Canada, Japan2025105 minEnglish, Japanese with English subtitlesToronto Premiere

Kana, a struggling visual artist, returns to Japan after years away in Vancouver to attend her beloved grandmother’s funeral. The familiar cadence of family dynamics endure and yet, everything feels different. While in Tokyo, Kana discovers her grandfather had a love of his life outside of his arranged marriage to her grandmother. Meanwhile, Kana reluctantly confronts her own messy romantic past with old flame Hiro to see if the embers of their love still flicker.

Adapted from a play and short film of the same name, powerhouse actor-writer-director Mayumi Yoshida presents an impressively romantic first feature, beautifully lensed across two timelines. Yoshida deftly balances swooning, dreamlike nostalgia with the universal realities of distance, time, and circumstance.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier

Canada202479 minEnglish, FarsiToronto PremiereDrama, First Feature, Romance

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.

Alireza Shojaei gives a simmering performance as the self-destructive Amir against Parham Rownaghi’s flashy Mahyar, while Gus Tayari and Mitra Lohrasb give a loving but weary weight as their parents. Set within Toronto’s significant Iranian community, Meelad Moaphi’s first feature is a measured study in shifting family roles and perceptions when the past comes calling, especially for first-generation families whose ties to other lives and lands are so far but carried closely every day.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier