A Starting Point: Unsung Voices at Minikino Film Week

Minikino Film Week 8 presents A Starting Point by Reel Asian. A Starting Point is a collaboration between Reel Asian and Minikino to showcase short film festivals from around the work. As part of Minikino’s special programme, seven shorts from Reel Asian’s Unsung Voices will be screened to present a mini history behind our production workshop.

“Where does a filmmaker’s journey begin? And, can we revisit this moment? A Starting Point recognizes the value of beginnings and wonders how we might return to “first films” as a place for regrowth. This programme places short films from the four cohort members of Unsung Voices 10 (2021), Reel Asian’s free summer production workshop for first-time or emerging filmmakers, in conversation with retrospective “first films” by Unsung Voice’s founder, Aram Collier, and program coordinators, Haaris Qadri and Jennifer Su.”

– Kelly Lui, Reel Asian’s Shorts Programmer

September 5 at 5:45PM (WITA)

SKA (Rumah Film Sang Karsa)

September 6 at 8:15PM (WITA)

UMA SEMINYAK

THE ORCHID AND THE TREE // Ganesh Thava / Canada / 2021

The echoes of grief linger decades after in a South Asian family that did not, could not, get around to talking about it.

WAVE HANDS LIKE CLOUDS // Jennifer Su / Canada / 2018

Tai Chi practitioners explore their connection to the martial art in this hybrid documentary music video set in Toronto’s Grange Park and Scarborough.

CHAKAR (ਚੱਕਰ) // Harman Kang / Canada / 2021

A young woman is stopped by a middle-aged Punjabi woman. Things take a turn for the uncanny, as the young woman is presented with a choice that will change the course of her life.

GOREE // Haaris Qadri / Canada / 2016

A 9-year-old Pakistani-Canadian girl struggles to understand her mother’s cultural expectations of beauty.

watering // James Legaspi / Canada / 2021

Watering is a semi-autobiographical short film through which the filmmaker reflects on the passing of their childhood dog, and how it continues to inform their navigation of daily life.

EXPRESS LANE // Aram Siu Wai Collier, Rudy Chong / Canada / 1997

Express Lane is an adrenaline-laced, technically virtuosic thrilling chase throughout urban San Francisco, somewhere between a pedestrian Bullitt and an under-21 Pulp Fiction.

AHU’S JOURNAL // Weeda Azim / Canada / 2021

Eager for an escape from her family, Safiya moves out to a sublet of an acquaintance, Ahu. She soon comes across a journal with entries that take her on a reflective journey—Ahu’s journal.