The in-cinema screening for Ashima will be at TIFF Lightbox Cinema 3.
This feature film will also be available as a digital screening from Nov 18 – Nov 24.
USA202386 minEnglish, JapaneseAvailable Online, Documentary, Family-friendly, First Feature, Sports
What does greatness look like? What does it take to be great? In the documentary Ashima, greatness looks like Ashima Shiraishi, a modest but determined 13-year old Japanese American rock-climbing prodigy. For her demanding father, Hisatoshi, a former Butoh dancer and Ashima’s coach, greatness requires discipline and intense focus. Together, they’ve embarked to South Africa to climb Golden Shadow, a famous V14 boulder, for Ashima to become the youngest woman to ever climb it.
Director Kenji Tsukamoto’s portrait of the Shiraishis was years in the making and captures significant moments in the family’s life. With uncommon access gained from living with the family, Tsukamoto masterfully blends the minute details of the Shirashis' home lives, Ashima’s numerous public appearances, and her dogged attempts at solving Golden Shadow. Raw and unharnessed, like bouldering itself, Tsukamoto crafts a familiar Asian American family story set against sport and celebrity.
– Aram Siu Wai Collier
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Doc NYC, 2023
Visions Du Reel, 2024
Hawaii International Film Festival, 2024
AWARDS
Best Documentary Feature, VC Film Festival, 2024
Audience Award, Asian Film Festival of Dallas, 2024
Audience Award, Asian American International Film Festival, 2024
Kenji Tsukamoto
Born in Fukushima, Japan, Kenji Tsukamoto moved to America as a child, and his family relocated frequently across the country. As a third-culture kid, Kenji found a kindred spirit in the world-renowned climber Ashima Shiraishi, who became the subject of his first feature film.
17 Nov, 2024 4:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C3GA
The in-cinema screening for Ashima will be at TIFF Lightbox Cinema 3.
This feature film will also be available as a digital screening from Nov 18 – Nov 24.
–
This film is being presented with English subtitles for non-English dialogue both online and in person. 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 Kenji Tsukamoto.
Experience a poetic journey of connection and entanglement inspired by the philosophies of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Set in the famous Tai-An teahouse, SEN takes us from joy and wonder, through carelessness and confusion, to peace and renewal, in a lush, visual homage to the expansive emotional interior
Through the lens of directors Tadashi Nakamura and Quyên Nguyen-Le, this compelling documentary captures the bold journey of visionary artist-activist Nobuko Miyamoto. From her upbringing in a Japanese American internment camp to her breakthrough as a performer in films and on Broadway, Miyamoto reflects on how her personal encounters with racial injustice inspired her blending of artistic endeavours with Asian American advocacy. Her thoughtfully created music, dances, and theatre productions carry on to bridge cultural divides and facilitate mutual support among BIPOC communities.
Amir is an aspiring chef trying to get ahead, but he can’t seem to break out and meet his own expectations or those of his parents, while his favoured younger brother Mahyar can seemingly do no wrong. When news from Iran arrives that a family friend has died and passed his entire inheritance solely to Mahyar, the mystery of the gift’s provenance begins to unravel the family's story, the image of their parents, and the relationship between the two brothers.
Canada20244 minEnglish2slgbtq+, Available Online, Directed By Women, Family-friendly, History
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.
IN PERSON: this film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
ONLINE: his film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
*Casey Mecija
Casey Mecija is an accomplished multidisciplinary artist, primarily working in music and film. She is an assistant professor at York University in the department of communication and media studies.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: LOVE ISLAND shorts programme.
15 Nov, 2024 8:00 pm
TIFF Lightbox C4GA
India20227 minEnglish, Kannada with English subtitlesAboriginal + Indigenous, Animation, Directed By Women, Environment, Family-friendly, First Feature
A little girl stumbles into a sacred grove near her village in south India.
Nandini Rao, Nirupa Rao, Kalp Sanghvi
Nandini Rao was the winner of the 2021 Cannes residency program and is based in Paris.
Nirupa Rao is a botanical artist based in Bangalore whose work is inspired by field visits and close collaboration with natural scientists.
Kalp Sanghvi is an animation filmmaker who graduated from the Indian National Institute of Design and is based in Sydney.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
Starring Jerry as Himself shakes up notions of traditional storytelling in a genre-bending mystery that centres on Jerry Hsu. Jerry is a loving father of three, a recent divorcé, and has been keeping a secret.
The Good Guise is an artist collective in Toronto formed to spark conversations around healthy masculinity.
Japan, USA202212 minFarsi, Japanese with English subtitlesAnimation, Drama, Family-friendly, Mystery
Mehrdad, an Iranian boy, befriends an old Japanese woman in a graveyard in Tokyo.
Liam LoPinto
Liam LoPinto is a filmmaker and animator based out of New York City who is an assistant manager at the Moviehouse in Millerton.
You rarely couple poop and romance together, but Okiku and the World does it effortlessly in the most genuine and adorable way.
Six fearless emerging filmmakers embarked on a summer-long filmmaking journey online. We’re proud to present their world premiere here in the 12th edition of Reel Asian’s filmmaking program.
When 13-year-old Ilyas’s parents yank him out of his comfortable Islamic private school and force him to adjust to life in public school, he develops a plan to change their minds. After a staged fondness for non-halal food and explicit music fails to sufficiently scandalize his parents, Ilyas asks his whip-smart former classmate, Yasmeen, to help devise a more foolproof plan.
South Korea202311 minKorean with English subtitlesAnimation, Drama, Family-friendly, Fantasy
A grieving boy finds his late mother’s hair caught in the shower drainage hole and gets swept into the “Hair Universe,” an unknown world underneath the bathtub.
Jinuk Choi
Jinuk Choi is a Korean filmmaker based in New York.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
The Good Guise is an artist collective in Toronto formed to spark conversations around healthy masculinity.
From the team behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Reel Asian Official Selection, 2021) comes Junta Yamaguchi’s latest time loop comedy, River. Set in a quaint inn along the Kibune river near Kyoto—a one-street village wedged between a riverbed on one side and mountains on the other—staff and guests find themselves stuck in a continuous two-minute time loop.
Explore this app for mobile devices that shares the journey of a child refugee, activated by the steps you take.
Taiwan, USA20235 minEnglishAnimation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Family-friendly, Music
Nonoko the cat and Haro the rabbit dance to share a bittersweet goodbye on their graduation day.
Wanci Hua
Wanci Hua is a Taiwanese animator, currently studying at California Institute of the Arts. She loves telling whimsical and tender stories through the art of animation.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
Visit the PIGEONHOLE, nest and rest from the festival chaos, listen to collaborative pigeon music, watch raw footage, compose your own ditties, and collage a flock of desired futures together with other attendees. Check the festival website or rarara.ca for a full program schedule including artist talks and facilitated collage sessions.
Jude Chehab, a Lebanese American cinematographer and filmmaker, has always known her mother and grandmother to be women devoted to their Muslim faith. During a trip to Lebanon, Chehab is propelled by a curiosity to understand the quest for love, acceptance, and meaning that brought three generations of women in her family to pledge loyalty to a secretive matriarchal religious order operating clandestinely in the country.
New Zealand202313 minEnglish, Hindi, Māori with English subtitlesDrama, Family-friendly, Immigrant stories
When Anu, a recent widow, moves to New Zealand from India, she's forced to confront her grief by completing an ordinary ritual in an extraordinary circumstance: quarantine.
Pulkit Arora
Pulkit Arora is a writer-director based in India and New Zealand. His directorial work focuses on identity, faith and belonging.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: UNDER THE INFLUENCE shorts programme.
In our inaugural First Films event, award-winning Asian Canadian filmmakers show the first films they’ve ever made. They will reveal their origin stories—that time they caught the movie bug; the place their creative voices first started cracking.
Free-spirited 12-year-old Zaffan is the first of her friends to get her period and experience the body-changing horrors that come with puberty and menstruation.
Pakistan, USA202216 minUrdu with English subtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Family-friendly
Iman, a privileged six-year-old Pakistani girl, embarks on a mission to save her beloved pet goat from being eaten on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Mahnoor Euceph
Mahnoor Euceph is a Pakistani American writer and director. She immigrated from Pakistan to Los Angeles at age eight and quickly learned that nobody else cares about cricket.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
You rarely couple poop and romance together, but Okiku and the World does it effortlessly in the most genuine and adorable way.
Some family stories are so epic they demand telling. Some moments in history require the intimate and inside knowledge of community storytellers. The venerated Chinese Canadian filmmaker Keith Lock narrates the story of how his mother married his father in Australia, who was training with other Chinese Canadian veteran volunteers for the top secret suicide mission, Operation Oblivion.
More to the situation than what it seems, these shorts choose to examine, tease, and redefine the forces that pull us to make a decision.
USA20233 minEnglishAnimation, Comedy, Family-friendly, Japan
Daigoro, a baby thunder god, dreams of being as powerful as his father.
Ryotaro Sawada, Agatha Tiara Christa
Growing up, Ryotaro Sawada turned to his daydreams to be entertained, only to find out that there were people called animators who could bring those daydreams to life. He hasn’t looked back since.
Agatha Tiara Christa, also known as Rara, is a 3D animator and layout artist from Indonesia. She believes that these small things create stories and always includes them in her work.
Be warmed by friendship and held by the depth of feelings in this collection of wholesome shorts for all ages in a relaxed screening environment. Stick around to participate in fun and simple art activities post-screening.
Delve into the profound connections filmmakers Fawzia Mirza (The Queen of My Dreams) and Zarrar Kahn (In Flames) forge when revisiting their roots in Pakistan, through a cinematic lens. This in-depth conversation explores how filmmakers turn place into its own dynamic character, and unpacks the emotive pull of returning, despite its tensions and contradictions. Join us as they showcase how "home" can transcend geographical boundaries, ignite stories with new interpretations of place, and animate narratives with the rich tapestry of personal heritage.
Discover the comedically honest and heartwarming story of the CBC Gem original short-form series How to Fail as a Popstar in our screening of the first three episodes followed by a panel discussion, "The Clumsy Art of Finding Yourself."
Canada20232 minEnglish, Ilocano, Vietnamese with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Family-friendly
A poetic glimpse into a love story.
*Dinaly Tran
Dinaly Joyce Tran is a queer, trans, nonbinary Filipinx Vietnamese community organizer and artist. They are always hoping to make things that feel homey, in their art, their organizing, and on their Animal Crossing island.
This film is part of the WEE ASIAN shorts programme.
Explore this app for mobile devices that shares the journey of a child refugee, activated by the steps you take.
Free-spirited 12-year-old Zaffan is the first of her friends to get her period and experience the body-changing horrors that come with puberty and menstruation.
Be warmed by friendship and held by the depth of feelings in this collection of wholesome shorts for all ages in a relaxed screening environment. Stick around to participate in fun and simple art activities post-screening.
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
