India2024108 minAssamese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Drama, Family-friendly

Reuniting with the cast of her highly acclaimed 2017 festival hit, Village Rockstars, Rima Das returns with a standalone sequel centering Dhunu, now a teenager, who lives in a small village in Assam, India, and dreams of becoming a musician. While Dhunu and her friends navigate the vulnerable transition between childhood and adulthood, weighing new responsibilities and priorities, the elders around them face harsher circumstances brought on by predatory land developers and climate change, affecting their livelihoods and sense of community.

The impeccable camerawork of director and cinematographer Das oozes poetic beauty and electric energy at every turn, in this intuitive and lyrical story showcasing the rich and diverse cultural landscape of Assam, where ancient traditions meet contemporary aspirations. Evocative, tender, and deeply human, Village Rockstars 2 solidifies Das as a singular voice in independent Indian cinema, committed to capturing the bittersweetness of life and the understated courage of daily survival with profound authenticity and grace.

– Mariam Zaidi

Canada2025116 minFrench, Mandarin with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Directed By Women, Drama, Lesbian, Reel Asian Award Winner, Romance

Feng Xia, 53, lives a modest but decent life in Montreal: She has a house and is married with two children. But she finds herself growing dissatisfied with her loveless marriage and cloistered life of obligation. After taking a conversational French class, Feng Xia finds the city has opened up to her in new ways, including curious dalliances with dating apps. There, she meets Camille, a Quebecois woman who challenges her spiritually and sexually. Their affair awakens Feng Xia’s long-buried desires during a glowing Montreal summer.

The iconic Joan Chen fearlessly takes on the challenging role of Feng Xia, dexterously shifting between timid matron and sensuous explorer. Director Xiaodan He creates no easy answers, though, determined to show the complexities and conflicts of being a middle-aged Chinese mother in Montreal who yearns to break out. For those like Feng Xia who carry the weight of life’s duties, self-discovery can have collateral damage.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier

Japan, Philippines2024102:00Tagalog, JapaneseNorth American PremiereAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Drama, First Feature

In Japan’s aging society, kodokushi — the lonely death of the elderly — has become disturbingly common. Divorced salaryman Yoji (Lily Franky) is confronted with this reality when he discovers his neighbour’s decomposing body. The shocking experience forces him to face his solitude, deepened by his own mother’s ageing. Seeking escape and connection, he follows a caretaker to Manila, where his choice takes an unexpected turn.

Diamonds in the Sand explores the contrasts between two distinct Asian cultures. While reflecting on the isolation faced by many people in modern society, the film also captures the warmth, vitality, and complexity of family life in the Philippines. Within this vibrant setting, bonds bring both joy and hardship, connection and obligation. This is a bittersweet story of acceptance, the courage and impact of our personal choices, and the search for meaning within oneself and community alike.

– Rolando Basmayor

USA2025106 minEnglishToronto Premiere2slgbtq+, Bisexual, Comedy, Directed By Women, First Feature, Gay, Non-binary, Transgender

She’s been cursed. Literally. And she needs $1,000 for the hex-breaking cure. AP (played by director Annapurna Sriram) embarks on a sex worker’s odyssey through pre-millenium Trashtown, U.S.A., where the grass is brown and the cops are kinky. Desperate for a life reset, AP embarks on a scooter-driven adventure with her always-and-forever-tethered ex-lover Danni. Through strip clubs, celebrity mansions, and fortune tellers around every corner, fans of John Waters and 1990s Gregg Araki films will love Sriram’s world-building and her campy, crude, queer take on the buddy film genre.

Fucktoys is a darkly humorous tale about the uphill battle of carving out a new life for oneself and the risks it takes to do it. Sriram’s directorial debut kicks down the door for a new wave of American sexploitation films, while its anarchist spirit is a call to challenge mainstream American filmic conventions.

– Khanh Tudo

Canada202599 minEnglish, KoreanDirected By Women, Documentary

In There Are No Words, award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee searches for stories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when Lee was just 12 years old. Through an intimate archive, Lee confronts public, private, and imagined histories in the wake of trauma while negotiating her relationship with her aging father, who met her mother while serving in the Korean Counterintelligence Corps under dictator Park Chung Hee in 1960s Korea. Despite being an unreliable narrator, Lee’s father is her last direct tie to her mother.

Lee turns the camera on herself to trace her experiences from Toronto to her birthplace in South Korea's Hwasun County and back, documenting tender efforts to speak her mother into collective memory. There Are No Words is a brave meditation on grief, loss, memory, and longing, reminding us that even when language fails us, there is still so much to say.

– Jasmine Gui

South Korea20259 minKorean with English subtitlesAnimation, Available Online, Directed By Women, Drama

A girl unexpectedly bumps into her childhood best friend and finds herself torn between rekindling their lost connection or letting the moment slip away forever.

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).

Directors Bio

Hanna Kang

Hanna Kang is a graduate of the Korea National University of Arts.

Canada20248 minEnglish, Farsi, DariWorld PremiereAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Drama

When his health starts to decline, a young man spirals into paranoia, and he blames a growing mould problem for his issues.

IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)

ONLINE : This film is scheduled to be presented with subtitles for all spoken dialogue (no sound cues indicated)

Directors Bio

*Sofia Habib

Sofia Habib is an Afghan actor, writer, and arts worker based in Ontario. She performs both on stage and screen and has played the lead role in two films that premiered at Reel Asian Film Festival.

Canada20205 minNo Dialogue2slgbtq+, Aboriginal + Indigenous, Available Online, Directed By Women, Experimental, Music, Romance, Science Fiction

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.

IN PERSON & ONLINE: No dialogue (no audio + visual descriptions)

Directors Bio

Moe Clark, Victoria Hunt, James Brown

Weather Beings is a Two-Spirit/takatâpui collaborative performance between Victoria Hunt (Maori dancer, choreographer) and Moe Clark (Métis sound designer, vocalist) that explores the connections between Mâori whakapapa and Métis wâhkôhtowin (the kinship system).

USA201912 minEnglishAboriginal + Indigenous, Available Online, Directed By Women, Drama

The lives of a Native woman and a troubled young boy intersect over the course of a school day on a reservation in Oklahoma.

 IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)

 ONLINE : This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)

Directors Bio

Erica Tremblay

Erica Tremblay’s films have played at Sundance and SXSW. She was a director and writer on the FX show Reservation Dogs, and her first feature film, Fancy Dance, is now streaming worldwide on Apple TV.

Canada, Germany, Sweden20246 minEnglishAboriginal + Indigenous, Animation, Available Online, Directed By Women, Documentary, Experimental

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.

IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)

This title is available digitally only in Ontario.

Directors Bio

Alisi Telengut, Diego Galafassi

Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian origin, living between Berlin and Tiohti:áke/Montréal. Her work has received multiple awards and has been screened and exhibited internationally.

Diego Galafassi is a director, writer, and producer of documentaries, experimental film, new media, and participatory performance.