The screening for Night Shifts will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
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
The 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.
Taking a wide scope, Canadian documentary filmmaker Karen Cho’s Big Fight in Little Chinatown traverses Chinatowns in New York City, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, and San Francisco, shining a light on the twin legacies of displacement and resistance that characterize these neighbourhoods.
13 Nov. 2:30 pm
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.
13 Nov. 7:30 pm
Keita is the hero and the hope of the remote island Shishikari thanks to his flourishing fig business, which is about to bring in a large government grant and revitalize the community.
10 Nov. 8:30 pm
Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from Asia and the Asian diaspora. Works include films and videos by artists in Canada, the U.S., Asia and all over the world. As Canada’s largest Asian film festival, Reel Asian provides a public forum for Asian media artists and their work, and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
