This film is a part of Wee Asian
Japan20217 minEnglish, Japanese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereAnimation, Family-friendly, Music
Inspired by the 12th- to 13th-century Japanese picture scroll Bird and Beast Character Caricature, this animation presents one unfolding scroll featuring Japanese and English wordplay through marine animals.
Koji Yamamura
Koji Yamamura is an award-winning animator and a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts who began his artistic practice at the age of 13.
Canada, India, Japan, USA2021English and various languages with English SubtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Family-friendly, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Music, Women Filmmakers
Fun and free, encounter a programming offering dedicated to celebrating creativity, wonder, and self-expression for audiences of all ages.
Canada20213:00EnglishAnimation, Women Filmmakers
After losing his best friend, an elderly pug named Henry must depend on his owner for help.
Ann Marie Fleming
Ann Marie Fleming is an award-winning Canadian visual artist, writer, director, animator, and cross-platform media maker who works in a variety of genres (animation, experimental, documentary and drama) that often deals with themes of family, history, and memory.
India202012 minMalayalam with English subtitlesAnimation, Family-friendly
Aisha believes it was the endless rain, while Ambadi insists it was the sea. Amid their bickering, three children embark on a quest to trace the origins of their village stream.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Balaram J
Balaram J is a writer, designer, and independent filmmaker from Kerala, India. He has created animation for the visionary filmmaker Lijo Jose Pellissery’s feature films Jallikattu (2019) and Churuli (2021).
Canada20214 minNo dialogueAnimation, Family-friendly, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Women Filmmakers
Set across three separate timelines, a couple struggle to openly love each other.
This presentation has no captions.
Sheryl Au
Sheryl Au is a Malaysian, born and raised in Singapore, who loves drawing and is pursuing a career in animation. Her aspirations have taken her to Sheridan College, where she has now graduated with a Bachelor of Animation from the school.
Japan20217 minEnglish, Japanese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereAnimation, Family-friendly, Music
Inspired by the 12th- to 13th-century Japanese picture scroll Bird and Beast Character Caricature, this animation presents one unfolding scroll featuring Japanese and English wordplay through marine animals.
Koji Yamamura
Koji Yamamura is an award-winning animator and a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts who began his artistic practice at the age of 13.
Canada20214 minCantonese with English subtitlesWorld PremiereAnimation, Family, Family-friendly
Inspired by director Aiken Chau’s experiences at the dinner table, a fly wreaks havoc on a family's dinner at a restaurant.
Aiken Chau
Aiken Chau is a Chinese Canadian artist and animator who enjoys storytelling and creating characters. A graduate from the Sheridan College animation program, he experiments with animation of all mediums.
USA20217 minEnglish, Cantonese with English subtitlesFamily, Family-friendly, Women Filmmakers
In Los Angeles’s Chinatown, Sammi tries to help her parents keep their seafood restaurant afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Jane Chow
Jane Chow is a Los Angeles-based writer-director from Hong Kong. Her films and web series have screened at festivals worldwide, and she has directed commercials for TikTok, Tinder, as well as the Biden-Harris campaign.
USA202012 minEnglishToronto PremiereDrama, Family, Family-friendly, Women Filmmakers
Aishwarya Narayanan clashes with her coach father and questions the meaning of success while vying for a spot at the prestigious National Spelling Bee.
This presentation has closed captions.
Amrita Singh
Born in Tamil Nadu, India, and raised in Hyde Park, Chicago, Amrita Singh is a writer and director with an MFA in filmmaking from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she later served as adjunct faculty.
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 13, 2020 at 8PM
No Article Found
Back for a second year, join the Wee Asian Arts Channel for sweet and simple pre-recorded arts activities led by a line-up of talented local artists:
En Lai Mah
Transform stories into movement using a combination of Shaolin Kung Fu and contemporary dance with multidisciplinary performance artist, playwright, and choreographer En Lai Mah.
Rosena Fung
Author of Living with Viola Rosena Fung shows you how to draw and transform your favourite dumplings and other food items into cute, wacky characters.
Basil AlZeri
Visual artist and educator Basil AlZeri will show you how to both archive and achieve all your goals and aspirations.
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.
Monica (Sujata Day), a former spelling-bee champion, lives at home with her ailing mother and tutors young spelling-bee hopefuls whose parents hover around, in hopes that their children will follow in her footsteps. When she is offered a dream job in another city, she considers accepting it, until her estranged brother Sonny (Ritish Rajan) shows up unexpectedly, opening up old wounds and familial tensions.
In the electrifying lead-up to the multi-city Aurat March (Women’s March) in Pakistan, director Anam Abbas follows grassroots organizers as they navigate a deeply surveilled and violent environment to assert a growing, nation-wide feminist movement. Negotiating freedoms with fearful relatives and dodging constant scrutiny, activists move with unbreakable commitment to galvanizing their communities with a radical feminist agenda.
Japan, Kazakhstan201984 minKazakh with English SubtitlesCanadian PremiereDrama, Open Captions, Women Filmmakers
A cowardly horse robbery ends in murder, leaving a boy fatherless and his family in disarray. When the boy’s mother is forced to move the family out of their village, a mysterious man arrives who might be able to help restore order. What may appear to us as a “Western,” with its familiar framing of vast vistas and sublime steppes, is really a story about fractured families and survival in the wake of violence.
Inspired by true events, co-directors Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Lisa Takeba join forces for a landmark Kazakhstan/Japan co-production, starring decorated actors Samal Yeslyamova and Mirai Moriyama. These disparate yet collaborative elements are able to make something familiar but fresh, an Asian “Western”, an art film that builds to a satisfying genre conclusion and culminates with an epilogue of renowned Kazakh artist Gali Myrzashev paintings. The Horse Thieves is an atmospheric treat. Watch it full-screen, volume up.
- Aram Siu Wai Collier
Samal Yeslyamova
Madi Minaidarov
Mirai Moriyama
Dulyga Akmolda
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Busan International Film Festival, 2019
Tokyo International Film Festival, 2019
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2020
Yerlan Nurmukhambetov, Lisa Takeba
Lisa Takeba is a Japanese film director and screenwriter known for Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory (2015) and The Pinkie (2014). Yerlan Nurmukhambetov is a director and writer known for Walnut Tree (2015) and The First Rains of Spring (2011).
12 Nov, 2020 10:00 am
to 19 Nov, 2020 11:59 pm
14A
Ticket holders can watch Reel Asian Programmer June Kim's conversation with directors Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Lisa Takeba on the CineSend Reel Asian portal.
Unfolding over a tumultuous three days, Dust And Ashes is a quiet thriller following a grieving Hae-su, forced to learn and navigate the system in order to collect insurance after the death of her mother. Overworked, underpaid, and facing eviction, Hae-su takes desperate measures in order to escape impoverishment. Winner of the 2020 Cinesend Best First Feature Award!
Students at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music gather for the start of the school day. They laugh, practice, and take tests while preparing for a concert celebrating 100 years of Afghanistan's independence. Ranging from five-year-olds to young adults, some are middle-class kids and others are orphans, and they come from Afghanistan's many ethnic groups.
Cambodian-born Sokly “Don Bonus” Ny takes a Hi8 camcorder into his final year of high school in the San Francisco Bay Area, documenting intersecting events happening at school, at home, and amongst friends and family.
Japan2019179 minJapanese with English subtitlesClosed Captions, Drama, Fantasy
Rated 18A
CW: war, sex, physical violence (beatings, executions), sexual violence (rape), attempted suicide
In the port town of Onomichi, Japan, the only movie theatre is bidding goodbye to its local audiences. The owners organize a nightlong screening devoted to historical Japanese war films. Noriko, a teenager who regularly helps in the theatre, walks toward the stage and astonishes the audience as suddenly, she mystically projects herself into an old musical. Film buff Mario, film-history nerd Hosuke, and aspiring yakuza Shigeru are also warped into the cinema screen in sequences that represent the second Sino-Japanese War, Boshin War and Hiroshima bombing. The four embark on an immersive, surreal and vicious cycle of damnation and salvation in the face of war's savagery.
Nobuhiko Obayashi's swan song Labyrinth of Cinema dives into the senselessness of wars, wrapped in cinematic oddities. His abstracted reconstruction of Japan’s darkest events points out that movies, though a fabrication of reality, epitomize suffering as universal truth.
– Rolando Basmayor
Rei Yoshida
Yoshihiko Hosoda
Hirona Yamazaki
Riko Narumi
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Tokyo International Film Festival, 2019
International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2020
Fantasia International Film Festival, 2020
Nobuhiko Obayashi 大林 宣彦
Nobuhiko Obayashi (9 January 1938 – 10 April 2020) was a Japanese director, screenwriter, and editor of films and television advertisements. He began his filmmaking career as a pioneer of Japanese experimental films before transitioning to directing more mainstream media, and his resulting filmography as a director spanned almost 60 years
12 Nov, 2020 10:00 am
to 19 Nov, 2020 11:59 pm
Unpack the layers of this film with our special guests Rob Buscher of Philly Asian American Film Festival and Daisuke Miyao of University of California San Diego. ASL interpretation will be made available thanks to Toronto Sign Language Interpreter Services. Ticket holders can watch on the CineSend Reel Asian portal.
November 18, 2020 at 6:30PM
Rob Buscher
Board Chair of the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival
Rob Buscher is a film and media specialist, educator, arts administrator, and published author who has worked in non profit arts organizations for over a decade. Buscherʼs expertise is Japanese and Asian American & Pacific Islander Cinema although he has worked as a professional film programmer, critic, and lecturer across a variety of fields. He currently lectures at University of Pennsylvania, and is a contributing writer at Pacific Citizen and Broad Street Review. Buscher also serves as President of the Philadelphia Chapter of civil rights group Japanese American Citizens League and chairs the editorial board of Pacific Citizen, the organization’s national newspaper.
Daisuke Miyao
Professor in Department of Literature, University of California at San Diego
Considering cinema to be a transnational cultural form from the beginning of its history and simultaneously to be a national entity, formed by specific discourses on nationalism and modernization, Daisuke Miyao has been conducting research on film history. His interdisciplinary training in cinema studies, East Asian studies, and American studies, combined with his bicultural background, living and studying both in Japanese and North American academia, made it possible for him to recognize that the study of film could benefit from cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives.
Join the CBC as they discuss new opportunities and methods for pitching digital content. This event is part of the Reel Ideas Symposium.
This panel brings together programmers from festivals and ARCs to discuss the radical possibilities and limitations of arts programming and its relationship and responsibility to socio-political events. This event is part of the Reel Ideas Symposium.
Abundant with hope, desire, and resiliency, all six of these films make a statement to queer histories, presents, and futures—in front of and behind the screen. Includes National Film Board of Canada Best Canadian Short Film Award, Reel Asian 2020 winner SAFE AMONG STARS and winner of Change Connect Award, Reel Asian 2020 GOD'S DAUGHTER DANCES.
Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, U.K., USA66 minEnglish and various languages with English SubtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Experimental, Family, Reel Asian Award Winner, Women Filmmakers
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.
Canada, Germany20207 minMongolian with English subtitlesAnimation, Documentary, Family, Open Captions, Women Filmmakers
Rated G
Steadily narrated by the director’s grandmother, The Fourfold imbues an indigenous worldview and wisdom based on the ancient shamanic rituals and animistic beliefs in Mongolia and Siberia.
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Rhode Island International Film Festival, 2020
Ottawa International Animation Festival, 2020
Vancouver International Film Festival, 2020
Alisi Telengut
Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian descent. She creates animation frame by frame under the camera, with painting as the medium, to generate movement and explore hand-made and painterly visuals.
India, Singapore2019 9 minEnglish and Punjabi with English subtitlesWorld PremiereDocumentary, Family, Open Captions
Rated PG
At 62, Samriti visits her late father’s home in Amritsar, India - a place that only existed in retellings of the past - for the very first time.
GurJeevaan Singh BalRose
GurJeevaan Singh BalRose enjoys storytelling because it’s a powerful tool to bring people together and evoke emotions. He hopes to make more films about Sikh history and culture in Singapore and India.
USA2019 5 min English and Vietnamese with English SubtitlesInternational Premiere Documentary, Experimental, Family, Open Captions
Rated PG
“Where do you want to start?” The relationship between mother and son, uttered and silent, what’s known and forgotten, archival footage and public spaces are strewn into this affecting elliptical portrait of Orange County’s Little Saigon touching upon the history of war, displacement, and colonialism.
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, 2019
Chris Nguyen
Chris Nguyen is a documentarian & community builder based in Los Angeles. He is currently a production coordinator on Equal, and volunteers with A-Doc, the Asian American Documentary Network.
South Korea, USA202015 minEnglish and Korean with English subtitlesToronto Premiere Documentary, Family, Open Captions, Women Filmmakers
Rated PG
What does it take to open conversation and unpack your family’s past? Playful and unabashed, director Yeon Park sets off to do so by purchasing a time machine off eBay.
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
Visions du Réel, 2020
DOXA Documentary Film Festival, 2020
San Diego Asian Film Festival, 2020
AWARD
Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020
Yeon Park
Yeon Park is a filmmaker from Seoul, Korea, who continued her studies at Stanford. Her ultimate goal as a filmmaker is to make documentaries that encourage empathy through capturing people’s emotions.
Canada20207 minEnglishDocumentary, Experimental, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Reel Asian Award Winner
Rated PG
I Dream of Vancouver interrogates alienation from the lived experience of spaces as they are subsumed by algorithms and mediated images, linking corporate technologies and gentrification with the erasure of populations that don’t fit Google’s agenda.
AWARDS
Winner of Air Canada Short Film or Video Award, Reel Asian 2020.
Warren Chan
Warren Chan is an MA student at York University, where he researches usage of A.I. generated images in experimental cinema. Outside of his studies, he also interrogates the role of new media technologies in film and video.
USA2019 8 minEnglishInternational Premiere Documentary, Family-friendly
Rated G
Learning from and caring for the land she farms on, Catherine Nguyen owns two-thirds of an acre by herself growing and selling annual vegetables while challenging the industrialization of food in Portland, Oregon.
OFFICIAL SCREENINGS
Oregon Documentary Film Festival, 2020
DC Asian Pacific American Film, 2020
Anthony Newen
Anthony Newen started making films when he got bored of doing magic tricks and needed a new hobby. He now makes films telling stories that deal with themes of love, loneliness, place, identity, and sometimes a bit of comedy to keep things lighthearted.
Japan, U.K.2019 15 minEnglish and Japanese with English SubtitlesCanadian PremiereDocumentary, Open Captions, Women Filmmakers
Rated G
A breathtaking and touching documentary alerting the urgency to care for our habitats and preserve the incredible knowledge of the Ama, a tradition of women divers spanning over thousands of years in Japan, weaving the director’s personal connection to it all.
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, 2020
The People’s Film Festival, 2020
Under Wire Festival, 2019
Georgie Yukiko Donovan
Georgie Yukiko Donovan is a Japanese-English documentary filmmaker with a multidisciplinary approach inspired by a diverse background in theatre, television and film.
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 17, 2020 at 11:30AM
Japan, U.K.2019 15 minEnglish and Japanese with English SubtitlesCanadian PremiereDocumentary, Open Captions, Women Filmmakers
Rated G
A breathtaking and touching documentary alerting the urgency to care for our habitats and preserve the incredible knowledge of the Ama, a tradition of women divers spanning over thousands of years in Japan, weaving the director’s personal connection to it all.
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, 2020
The People’s Film Festival, 2020
Under Wire Festival, 2019
Georgie Yukiko Donovan
Georgie Yukiko Donovan is a Japanese-English documentary filmmaker with a multidisciplinary approach inspired by a diverse background in theatre, television and film.
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
