Accessibility
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This screening is presented with English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Singapore202262 min English, Mandarin, Malay, Teochew with English subtitlesCanadian Premiere2slgbtq+
At the heart of Baby Queen is a tender and joyful relationship between Singaporean drag queen Opera Tang and her 90-year-old grandmother, who makes many of her performance costumes. The film follows the rhythm of Opera Tang’s day-to-day activities and conversations with chosen family, loved ones, and community, capturing the struggles and joys of being queer through the quiet notation of the personal.
Skillfully woven into the narrative is the context of socially conservative Singapore’s mandatory military conscription and rigid gender binary that Opera Tang beautifully interrupts as she discusses dress measurements with her grandmother while dressed in army shorts and drag-queen heels. Baby Queen’s gentle emotional register offers a sincere reminder that the mundane in queer life is deeply precious because it is so political.
– Jasmine Gui
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Busan International Film Festival,2022
Singapore International Film Festival, 2022
Vision du Reel, 2023
Yuan Bin Lei
Lei Yuan Bin is a director, editor and cinematographer. Lei is known for 03-Flats (2014), which competed in Busan, and I Dream of Singapore (2019), which premiered at the Berlinale. His fifth feature, Baby Queen, premiered at Busan. He is a founding member of film collective 13 Little Pictures.
PG
15 Nov, 2023 7:00 pm
Innis Town Hall–
This screening is presented with English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Join us for a talk immediately after the screening with Ms. Nookie Galore & Gei Ping Hohl.
Ms. Nookie Galore
Ms. Nookie Galore is a Horror Storytelling Drag Queen-ish and the Co-Director of the Queer Asian Love Party, New Ho Queen. Ms. Galore has been published in the book “Diasporic Intimacies: Queer Filipinos and Canadian Imaginiaries,” performed at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, Gardiner Musuem, and Varley Art Museum, and has been featured in CBC Arts. As the Creator of drag plays like “SARAP: A Drag Horror Cooking Show,” and “Scary Stories People of Colour Tell in the Dark,” Ms. Galore’s DRAG reminds us that dreaming is part of our survival, and that nightmares are dreams, too. Get more Nookie in the PBS Docuseries “Brave Spaces” out now!
IG: @santotricks
Gei Ping Hohl
Gei Ping Hohl is Toronto’s multifaceted Vietnamese-Canadian drag performer and cinematographer, Gei Ping Hohl loves to incorporate her Asian culture into her drag to represent the community and to uplift API voices who are marginalized. Whether gei is serving it to you on stage through choreo or serving visual storytelling on screen, Gei Ping Hohl can do it all! Gei also loves Dim Sum and Korean fried chicken, because food always brings communities together!
When Azra, a queer Muslim grad student, hears of her father’s sudden death, she flies back to her ancestral home in Karachi, Pakistan for the funeral, where she is received by her conservative mother, Mariam, perpetually disappointed by Azra’s choices. As a self-assured Azra wrestles with Karachi’s customs and norms, we time travel back to Mariam’s own life in the city 30 years ago, a remarkably different era in Pakistan’s political and cultural history.
Mariam, a medical student, is dealing with her grandfather’s passing, her grieving mother, and preparing for upcoming exams. When an estranged and suspiciously helpful uncle re-enters their lives and promises support with their property and finances, Mariam senses trouble.
Starring Jerry as Himself shakes up notions of traditional storytelling in a genre-bending mystery that centres on Jerry Hsu. Jerry is a loving father of three, a recent divorcé, and has been keeping a secret.
Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, USA2022-2023TRT: 1h43English, Hindi, Māori, Farsi, Indonesian, Korean2slgbtq+, Animation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Documentary, Drama, Experimental, Family-friendly, Immigrant stories, Mystery
More to the situation than what it seems, these shorts choose to examine, tease, and redefine the forces that pull us to make a decision.
*Directors in attendance starred.
USA202313 minEnglishDirected By Women, Drama
Maggie, a young Asian American sound artist, grapples with her imposter syndrome as it takes on new extremes at her first artist's residency.
*Annie Ning
Annie Ning is a filmmaker from Suzhou, China, currently based in NYC, where she is pursuing her MFA in screenwriting/directing at Columbia University.
Canada20229 minEnglishComedy, Documentary, Experimental
Pixels of the Orient appropriates Western media depictions of East Asia for a psychedelic and comedic exploration of ahistorical East Asian aesthetics and identity.
*Warren Chan
Warren Chan is a video artist and curator with a focus on experimental works that analyze digital and new media technologies.
New Zealand202313 minEnglish, Hindi, Māori with English subtitlesDrama, Family-friendly, Immigrant stories
When Anu, a recent widow, moves to New Zealand from India, she's forced to confront her grief by completing an ordinary ritual in an extraordinary circumstance: quarantine.
Pulkit Arora
Pulkit Arora is a writer-director based in India and New Zealand. His directorial work focuses on identity, faith and belonging.
Canada202314 minEnglish, Farsi with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama
An Iranian Canadian girl reluctantly makes a new friend when the new student from Iran offers to help fix her ruined unibrow — for her, a symbol of the Iranian heritage she tries desperately to hide from the world.
*Nedda Sarshar
Nedda Sarshar is an emerging filmmaker and writer who loves to tell stories that centre queer women of colour and their immigrant families. Sarshar won Reel Asian’s Pitch Competition in 2021 with this work.
Singapore202211 minEnglish Animation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Experimental
In the strange, polarized world of Hands and Butts, a single act of violence toward an oppressed Butt sets the mediaverse ablaze.
Calleen Koh
Calleen Koh finds joy in turning serious societal issues into wacky stories using her crazy sexy characters, like anthropomorphic sushis, phallic Crayola-coloured children or walking butts in her manic animated films.
Indonesia202318 minIndonesian with English subtitlesDrama
Working as a fisherman to support his small family, Ucup is used to consuming his catch from the sea until one day something strange happens that makes him realize something about his daily meal.
Muhammad Heri Fadli
Muhammad Heri Fadli is from Central Lombok, Indonesia, and just finished his master’s degree at the University Technology Mara in visual communication and new media.
South Korea202224 minKorean with English subtitlesDirected By Women, Mystery
Kyu-ho, an ordinary office worker, receives an interview request from a famous writer and agrees to talk to her.
*ROH Do-hyeon
Do-hyeon Roh has held various jobs in the field, such as a lighting technician for a commercial film and a web novelist after signing a contract with a publisher.
PG
Content Warning: Depictions of dead marine life
11 Nov, 2023 7:30 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox C4–
This programme is presented with a mix of open captions and English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
The Sari-Sari Xchange is a project that seeks to amplify Asian representation in the creative emerging media industries in Canada, particularly through a community-building residency program that engages artists with digital and extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, 360 cinema, game-engine animation, and 3D scanning.
Explore this app for mobile devices that shares the journey of a child refugee, activated by the steps you take.
Hmm … this doesn’t seem right?! This programme asks us to sit with the discomforting feelings that arise when we begin to confront the unknown in what we believe to know.
Canada, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, UK, USA2022-2023TRT: 1h30Tagalog, English, Korean2slgbtq+, Animation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Experimental, Romance, Science Fiction
Hmm … this doesn’t seem right?! This programme asks us to sit with the discomforting feelings that arise when we begin to confront the unknown in what we believe to know.
*Directors in attendance starred.
Philippines, Singapore202315 minTagalog with English subtitlesComedy, Drama
The audition process for an exploitative game show becomes the latest test of a long-suffering mother’s fortitude and tenacity.
Sonny Calvento
Sonny Calvento is a director, writer, and producer based in Manila. At the age of 19, he worked as a drama writer for ABS-CBN, the largest broadcasting network in the Philippines.
UK20223 minEnglishAnimation, Experimental, Science Fiction
A mad clock takes the viewer on a time trip to a random planet where the concept of time is experienced differently from the one we know...
*Shunny Kim & Taewan Kim
Shunny Kim and Taewan Kim are animators based in London. Co-directing their BA graduation film, their interests aligned through experimental animation, character design and collaboration.
Canada202315 minEnglish and Tagalog with English subtitlesDirected By Women, Drama
In this complex family thriller, Gian has been plotting revenge since the day Janine, his mother, was sent away.
Nushi Sharma
Nushi Sharma is a Filipino Indian undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia.
Canada202310 minEnglish2slgbtq+, Music
Filmmakers Njo Kong Kie and John Greyson (using their highlighter compositional method) have created an original short opera about the last day on Earth for Li Shiu Tong, the lover of Berlin sexologist and legendary gay-rights pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld.
Njo Kong Kie & *John Greyson
Njo Kong Kie is an award-winning Toronto composer who has been a long-serving music director of La La La Human Steps in Montreal.
John Greyson is a Toronto filmmaker who is a pioneer of the new queer cinema. His films have won four Berlin Teddies, five Canadian Screen Awards, and over 50 Best Film prizes at festivals internationally.
Malaysia202312 minEnglishExperimental, Fantasy
Two crocodilian men go to a swimming pool to cool off. One of them is seemingly of a different and special kind; the other is unable to control his desire.
Mark Chua & Lam Li Shuen
Mark Chua and Li Shuen Lam are a filmmaker and artist duo. Their films often employ absurdist imagery, thinking on place, histories and the peculiarity of human desire.
Singapore, USA20238 minNo dialogue2slgbtq+, Animation, Experimental, Romance
One night, a person brushes the teeth of a dog and turns into a bus.
This film has no dialogue and is presented without captions.
Elizabeth Xu Yuan Li (EXYL)
EXYL is a filmmaker and animator born and raised in Singapore. They were trained in painting and drawing, but moved slowly but surely into time-based mediums like live action and animation.
South Korea202227 minKorean with English subtitlesDirected By Women, Drama, Horror, Science Fiction
Sujin, who was recently fired and is planning to go to Canada on a working holiday, lives with her family after her parents’ return.
Eun-uk Jeong
Eun-uk Jeong is studying film at Myongji University.
12 Nov, 2023 5:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox C4PG
Content Warning: Flashing lights; depictions of suggested violence
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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.
You rarely couple poop and romance together, but Okiku and the World does it effortlessly in the most genuine and adorable way.
Mariam, a medical student, is dealing with her grandfather’s passing, her grieving mother, and preparing for upcoming exams. When an estranged and suspiciously helpful uncle re-enters their lives and promises support with their property and finances, Mariam senses trouble.
Chloe Abrahams’ debut feature, is an enveloping, hypnotic, urgently personal meditation on family, memory, identity, violence, and love.
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.
This film is part of the Muscle Memory shorts programme.
Asian Canadian comics will discuss the ways they’ve broken down barriers to tell their jokes to a wide audience on stage, in sketches, and on film and TV. Together, they’ll discuss their individual approaches to the craft, how they navigate stereotypes, personal experiences in their work, and how comedy has allowed them to challenge, explore, and find comfort in their identities.
In this reflective documentary, director Quen Wong turns the lens toward the intimate and vulnerable in her own life as a trans woman in Singapore.
Romeo Candido’s latest musical foray Topline takes us into the world of topliners: the people who write the lyrics, melodies, and hooks for the industry’s biggest stars.
Canada, India, Singapore, USA2022English and other languages with English subtitlesAnimation, Drama, Experimental, Family, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Non-binary Filmmakers, Women Filmmakers
From dusk ‘til dawn, the night takes centre stage as a mood, setting, tone, and place for our characters’ lives and their environments to be illuminated on screen.
India202213 minutesBengali with English subtitles
Satakshi and Madhyama reunite at a celebration during Durga Puja. Over the course of the night through rides, snacks, and glances, we feel their relationship charged with an energy that lasts years.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open English subtitles in-person and digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Tanmay Chowdhury and Tanvi Chowdhury
Tanmay Chowdhury is a cinematographer, editor, photographer, and filmmaker. His photography has been published in various magazines and publications worldwide, including Rolling Stone and Vogue.
Tanvi Chowdhury is a writer and filmmaker who seeks to explore and tell stories about human dynamics, identity, and gender.
Canada202214 minutesEnglish and Vietnamese with English subtitles
Titled after the term “nanitic,” referring to first-generation worker ants who care for their offspring as well as the Queen Ant, we witness the structure of a multigenerational family through the eyes of Trang and Mai.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Content warning: Death and dying
Carol Nguyen
Carol Nguyen is a Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker based in Montreal who is working toward her first documentary feature as well as an animated short.
Singapore, USA20224 minutesEnglishAnimation, Women Filmmakers
Why should I make dinner if we are both in love? A story of gendered roles and the ethics of care.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film has no dialogue and is not captioned.
RATING
RATED PG
Content warning: Gender violence, queer violence, nudity
Elizabeth Xu
Born and raised in Singapore, Elizabeth Xu attends the Rhode Island School of Design for animation. They are excited by the potential of analogue mediums and tangible surfaces, and in their free time, they make books and think about conversation as a beautiful medium.
USA202215 minutesEnglish and Mandarin with English subtitles
One night for Lu, a New York City delivery driver.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Lloyd Lee Choi
Lloyd Lee Choi is a Korean Canadian writer and director living in Brooklyn who was named 30 Under 30 by Marketing Magazine. Choi is compelled to tell stories that reflect the real world around us.
USA202222 minutesEnglish and Mandarin with English subtitles
In an isolated desert motel, Mengmeng digs up a rotting carcass. Later that night, something long buried is unearthed in her mother.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Content warning: Death
Yvonne Zhang
Yvonne Zhang is a British Chinese director and writer who uses folklore, dream logic, and digital media to explore immigration, memory, and loss.
13 Nov, 2022 5:30 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 Blythe Shulan Hunter.
Blythe Shulan Hunter
Blythe is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and member of Reel Asian’s Programming Committee. She holds an MA in Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto, where she focused on race and aesthetics of ‘yellowness’ in East Asian music videos. Her core interests include contemporary Chinese cinema and learning K-pop dances.
This panel brings together Asian Canadian media producers to discuss the current Canadian film and TV landscape. They’ll discuss their path and expertise in producing stories across a variety of genres and formats. What are the stories they’re focused on producing? What is the role of producers in this current landscape, and what is being done to increase the number of projects produced by Asian creatives?
Following her previous basketball documentary Finding Big Country (2018), Kat Jayme embarks on an equally quixotic journey to find out why the Grizzlies abandoned Vancouver.
This year, Reel Asian spotlights S-Express Indonesia programmed by Fransiska Prihadi of Minikino, featuring five short films with the hopes of recharging your festival experience.
Singapore202171 minutesEnglish, Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien with English subtitles North American PremiereDocumentary, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Women Filmmakers
In this reflective documentary, director Quen Wong turns the lens toward the intimate and vulnerable in her own life as a trans woman in Singapore, making time and space to honour acts of looking and being seen, moments of being fearful and working to communicate, and reflecting on past decisions in order to make new ones. Though gentle and quiet, these gestures are powerfully earnest, and refreshingly honest.
Against the context of a conservative nation-state, Some Women also uses dialogue and gathering to address a fuller spectrum of queer life on the island, threading Wong own story with recollections and perspectives from other generations of trans women, through the accompaniment of Sanisa and Lune Loh. These moments in the film archive and celebrate trans and queer folks’ evolving strategies for survival, protest, celebration, and continuance. Through Some Women, Wong practices vulnerability so as to request it from others, and celebrates herself so she can celebrate others. The lens is up close and personal, enmeshed fully in the act of bearing witness.
- Jasmine Gui
Lune Loh
Sanisa
Quen Wong
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Singapore International Film Festival, 2021
Sheffield DocFest, 2022
AWARDS
Audience Award – Singapore International Film Festival, 2021
Quen Wong
Quen Wong is Singapore’s first openly trans woman filmmaker, and Some Women is her first feature film. It was a recipient of the Tan Ean Kiam Foundation – SGIFF Southeast Asian Documentary Grant in 2019 and the IDFA Project Award at Docs by the Sea in 2020. It also won the coveted Audience award at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2021.
12 Nov, 2022 2:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox 3The screening for Some Women will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 3.
This feature film will also be shown as an online screening from Nov 14 – Nov 20.
RATED PG
This film is presented with open captions in-person and digitally.
Brothers Saud and Nadeem live in a working-class, predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in New Delhi, where they have made it their lives’ work to care for injured black kites falling from the polluted skies of the city.
When a man from the “extinct” Sinixt people in what’s called British Columbia’s Slocan Valley challenges his deportation to the United States, the question arises: How can his people be extinct when he is very much alive? This feature film will also be shown as an online screening.
In 1993, UFOs suddenly appeared over key cities around the world. The huge structures remained in the sky, stationary, silent, and unknown. Twenty-nine years later, with neither the origins nor the intentions of their arrival deciphered, humanity succumbs to speculations that aliens are walking among us. This feature film will also be shown as an online screening.
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.
Asian Canadian comics will discuss the ways they’ve broken down barriers to tell their jokes to a wide audience on stage, in sketches, and on film and TV. Together, they’ll discuss their individual approaches to the craft, how they navigate stereotypes, personal experiences in their work, and how comedy has allowed them to challenge, explore, and find comfort in their identities.
In this oddly sweet and gentle story, Hong, a shy young man, opens his eyes to love when he coincidentally meets Lele, the mistress of a sex worker business.
Missed chances, unspoken conversations, fated meetings, connections sparked in the most unexpected places: these shorts delve into the weight of all our relations in their fullness and in their absence.
Singapore, USA20224 minutesEnglishAnimation, Women Filmmakers
Why should I make dinner if we are both in love? A story of gendered roles and the ethics of care.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film has no dialogue and is not captioned.
RATING
RATED PG
Content warning: Gender violence, queer violence, nudity
Elizabeth Xu
Born and raised in Singapore, Elizabeth Xu attends the Rhode Island School of Design for animation. They are excited by the potential of analogue mediums and tangible surfaces, and in their free time, they make books and think about conversation as a beautiful medium.
This film is part of the Night Shifts shorts programme.
Singapore20203 min JapaneseAnimation, Women Filmmakers
Sentient and existential, Sushi begins to wonder if there’s more to life than serving himself out to consumers.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Calleen Koh Yee Lin
Calleen Koh Yee Lin is currently in her final year of animation art at LASALLE College of the Arts. In her free time, she enjoys sipping tea, listening to old Chinese folk songs, and petting her three cats: Yuki, Mako, and Momo.
Canada, China, Malaysia, Singapore, USA202174 minEnglish, Mandarin with English subtitles, JapaneseAnimation, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Music, Women Filmmakers
Delectably genre-bending, this programme serves up a seven-course meal that will surely leave you questioning whether you were even hungry to begin with.
Canada202111 min English World PremiereHorror, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Women Filmmakers
Subverting the body-horror genre, Fresh Blood follows 14-year-old Maya, who is left to process her own fears of entering womanhood alone when she gets her first period.
This presentation has closed captions.
Hayley Wong, Julianna Notten
Hayley Wong is an award-winning cinematographer passionate about collaborating with storytellers to shoot underrepresented subjects in mainstream media.
Julianna Notten is a Toronto-based, award-winning, queer filmmaker and co-founder of Switch Hitter Films.
China202014 min Mandarin with English subtitlesDrama, Fantasy
How much would you put into a relationship? Bubble brings us along on a couple's date that takes a strange plunge into vegetarian cuisine.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Haonan Wang
Haonan Wang graduated with a MFA degree in film production from Art Center College of Design. His past works have won awards at several international film festivals, including SXSW, Warsaw Film Festival, and Sitges Film Festival.
Canada20214 min English World PremiereFamily-friendly, Music, Romance, Women Filmmakers
Sweet Memories is an ode to nostalgic memories of childhood crushes, featuring the 1977 Hawaiian track “Lihue” by Nohelani Cypriano.
This presentation has closed captions.
Jessica JM Wu
Jessica JM Wu is a director and producer based in Toronto. She wrote, directed, and produced her first short film, White Dragon, in 2019. Wu is currently represented for commercial work at Undivided Creative
Singapore20203 min JapaneseAnimation, Women Filmmakers
Sentient and existential, Sushi begins to wonder if there’s more to life than serving himself out to consumers.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Calleen Koh Yee Lin
Calleen Koh Yee Lin is currently in her final year of animation art at LASALLE College of the Arts. In her free time, she enjoys sipping tea, listening to old Chinese folk songs, and petting her three cats: Yuki, Mako, and Momo.
Malaysia201914 min Chinese with English subtitlesNorth American PremiereFantasy, Horror, Women Filmmakers
A fresh take on the Malaysian female monster Penanggalan, Chin is an overworked nurse at the maternity ward who finds joy when she is alone and can finally eat.
This presentation has English subtitles.
Amanda Nell Eu
A graduate of the MA in filmmaking at the London Film School, Amanda Nell Eu has directed short films based in the U.K. and Malaysia. She is developing her first feature film, Tiger Stripes.
USA202114 min English World PremiereComedy, Fantasy, Romance, Women Filmmakers
Mi-Wen, an elderly widow, combs the beach in search of treasure and discovers a gold tooth that magically changes her lonely life.
This presentation has closed captions.
Azumi Hasegawa
Azumi Hasegawa is a New York-based writer, originally from Tokyo. Her articles appear in the Japanese editions of Vogue, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar.
China202114 min Mandarin with English subtitlesNorth American PremiereDrama, Fantasy
A film you won’t forget, One Night Elsewhere takes place in a sleepy rural village, offering a surrealistic countryside night journey with a monk, a villager, and a piece of meat.
This presentation has no captions and no dialogue.
Zhichao Zhu
Zhichao Zhu is a Chinese filmmaker and visual artist based in Shanghai and Hamburg who has exhibited internationally. Zhu works as a registered university lecturer in Shanghai.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
PG
Community Supporters
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
Damascus Dreams is a reflexive documentary essay presented in a series of sections framed by voiceovers of Serri and her father. The film explores and interrogates the fraught notions of dreams, and memories of “home,” moving loosely through old video footage of the family home in Syria, interviews with Syrians who had to leave or flee because of the civil war, conversations between Serri and her father, and poetic, dreamlike sequences.
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.
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.
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
