This film is part of the Shorts Presentation
WEE ASIAN
This film also screens as part of the Unquenchable Shorts Presentation
Canada20258 minEnglish2slgbtq+, Animation, Available Online, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Experimental, Horror, Queer, Romance
After Bug’s ex-girlfriend June calls to pick up her stuff from their apartment, he makes his best attempt to win her back.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
ONLINE: This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
*Silverfish Pictures
Silverfish Pictures, a 13-member stop-motion studio, thrives on pushing the boundaries of stop-motion filmmaking and creating fun and thoughtful stories.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation
This film also screens as part of the Unquenchable Shorts Presentation
15 Nov, 2025 10:00 am
Innis Town HallPG
Canada202586 minNo dialogueAnimation
Ever since astronaut-in-training Celeste was a child, Robot has served as a surrogate parent while her mother explored the galaxy. When Celeste starts a months-long mission after graduation, the pair must explore the unknowns of life without each other.
On her mission, Celeste stumbles upon a clue to her mother’s disappearance. Back on Earth, without Celeste to take care of, Robot’s mission goes from straightforward to existential. Separately but together, the two explore their purpose — inside and beyond the stars.
World-renowned scratch DJ and artist Kid Koala adapts his graphic novel of the same name into a dream cinema project. Working with a long list of collaborators from his extensive career (including songs by Karen O and Digable Planets’ Ladybug Mecca), Kid Koala evokes classic movies of the silent film era by using no dialogue and only beautiful images and sound driven by his original scratch soundtrack.
An independent, animated film adventure 14 years in the making, Space Cadet is a true accomplishment of gritty determination and soaring creativity. It is a beautiful testament to dreaming of possibilities while grounded with love.
– Aram Siu Wai Collier
Kid Koala
Kid Koala (Eric San) is a Montreal-based DJ, composer, and visual artist. Creator of five solo albums and the graphic novels Nufonia Must Fall and Space Cadet, he has collaborated with Gorillaz and Radiohead. His first animated feature, Space Cadet, premiered at the Berlinale and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
8 Nov, 2025 10:00 am
TIFF Lightbox C3GA
CONTENT ADVISORY
trypophobia
This film has no dialogue (no audio + visual descriptions).
Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the screening with director Kid Koala and head of animation Lillian Chan, moderated by Reel Asian associate director Kelly Lui.
Filmmaker Ian Tuason’s debut feature The Undertone, recently acquired by A24, transforms the intimacy of caregiving and the eerie power of audio into a chilling, single-location horror story.
Kana, a struggling visual artist, returns to Japan after years away in Vancouver to attend her beloved grandmother’s funeral. The familiar cadence of family dynamics endure and yet, everything feels different. While in Tokyo, Kana discovers her grandfather had a love of his life outside of his arranged marriage to her grandmother. Meanwhile, Kana reluctantly confronts her own messy romantic past with old flame Hiro to see if the embers of their love still flicker.
Akam’s comfortable routine as a literature teacher in Oslo is disrupted by an uncle he’s never met, Khdr, who overstays his welcome on an unannounced visit from Iranian Kurdistan.
Explore the XR worldbuilding practices of media artists working at the confluence of body, space, and technology. Learn how their respective modes of knowing and making drive them to create XR worlds and performance experiences that rethink the self, rationality, technology, the dichotomies of the actual/virtual, and what constitutes reality in the digital age. Together, we will speculate on a vision for XR world-making that celebrates unique worldviews, practices, and traditions.
Sana Akram
PhD Candidate, Cinema and Media Studies, York University
Sana Akram is a Pakistani XR creator, media artist and an urbanist, currently pursuing a doctorate in Cinema and Media Studies at York University as a recipient of the prestigious Elia Scholars Program Award. Her research-creation explores the themes of wonder, relationality, and enchantment in storytelling, performance, and worlding. Her broader research interests include immersive storytelling and performance, oral tradition, worldbuilding, emergent media, cocreation, and civic engagement.
Tara Rose Morris
New Media Artist
Tara Rose Morris is a new media artist with a practice that spans live performance, immersive installation, and digital artifacts. They investigate the thresholds between spectacle and embodiment, using technology as a site for speculative imaginaries where bodies, memory, and identity converge, flicker, and dissolve.
Shirin Fahimi
Digital Media Artist
Shirin Fahimi is a first-generation Canadian-Iranian digital media artist based in Toronto. Through digital world-building, she explores the role of occult sciences and mysticism in empowering female presence across political, spiritual, and digital domains. Her work is deeply informed by mystical literature and magical practices from Islamic culture, as reflected in Iranian society and diasporic communities. She has exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), TIFF Bell Lightbox (Toronto), and the CAFKA Biennial (Kitchener). Her practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Banff Centre.
Ali Phi
Transmedia Artist
Ali Phi is a transmedia artist based in Toronto. His works are at the intersection of art, science, and technology, Through installations, autonomous machines, and performances, he explores the underlying mechanisms of new media, technology, interactions and data.
14 Nov, 2025 3:30 pm
to 5:00 pm
Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space401 Richmond St W
4th Floor (Suite 440A)
The building is wheelchair and step-free accessible via a ramp & button operated door. The event space, including the accessible washrooms, are on the 4th floor, accessible via an elevator.
If you require accessibility accommodation for this event, please click the link below.
Render Me in Your Worlds is a multi-day symposium that highlights the Sari-Sari Xchange and Reel Asian's shared mission of amplifying Asian representation in the creative emerging media industries.
This immersive workshop will introduce the practice of traditional tai chi. Participants will experience its calm, flowing movements under the guidance of Mr. Zuo, a sixth-generation successor of traditional Yang-style tai chi.
Celebrate the launch of the Sari-Sari Xchange Assetory, a storytelling-led virtual asset library prototype created with and for the Asian diaspora, and play with mobile resource units designed to facilitate the making and exhibition of XR creative works.
This immersive workshop will introduce the practice of traditional tai chi. Participants will experience its calm, flowing movements under the guidance of Mr. Zuo, a sixth-generation successor of traditional Yang-style tai chi. Participants will then explore Rokoko Vision, an accessible motion capture tool, recording and translating their movements into digital form. By merging ancient Chinese embodied philosophy with cutting-edge technology, participants are invited to move between the physical and virtual realms, transforming meditative practice into dynamic, interactive data.
The tai chi movements being offered by Mr Zuo are not specifically designed for people in wheelchairs; however, inclusive participation will be encouraged to the extent possible, such as through guided breathing or upper-body movements inspired by the practice. The tai chi practice component includes English verbal instruction, but has not yet been tested for how participants with low vision can best engage with these activities.
The scanning activities will use Rokoko Vision software on laptops and smartphone cameras for motion capture. All necessary equipment (iPhones and laptops) will be provided. Participants with low vision may also use their own smartphones as webcams, and lab staff will assist them with connecting their devices to the laptop for motion capture.
Haoran Chang
PhD Candidate in Cinema and Media Studies, York University
Haoran Chang is a visual artist, media art researcher, and experimental game designer. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at York University in Cinema and Media Studies. His practice and research focus on game studies, immersive media, posthuman media, ethnographic game design, somatic design, reenactment studies, and art in cosmotechnics.
Gangping Zuo
Sixth-Generation Successor of Traditional Yang-Style Tai Chi
Gangping Zuo is a sixth-generation inheritor of Yang-Style Taijiquan, a sixth-duan Chinese martial artist, and a first-class national martial arts coach. He is also the founding president of the Jiangyin Yongnian Yang-Style Taijiquan Association. He apprenticed under Master Zhao Youbin, a ninth-duan Chinese martial arts grandmaster and a fifth-generation family inheritor of Yang-Style Taijiquan.
13 Nov, 2025 2:00 pm
to 4:00 pm
Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space401 Richmond St W
4th Floor (Suite 440A)
Fill out this form to reserve priority for the workshop. Walk-ins also welcome however spots will not be guaranteed.
The building is wheelchair and step-free accessible via a ramp & button operated door. The event space, including the accessible washrooms, are on the 4th floor, accessible via an elevator.
If you require accessibility accommodation for this event, please click the link below.
Celebrate the launch of the Sari-Sari Xchange Assetory, a storytelling-led virtual asset library prototype created with and for the Asian diaspora, and play with mobile resource units designed to facilitate the making and exhibition of XR creative works.
From augmented reality projects reactivating rural Chinese areas to virtual reality works shaping collective memory, this roundtable opens a dialogue on how emerging media can tell local stories and convey lived experiences.
Explore the XR worldbuilding practices of media artists working at the confluence of body, space, and technology.
Canada202510 minEnglish, Urdu, Arabic
Expecting another uneventful Jummah, Safa finds herself trapped with her overbearing family and an angry ex.
IN PERSON & ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY
IN PERSON & ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
*Anushay Sheikh
Anushay Sheikh is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Drawing on their experiences, their work is process-based and rooted in anti-oppressive practices, highlighting vulnerability as a form of resistance and empowerment.
9 Nov, 2025 1:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C2PG
Canada20259 minEnglish, Korean, Italian with English subtitlesAction + Adventure, Available Online, Comedy, Science Fiction
A mixed-race student meets the full Asian and full white versions of himself from parallel universes. Together, they must find a way to get back to their own realities.
IN PERSON & ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
ONLINE: This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
Devin Lee
Devin Lee is a Korean Italian actor and filmmaker. A graduate of NYU Tisch School of Arts, he received the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant and was part of Reel Asian’s Unsung Voices program.
9 Nov, 2025 1:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C2PG
India202510 minHindi with English subtitlesAvailable Online
On a rainy afternoon, somewhere between innocence and awareness, three adolescent girls find themselves in the middle of a dance that takes on a life of its own.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
ONLINE: This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
*Rhea Shukla
Rhea Shukla is an award-winning writer and director based between New York and India. Studying at Columbia University, Shukla’s debut short, Ruse, premiered at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
8 Nov, 2025 9:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4PG
USA202412 minEnglishAvailable Online, Comedy, Family-friendly, Romance
Set in 2005, a driven high school student obsessively studies Spanish all year so she can test up a level into her crush’s class.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
ONLINE: This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
Nicholas Luciano
Nicholas Luciano is a comedy director, editor, sometimes writer, and improviser based in L.A.
Joy Regullano is a writer-actor-comedian based in L.A. whose TV writing credits include Monsters at Work (2021), based on Monsters Inc (2001), on Disney+.
Te Seguiré a la Oscuridad is directed by Nicholas Luciano and created by Joy Regullano.
8 Nov, 2025 9:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4GA
USA20253 minNo dialogue2slgbtq+, Animation, Available Online, Non-binary, Queer, Transgender
Two dogs timidly try to seek intimacy.
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
ONLINE: This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
Jin Lim
Jin Lim is a queer, non-binary Korean American animation filmmaker. Their award-winning short films explore the intricacies of gender identity and human interconnections.
8 Nov, 2025 9:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4PG
CONTENT ADVISORY
animated depictions of nudity
Canada202513 minEnglish2slgbtq+, Available Online, Documentary, Experimental, Queer
Merging reality and staging scenes to develop settings of fantasy where subjects play, each person explores the longing for one’s softness and roughness, and what it means to hold both at the same time.
IN PERSON & ONLINE: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
*Emma Zuck
Emma Zuck is a filmmaker and writer exploring the in-betweens. She sees poetry all around her and hopes to nurture community both on set and in theatres.
8 Nov, 2025 9:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4PG
CONTENT ADVISORY
depictions of nudity
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
