learn to make sushi. Meanwhile, Mia is frustrated by her father's caring but old-fashioned ways, while fearing he is moving on from the memory of her late mother.
From the mundane to the spectacular, our characters in these five films pave their own paths as some take matters into their own hands, while others come across new points of understanding and acceptance. Includes winner of WIFT-T Film Award, Reel Asian 2020 LOLA'S WAKE.
Each of these extraordinary films call upon the act of remembrance as important and timely work for community care, knowledge, and abundance. Includes winners of Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020 I BOUGHT A TIME MACHINE and I DREAM OF VANCOUVER.
Hong Kong, USA2020 14 minCantonese, Mandarin with English SubtitlesToronto PremiereDrama, Open Captions
Rated 14A
CW: Guns
Our focus shifts from the oversaturated cityscape of Hong Kong to the mundane, yet peaceful fisherman’s life of a retired hitman. When his apprentice arrives unannounced, will the tranquility last?
Tai Bo 太保
Wang Yang 汪洋
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Tribeca Film Festival, 2020
Cannes Cinéfondation, 2020
Palm Springs Shorts Fest, 2020
Calgary International Film Festival, 2020
Linhan Zhang 張林翰
Linhan Zhang 張林翰 is a film and television undergraduate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, a 2017-2018 Sundance Ignite Fellow, and a recipient of the 2019 Adobe Creativity Scholarship.
12 Nov, 2020 10:00 am
to 19 Nov, 2020 11:59 pm
China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South KoreaEnglish and Various Languages Action, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Experimental, Horror, Thriller
Caught in a standstill, these films follow the choices made and risks taken by characters to impel even the smallest of pivots.
Award
Award Description
Spanning over a decade from 1984 to 1996, Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas is a portrait of Jeffrey Thomas, a self-described “Urban Iroquois” photographer, exploring the influences on his life that led him to his career.
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
