For her next standup routine, Filipino Canadian comedian Alia Rasul reconnects with her dad to mine stories about the ridiculous ways he almost died — but it unexpectedly turns into a record-scratch moment.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
On the brink of getting fired from her restaurant by its new owners, Marielle Lau, a visionary chef and master fermenter, develops an incendiary new dish with a bewitching ingredient she’s convinced will save her career.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
This experiential and textural short film invites viewers into the inner workings of a mind, to ponder how we love and unlove ourselves.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
A creepy clown-for-hire tries to stay true to his ghoulishness amidst a world that wants him to change.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
Take a deep breath. As you exhale, imagine that in about three years, anywhere you went on the planet, you found the molecules that are inside of you in this moment.
16 Nov. 5:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
This experimental examination of threshold states moves through deep space time in underwater realms. Mirrored bodies spiral, suspend, and dance through Te Reo Māori and nêhiyawêwin lamentations.
16 Nov. 5:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Late at night, a desperate young man searches for a loud release in a motorbike repair shop.
17 Nov. 1:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
On a seemingly prosaic day, Bita, an Iranian woman with terminal cancer, comes to grips with her changing relationships with her family as life transforms and slips away.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
This Bollywood-inspired hybrid animated music video features Aadarshini, an anxious Indian American girl who feels out of place at an Indian wedding, until she learns to make space for herself in her culture through Parvati, a traditional dancer who catches her eye.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
A road trip traces a transition from grief to acceptance, through valleys, junctions, and detours. DETOURS AHEAD reflects the director's meditation on solitude, and articulates her shifting relationship with place.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
After losing faith, a senior in an instant noodle cult wanders in search of the true taste of MSG.
17 Nov. 1:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
On the evening of the 1987 "Easter Epic" hockey playoff game, a young Cambodian girl grapples with her Canadian identity in a small town in rural Ontario.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
A burnt-out writer uses AI to deliver a script, only to discover the true essence of human creativity.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
After accessing the 119-page custodial file of her great-grandfather in the National Archives of Canada, A.S.M. Kobayashi discovers new details about her Japanese family's history and their lives before internment.
19 Nov. 7:00 pm | Innis Town Hall
Feeling stuck in her limited immigrant status, a young Korean woman eats spicy fire noodles every day for the thrill, instead of taking risks in her own life.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
A young girl's birthday overlaps a memorial service, and she struggles to blow out her candles while avoiding adults who prioritize rituals over birthday celebrations.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
Yaya and Louie, two baby goths, prepare to summon the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, but a series of unexpected obstacles jeopardize the entire spooky spectacle — and maybe even their friendship.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
As Manon sits at her table waiting for her date, an uncontrollable itch overtakes her.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Two young women from a small village discuss the recent mysterious vanishing of Leela. Is there any truth in the rumours about her disappearance?
17 Nov. 4:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Left home alone, 10-year-old Alex watches his older brother, Quinn, play video games. When his efforts for attention are neglected, Alex sparks a fight that takes a serious turn.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
The lives of a Native woman and a troubled young boy intersect over the course of a school day on a reservation in Oklahoma.
16 Nov. 5:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Tessie, a 13-year-old science prodigy, journeys into her grandma's deteriorating mind to save one precious memory they have together.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
Gaze into a wondrous abyss. But what happens when you look at something too hard for too long?
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
Returning to a house that holds nothing, a mother misses her own mother.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Ann Lai, a mature trans woman, navigates the complexities of her fading memory, delving into the intricacies of love and the burgeoning of her evolving gender identity.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Two friends living in Mānoa Valley spend a summer day together before one of them moves to New York City.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Together, Nawal, a young Palestinian woman, and Tanya, an older Indigenous woman, start a guerrilla garden on the lawn of their apartment building and battle middle management to make it to harvest.
16 Nov. 5:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Follow filmmaker Anna Quon as she journeys from her childhood conviction regarding her own specialness, symbolized by her “perfect” teeth, into the throes of mental unwellness.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
A poetic narrative and self-portrait through experimentation in 2D animation, stop-motion and sound, this short film delves into a self-searching and healing journey, exploring the relationship between emotion and space.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
A goldfish's dream of returning into her wild form uproars her long-forgotten memories, while a self-conscious monsoon is about to be uninhibited.
17 Nov. 4:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
When his health starts to decline, a young man spirals into paranoia, and he blames a growing mould problem for his issues.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
With Seoul under a UFO attack, will Soojin be able to find the green-glowing girl she slept with the night before? (Re)Discover the power of love in this alien invasion, student-drama, action-romance blockbuster short.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Grace Lee, an overworked mom in Singapore, collapses at work. She gets admitted into the hospital, where she finds newfound freedom as a patient.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
A woman is playing an online game with her partner when she suddenly receives a call from her mother, who wants to set her up with someone else.
17 Nov. 1:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
The music video for One Thing I Can Afford, by Louie Sanchez, broadly addresses queer and trans friendship in the diaspora, Filipinx masculinities, and everyday enactments of transgenerational care.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
A prismatic exploration recounting the 1950s visit of Parisian elites led by Chris Marker and Claude Lanzmann in the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the communist state that claims the allegiance of the filmmaker’s grandmother during the Korean War.
17 Nov. 4:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
A daughter learns about her mother’s roots in Indonesia through a language lesson, unravelling the mother’s painful longing for home.
17 Nov. 1:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Starring Sandra Oh and Adam Beech, a young woman falls in love with a shoplifter at her family's convenience store, setting off a series of mishaps involving a lost doll, a loaded gun, and a grandmother who only speaks Korean.
16 Nov. 5:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
After decades of separation, two brothers reunite at a rare event where families from both sides of the Korean border come together.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
In 1998 Indonesia, two girls promise to stay friends forever. Twenty-five years later, after experiencing a traumatic event, Emily dreams about Rosa, her childhood friend.
17 Nov. 4:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Budi must convince his ailing father in Indonesia to take his medical treatment while cleaning up his wild party in the Netherlands. All in 20 minutes.
17 Nov. 1:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Family dynamics are complicated. No matter how intimately familiar kin can feel, there's room for surprise to the point where we wonder if we even knew them at all. Which stories and emotions do we hold inside, and which are we ready to share?
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Pulling you in closer, these films traverse the ebbs and flows of infatuation, fascination, longing, desire, and the release of letting go — all this to possibly feel our true selves more intimately.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Six emerging filmmakers embarked on a summer-long filmmaking journey. We’re proud to present their world premiere here, in the 13th edition of Reel Asian’s filmmaking program.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
A burgeoning artist reckons with the struggle to find an audience for his art and his desire to reconnect with his mother in the afterlife.
16 Nov. 2:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
A little girl shoots down from the heavens to spend her birthday with her family.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
Today is Parents' Day at the Sweetwater Boarding School for English Learners. When A, B, C, and D discover that none of their families are coming, they decide to hatch a different plan.
16 Nov. 12:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Photographic sequences painted with golds and greys animate the guilt from a childhood incident of killing an ant while washing hands in the sink, reflecting the realms of cosmos, power, guilt, prayers, and existence.
17 Nov. 4:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Vega, a lonely programmer, falls in love with a beautiful popstar water deer. Constantly dragged back to reality by pigeons, Vega’s longing for warmth is in need of being sated.
15 Nov. 8:00 pm | TIFF Lightbox C4
Pressured into giving away his clothes, an emasculated young man obsessively attempts to reclaim his cherished sweater before it vanishes into the donation abyss.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
For people living with structural dissociation, falling asleep can be a challenge, as multiple contradictory thoughts conspire to keep them awake. Director Michelle Ku draws on her experience with somatic healing to put these thoughts to rest, in a few vivid minutes of hand-painted animation.
23 Nov. 10:00 am | Innis Town Hall
Set in Malaysia's National Service training camp, Jia Hui, a female ethnic-Chinese trainee, is commanded by her teacher to lead her multiracial female comrades in washing stained sanitary pads in the middle of the night.
16 Nov. 7:30 pm | TIFF Lightbox C3
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 pan-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.
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Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
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