This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: UNSUNG VOICES 12 shorts programme.
Canada20239 minEnglishWorld PremiereDrama, Family-friendly, Romance
Andrew and Nina reunite when Andrew moves into a new place in the city. As the day passes, they mould the empty apartment into a home, awakening dormant feelings from their past.
*Satrio Prahasto
Satrio Prahasto is an emerging filmmaker based in Toronto. Prahasto is interested in how East and Southeast Asian cinema influence can not only inform but also shape how we tell our respective diasporic stories in a North American setting.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: UNSUNG VOICES 12 shorts programme.
Last fall, the DOC Institute invited creative producers to reimagine a documentary ecosystem that recognizes the needs of BIPOC producers with critically acclaimed projects, and published their thoughts in the “Creative Producer Think Tank Report.” A key point highlighted was producer/director relationships—listen as panelists delve into the critical and vital collaboration that underpins any successful film.
There’s no need to be certain about what’s next as this collection of shorts places us in a position to face specific pivotal moments of reckoning. Whether we’re feeling stuck or turbulent in the chaos of transition, can we remain gentle to ourselves?
Canada202215 minEnglish and Arabic with English subtitles2slgbtq+, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Romance
Grinding away at the inherited family business, Mohamed works tirelessly making sales of knock-off perfume, while living as a knock-off version of his true self.
*Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller
Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller is a Queer mixed-race Palestinian Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work explores themes of fragmented identity, isolation and connection through grounded “oh no, should I laugh?” comedy.
This film is part of the Shorts Presentation: LET’S BE FRIENDS 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.
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.
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.
Canada202289 minutesEnglishToronto PremiereDrama, Romance, Women Filmmakers
When reserved, late-bloomer Grace gets passed up for a major promotion at work, she tries to break out of her shell by pursuing a one-night stand at the club. Her choice in partner, Carter Stone, an NHL player at a crossroads, is having an equally rough night. After an initial meet-cute and disastrous attempt at a hookup, the two walk Toronto’s wintry streets, wandering from bar to skating rink to office, slowly but surely finding common ground as the night progresses.
Kim’s Convenience’s Andrea Bang shines in a dramatic role as rigid Grace, whose acerbic stubbornness adds a bumbling comedy, as she learns where she can bend without breaking. The feature debut of veteran Canadian TV writer and director Renuka Jeyapalan, Stay The Night showcases delightfully familiar locals-only Toronto hangouts, while asking us to lose ourselves in a version of the city where a brief encounter doesn’t have to mean a transaction.
– Vidhya Elango
Andrea Bang
Joe Scarpellino
Humberly González
Raymond Ablack
OFFICIAL SELECTION
SXSW, 2022
Renuka Jeyapalan
Renuka Jeyapalan is a Toronto-based writer and director. Her shorts have screened at TIFF, Tribeca, and the Berlinale. She has directed episodes of Kim’s Convenience, Workin’ Moms, Sort Of, Children Ruin Everything, Son Of A Critch and the Netflix original series Ginny & Georgia. Her first feature, Stay The Night, premiered at South by Southwest.
The screening for Stay The Night will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 3.
This feature film will also be shown as an online screening from Nov 14 – Nov 17.
Rated PG
Content Warning: Coarse language, smoking, drinking
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the theatrical presentation with director Renuka Jayapalan.
In 1993, UFOs suddenly appeared over key cities around the world. The huge structures remained in the sky, stationary, silent, and unknown. Twenty-nine years later, with neither the origins nor the intentions of their arrival deciphered, humanity succumbs to speculations that aliens are walking among us. This feature film will also be shown as an online screening.
This year’s Reel Ideas Conference gathers industry professionals, filmmakers, and performers to reflect on the specificity in their works, representing their own nuances along with their communities' lived experiences.
Tune into this beloved section online to access free programming for all ages that will spark joy, inspire creativity, and encourage wonder.
Taiwan202298 minutesOriginal Mandarin version with Chinese and English subtitlesCanadian PremiereRomance
In this oddly sweet and gentle story, Hong, a shy young man, opens his eyes to love when he coincidentally meets Lele, the mistress of a sex worker business.
After a disastrous blind date set up by his mother, Hong is dragged to Lele’s hotel by his cousin. Not yet ready to lose his virginity to one of Lele’s girls, Hong finds himself strangely attracted to the older woman instead. This comes as a revelation for Hong, who has been under the thumb of his mother Meiling all of his life, and has never acted out of his own will. Little does Meiling know that the spark in Hong’s heart for this older, experienced, and unapproved woman will truly mark the beginning of Hong’s growth into adulthood.
Two multi-talented singer-actor heartthrobs from different generations, Kai Ko and Vivian Hsu, play the awkward yet warm couple who find comfort in each other. After a break of almost 10 years since Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, Mama Boy is a welcomed return for Arvin Chen that will bewilder you with its magical colour palettes and characters that grow in you as well as on the screen.
- June Kim
Kai Ko
Vivian Hsu
Yu Tzu-yu
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Udine Far East Film Festival, 2022
Taipei Film Festival, 2022
New York Asian Film Festival, 2022
Arvin Chen 陳駿霖
Arvin Chen is a Taiwanese American director and a familiar name to Reel Asian. He attended the festival with his debut feature, Au Revoir Taipei, which was invited as the closing film for the 14th festival in 2010. Chen has been recognized and awarded by many festivals, including the Berlinale, where he won the NETPAC Award for Au Revoir Taipei.
12 Nov, 2022 9:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox 4The screening for Mama Boy will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
RATED PG
Missed chances, unspoken conversations, fated meetings, connections sparked in the most unexpected places: these shorts delve into the weight of all our relations in their fullness and in their absence.
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.
Following three Muslim women activists who have come of age since 9/11, An Act of Worship is a unique glimpse into the lives of a new generation of American Muslims deeply impacted by over 40 years of history that has shaped their lives and trajectories in powerful and irreversible ways.
Canada202210 minutesEnglish, Mandarin with English subtitles World PremiereDrama, Non-binary Filmmakers, Romance
As Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, a lonesome young Chinese immigrant finds comfort in a whirlwind romance with a mysterious hometown queer crush who seems too good to be true.
Yi Shi
Yi Shi is a queer Chinese multidisciplinary artist and tattooer born and raised in Hangzhou, China, currently based in Tkaronto, aka Toronto, Canada. Their works seek to investigate the complexity of human emotions—vulnerability, grief, and diasporic longings.
This film is a part of the Unsung Voices 11 shorts programme. Director will be present for the Q&A following the film.
USA20228:00EnglishDrama, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Romance, Women Filmmakers
Maggie and Celine meet in the bathroom of a Chinese restaurant while having dinner with their respective families.
ACCESSIBILITY
This film is presented with open captions in-person and closed captions digitally.
RATING
RATED PG
Emily Jampel
Based in New York City, Emily Jampel is a filmmaker from Oʻahu who currently works as a development executive at the Oscar-nominated and Peabody Award-winning production company, the Department of Motion Pictures.
This film is a part of the Encounters shorts programme.
South Korea202040 minKorean with English subtitlesToronto PremiereComedy, Horror, Romance
Seo, the director of a romance, is at his wit’s end trying to finish his film. Editor Park has been brought in to help fix it. But it’s not your typical post-production problems of recalibrating the film’s story structure. This film is haunted.
Traversing genres between romance, horror-comedy, and screen-shared desktop video-editing tutorials, Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro is an unexpected insider’s ride through filmmakers’ insecurities, petty squabbles, and the dangers of “fixing it in post.”
What does it take to make a film—and is it worth it?
- Aram Siu Wai Collier & Kelly Lui
Seo Hyun-woo
Cha Seo-won
Moon Hye-in
Park Soo-yeon
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Jeonju International Film Festival, 2020
Busan International Short Film Festival, 2021
Fantastic Fest, 2021
AWARDS
Best Korean Short Film Award, Audience Award, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, 2020
Audience Award for Best International Short, Fantasia International Film Festival, 2021
Hong Seong-yoon
Based in Seoul, Hong Seong-yoon’s short film Invisible (2009) received a number of awards from various film festivals. In 2010, Hong established a film-distribution agency dedicated to representing short films. The Korean Film Council granted a production fund for his latest film, Digital Video Editing for Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow, which took four years to complete.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
The first 100 tickets are free with support from the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto
PG
This presentation has English subtitles.
DIGITAL VIDEO EDITING WITH ADOBE PREMIERE PRO: THE REAL WORLD GUIDE TO SET UP AND WORKFLOW invites us into the nitty gritty process post-production through a frustrated director and the editor brought in to “save the film”. Canadian editors Xi Feng, Omar Majeed, and Gloria Tong take us on a deeper dive inside the editor’s room and give their responses to the film.
Omar Majeed
Omar Majeed is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, editor, and filmmaker. His directing credits include the feature-length documentaries Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, The Frog Princes, and the recent short doc Stitched Glass. As an editor, Omar has collaborated with many acclaimed directors including Yung Chang (The Fruit Hunters, Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story), Brett Story (World in a City), Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx), Pete Mishara (The Artists: The Pioneers Behind the Pixels) and Fab Filippo (Sort Of). He has partnered on projects with The National Film Board of Canada, EyeSteelFilm Productions, and First Generation Films among others and his work has been featured on CBC, SXSW, Hot Docs, Sheffield Doc-Fest, PBS, HBO Max, TIFF, IDFA, and Netflix.
Although he’s called many cities home including Montreal, Baltimore, and Lahore, Omar currently resides in Toronto with his wife and young child.
Xi Feng
Xi Feng is a Chinese-Canadian film editor based in Montreal. Having lived in China, Canada, and France, she has cultivated a unique blend of cultural and artistic sensitivity. Feng has worked as an editor on several award winning documentaries, including “China Heavyweight”, “Sing me a Lullaby”, and “Clebs”. She’s also an editor alumna of Canadian Film Centre and Berlinale Talents.
Gloria Tong
Gloria Tong is a Toronto based film and television editor. She started her editing career in broadcast television working for Muchmusic, CTV and Bellmedia, and won a Canadian Screen Award for The Amazing Race with her team in 2019. After finishing her editor’s residency at the Canadian Film Centre, she transitioned to scripted film and tv, editing indie feature film GIRL starring Bella Thorne, and most recently, Lifetime’s first lesbian romance Under the Christmas Tree. When she’s not glued to her edit suite, she can be found squealing over new growth of her plant babies.
After being met with the destabilizing news of her parents’ divorce, Angie, a teenage, mixed-race Asian girl, reckons with her multiracial identity and sexual awakening in this quirky coming-of-age story.
Aman, a young aspiring writer, moved to Kuala Lumpur to follow his dreams, but all he has is his late father’s old car and nowhere to live. To make ends meet, he uses his room on wheels to illegally earn money through a driving-service app. This is how he meets Bella, a student from Penang.
Hsiao-chi has never been an ordinary girl. She is always a step faster than everyone else, perhaps too fast for her to connect with anyone romantically. With Valentine’s Day approaching, Hsiao-chi’s anxious about finding someone. When she finds herself the dream date, she goes to bed looking forward to Valentine’s Day. But to her surprise and disappointment, she wakes up on February 15. Maybe A-tai, the bus driver who is a step slower than everyone else, has the answer to her missing Valentine’s Day.
Taiwan2021119 minMandarin, Taiwanese with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereDrama, Fantasy, Romance
Hsiao-chi has never been an ordinary girl. She is always a step faster than everyone else, perhaps too fast for her to connect with anyone romantically. With Valentine’s Day approaching, Hsiao-chi’s anxious about finding someone. When she finds herself the dream date, she goes to bed looking forward to Valentine’s Day. But to her surprise and disappointment, she wakes up on February 15. Maybe A-tai, the bus driver who is a step slower than everyone else, has the answer to her missing Valentine’s Day.
This whimsical and heartwarming love story will take you on a journey to find Hsiao-chi’s missing Valentine’s Day. As you piece the puzzle together through the two different perspectives of Hsiao-chi and A-tai, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by its fairytale-like way of unfolding a story about “bad timing.” A talented cast, including rookie Patty Lee, will make you wish the tale would last a bit longer.
- June Kim
Patty Lee
Liu Kuan-ting
Duncan Chou
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Busan International Film Festival, 2020
Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, 2020
Far East Film Festival, 2021
AWARDS
Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards, 2020
Audience Choice Award, Asian Pop-up Cinema, 2021
Crystal Mulberry Award, Black Dragon Award, Far East Film Festival, 2021
Chen Yu-hsun
After receiving much acclaim with his first feature Tropical Fish (1995), Chen Yu-hsun left the film scene and focused on advertisements until he returned to filmmaking in 2013. My Missing Valentine, his fifth feature, won multiple awards at various festivals including the Golden Horse Awards.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
PG
Community Supporter
This presentation has English subtitles.
Ann Kaneko’s Manzanar, Diverted invokes this history to tell the story of generations of women: Native American, Japanese American WWII incarcerees, and environmentalists, fighting for the future of the valley. Through a mix of testimonials, archival, and aerial photography, Kaneko weaves intersectional histories with the urgency of the present.
The shorts in this program include works screened two decades ago at Desh Pardesh, as well as films made last year by a cohort of South Asian and Indo Caribbean emerging filmmakers who participated in Inside Out Festival’s Short Film Lab.
Through the medium of animation, this panel explores the creative process and tools for geo-specific settings that serve as character in story—from something large and abstract like a “nation” to something detailed like a neighbourhood or building structure.
USA202114 min English World PremiereComedy, Fantasy, Romance, Women Filmmakers
Mi-Wen, an elderly widow, combs the beach in search of treasure and discovers a gold tooth that magically changes her lonely life.
This presentation has closed captions.
Azumi Hasegawa
Azumi Hasegawa is a New York-based writer, originally from Tokyo. Her articles appear in the Japanese editions of Vogue, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar.
Canada20214 min English World PremiereFamily-friendly, Music, Romance, Women Filmmakers
Sweet Memories is an ode to nostalgic memories of childhood crushes, featuring the 1977 Hawaiian track “Lihue” by Nohelani Cypriano.
This presentation has closed captions.
Jessica JM Wu
Jessica JM Wu is a director and producer based in Toronto. She wrote, directed, and produced her first short film, White Dragon, in 2019. Wu is currently represented for commercial work at Undivided Creative
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
