IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY
This programme is presented with open captions (all dialogue is subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Canada, India, Singapore, UK, USA2025–202691 MIN 15 SVarious languages with English subtitlesAvailable Online, Open Captions
One day, you choose to look beyond the stadium show and find yourself in the cracks of the stage. There, you encounter charm, playfulness, and invention beyond imagination. Do you venture in?
For: zinesters • DIY aficionados • lovers of camp, melodrama, wigs
Canada20256 MIN 56 SEnglish with English Subtitles2slgbtq+, Comedy, Drama, Family-friendly, Open Captions, Romance
A violinist and a violin fall in love. When the violinist is spotted with another instrument, drama ensues.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Gavin Baird*
Gavin Baird is a Métis artist born in Prince Albert, Sask. His projects have screened at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Fantaspoa, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
*In attendance
U.K.202529 MIN 51 SEnglish, Mandarin with English Subtitles2slgbtq+, Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Experimental, Open Captions
A surreal and kitschy drag performance is mixed with prerecorded, lip-sync-style interviews based on the stories of East and Southeast Asian self-publishing underground heroes.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Oyester
Oyester is a Chinese artist and filmmaker exploring feminism, queer culture, self-publishing, and collective identity through moving image, performance, and participatory art.
Canada20252 MINCantonese with English Subtitles2slgbtq+, Drama, Experimental, Open Captions
At a dim sum table where food meets kink, three friends push playfulness and intimacy to its sticky, steamy edges — until a sudden interruption challenges who gets to claim pleasure.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Soya Wu*
Soya Wu is an ecoqueer artist and sex educator whose practice explores the mycelium-like interconnections between human and nonhuman beings, and collective liberation. Tropical Canton-raised, Coast Salish-based.
*In attendance
USA20259 MIN 42 SEnglish with English SubtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Drama, Experimental, Family-friendly, Open Captions
Klora and Minky work together to solve a very, very "important" equation.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Noopur Dayal*
Noopur Dayal is an animator and writer based in Brooklyn. She uses glitter to explore semantics, semantics to model math, and math to fathom the space between cyberbullying and kindness.
*In attendance
Singapore20258 MIN 24 Sn/aAnimation, Docu-fiction, Documentary, Experimental, Open Captions
This film was shot in the Dirt Palace, a feminist-artist-run space project founded in 2000 in an abandoned library building in the commercial corridor of Olneyville in Providence, R.I.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
EXYL*
EXYL is a filmmaker working under the umbrella of experimental animation. They love cheap work and they care about being honest. They currently live and work in Singapore, helping organize underground cinema screenings and spaces.
*In attendance
India202623 MINEnglish, Hindi with English SubtitlesWorld Premiere Comedy, Documentary, Experimental, Family-friendly, Open Captions
In the intimate oasis of a tiny women’s-only beauty parlour, generations of devoted customers, including the filmmaker’s family, reflect on letting their hair go grey.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Revantika Gupta*
Revantika Gupta is a PhD candidate in the cinema studies department at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is currently thinking about Delhi films, women loitering, garbage, and hip-hop.
*In attendance
Canada202611 MIN 22 SEnglish with English SubtitlesAnimation, Documentary, Experimental, Open Captions
Letter to Celestial is a reanimation and reimagination of archival documents found in the search for Asian sex workers in Montreal's Chinatown and historic red light district.
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY: This film is presented with open captions (all dialogue subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Wawa Li*, Sinéad O'Halloran*
Wawa Li and Sinéad O’Halloran are historical researchers, artists, and activists engaged in discovering and honouring the invisibilized histories of sex workers in Montreal through creative and coded storytelling tactics.
*In attendance
13 Nov, 2026 6:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4PG
IN PERSON ACCESSIBILITY
This programme is presented with open captions (all dialogue is subtitled and sound cues indicated).
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the theatrical presentation with attending guests from this shorts programme moderated by Kahn Tudo!
Celebrating 20 years of Reel Asian’s pitch competition, five finalist filmmakers will take the stage to pitch their projects to a live jury and audience.
21 Nov. 7:00 pm
Consider the rhythms of labour: in the home, at the workplace, and on the streets. These films capture the stories of those who power our cities and ask, "How do we better meet each other where we are at?"
12 Nov. 5:30 pm
Yosef, 19, is caught in the friction of a fractured, first-generation identity, longing to anchor himself to his roots while navigating a world that demands he forget them. While his parents encourage a path that promises security over fulfilment, his younger sister, Azra, returns to Egypt and discovers a liberating sense of belonging, giving Yosef new perspective.
14 Nov. 5:15 pm
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, Asian diasporic, and Asian Canadian 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
