USA199565 minEnglishArchive PresentationDocumentary
Cambodian-born Sokly “Don Bonus” Ny takes a Hi8 camcorder into his final year of high school in the San Francisco Bay Area, documenting intersecting events happening at school, at home, and amongst friends and family. Filmed and released in 1995, the film can be seen as a forerunner of the now-popular diary or vlog documentary format, featuring raw footage and voiceover from Don Bonus.
Although made in the 1990s, the beats of the film are familiar and still relevant, moving through issues of low-income housing, gang violence, academic struggle, and family fractures, while also featuring communal celebration, youthful camaraderie and intimate family life. These scenes are simultaneously casual and intentional, recontextualized and given resonance through Don Bonus’ frank, teenage monologic reflections.
A.K.A Don Bonus highlights how the stories that came before us, although constructed from their time and space, can continue to speak powerfully into our present.
– Jasmine Gui
Sokly Ny
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Berlin International Film Festival, 1996
San Francisco Film Festival, 1995
AWARDS
National Emmy Award, 1996
Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Film Festival, 1995
Spencer Nakasako
Spencer Nakasako has over three decades of experience as an independent filmmaker and is the founder of the groundbreaking Media Lab at the Vietnamese Youth Development Center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Nakasako is a member of the Writers Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
12 Nov, 2020 10:00 am
to 19 Nov, 2020 11:59 pm
Deep dive into narrative construction with director Spencer Nakasako & filmmaker Miko Revereza! ASL interpretation will be made available thanks to Toronto Sign Language Interpreter Services.
November 17, 2020 at 6:30PM
Catch Sahar Te's KHAAREJ No. 3 this year at the festival, featuring a mixed media sound and text digital installation, and an artist talk.
A cowardly horse robbery ends in murder, leaving a boy fatherless and his family in disarray. When the boy’s mother is forced to move the family out of their village, a mysterious man arrives who might be able to help restore order. What may appear to us as a “Western,” with its familiar framing of vast vistas and sublime steppes, is really a story about fractured families and survival in the wake of violence.
Catch Howie Tsui's GIF Roulette this year at the festival, featuring a grid of GIFs in a digital installation, and an artist talk.
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.
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