South Korea2024114 minKoreanInternational PremiereAvailable Online, Drama, Family-friendly

Feeling stuck, young fisherman Yong-su sees no hope in his future - like a fish in a net. As a last resort, he plans an insurance scam by staging his disappearance, hoping to provide a better life for his Vietnamese wife and his ageing mother. At the centre of this scheme is his captain, Yeong-guk (Yoon Joo-sang), who reluctantly reports Yong-su missing. However, when Yong-su’s mother (Yang Hee-kyung) refuses to connect her son’s disappearance with his death, the white lie snowballs into something harder to chew.

The Land of Morning Calm is the sophomore feature of Park Ri-woong of The Girl on a Bulldozer (2022), and as before, he touches upon pressing social issues. It’s an examination of interracial marriages and insurance scams, but more so, a heartbreaking study of the different forms of families, sacrificial love, and the struggles in making a living. The brilliant performances will wrench your hearts.

– June Kim

China202393 minCantoneseDrama, First Feature

While picking juicy lychees on an endless summer day, Ting is uneasy. She’s on the verge of marriage in her hometown in mainland China. Her father will not be there. He long ago left her and her mother to stay with his preferred family in Hong Kong — part of the legacy of men from the region who had extramarital affairs in China in the 1980s and '90s. Before she ties the knot, Ting ventures to Hong Kong to find the father she’s never known. While on her journey, she finds she has other loose ends to tie up, too.

Luscious imagery, moody music, and sultry summer vibes saturate Guangdong filmmaker Choy Ji’s first feature film with wistful longing for love in another place, another time. Through Ting and her family story, Director Choy brilliantly displays the Hong Kong of his own youth — mysterious and magical, distant despite being so close.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier

Canada202393 minEnglish, Mandarin, CantoneseCanadian PremiereAvailable Online, Comedy, Drama, First Feature

Shan, an immigrant from Dongbei, China, settles in Markham, Ont., a suburb known for its welcoming Chinese community. There, Kevin, a fellow Dongbei local, pulls him into a scheme to rob a Japanese restaurant stealing business from Chinese locals. After the heist goes horribly wrong, they delve into the streets of Markham in a series of chaotic episodes. Fresh Off Markham functions as a satirical anthology, highlighting experiences and dilemmas that some Chinese immigrants encounter amidst relocation.

Paying homage to the best of modern cinema, Kurt Yuen, Cyrus Lo, and Trevor Choi’s feature directorial debut successfully interweaves stories of the diasporic experience in with Markham. They keep generational history in mind, while providing a meaningful look at greed, interracial conflict, and the cost of immigration. Daring, decisive, and tonally diverse, Fresh Off Markham’s charm is rooted in its bold specificity, bringing an often overlooked Greater Toronto Area community to film.

– Amreen Kullar

Canada202485 minEnglishToronto PremiereAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Drama

Deep in debt, with a house and a university-bound kid, plus a marriage on the rocks, reformed gambler Lucky sees his luck run out after getting scammed in a tax-fraud scheme. Ashamed and desperate to keep it from his family, he returns to underground backroom gambling dens, playing for big payouts to relieve the debt and win back his family’s favour. Meanwhile, each family member, unaware of Lucky’s troubles but feeling the money crunch, too, resorts to unsavoury means to dig out of their hole.

With deeply resonant characters, Gillian McKercher’s second feature film is a gripping family drama that displays great empathy for her characters and their struggles while showing Calgary's significant Chinese community rarely seen in Canadian cinema. Terry Chen (Sight), Olivia Cheng (Warrior), and Andrew Phung (Run The Burbs) star in an ensemble of actors with Prairie roots that further ground the film to its setting and to so many families' hardships.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier

USA2024110 minEnglishCanadian PremiereAvailable Online, Comedy, Drama, First Feature, Romance

It’s the holidays, and Ben Santhanaraj shows up to Sri Lanka to see Suzanne Hopper, his long-distance partner who works there. Unfortunately, Suzanne’s been informed she now has to work through the holidays, thwarting their dream vacation plans (and his amorous intentions). They decide to go along with their itinerary, her laptop in tow, but nothing seems to work out as planned, leading to candid conversations and chaotic twists. Will their relationship endure — or have they grown too far apart?

Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion In 4 Parts is the continuation of a 10-year partnership with its lead actors (Sathya Sridharan and Anastasia Olowin) and director Shaun Seneviratne, where they made three short films exploring Ben and Suzanne’s relationship. Seneviratne writes and directs a charming and relatable “will they, won’t they?” romantic comedy deftly placed in a context of interracial dating, gender expectations, and diasporic alienation.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier

U.K.202499 minEnglish, ArabicToronto Premiere2slgbtq+, Drama, First Feature, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Romance

Layla is a struggling Palestinian drag queen who often finds creative ways to make ends meet, surrounded by a small, supportive group of close friends within the North London queer scene. A stuffy corporate event performance goes terribly wrong, making Layla and their outrageous antics go viral, and they meet the seemingly-dull-in-comparison marketing executive Max. Despite their very different worlds, a transformative love affair ensues, much to the annoyance of their close friends, who are highly skeptical of how healthy or affirming this relationship could possibly be.

Amrou Al-Kadhi’s assured direction shines just as brightly as Bilal Hasna’s breakout performance in this fun, flashy, and tender directorial debut packed with the catchiest club hits and an abundance of sparkles. As a complicated and lovable Layla navigates familial expectations, close friendships, and their own identity, what emerges is a proud queer love story that at its core celebrates self-love, freedom, and community.

– Mariam Zaidi

Indonesia202484 minEnglishHorror, Science Fiction

Five oblivious youths, a video camera, a remote rundown villa, and a creepy caretaker. Doesn’t it sound like the perfect recipe for a horror film? A mysterious death that soon follows takes the story on a route beyond the fourth wall. The group find out that they’re characters of The Draft! of a screenplay, and that their smarts will dictate their survival.

Indonesia is a strong player in the horror genre, and The Draft! is no exception, but a mild warning is due. Some may reference The Cabin in the Woods (2011), One Cut of the Dead (2017), or even Stranger than Fiction (2006), but The Draft! is a monster of its own. The element of familiarity is used to its advantage in satirically witty demeanour. Although some work is required from the audience to fully enjoy its jokes, the payoff is more than rewarding.

– June Kim

USA202498 minEnglish, KhmerToronto PremiereAvailable Online, Directed By Women, Documentary, Family-friendly, First Feature, Sports

At the heart of this captivating coming-of-age sports film is Ashley Chea, a Cambodian American basketball marvel whose high school career we follow. Hailing from a lower-class immigrant family that sought safety in the U.S. after the Khmer Rouge came to power, Chea is given the opportunity to attend a private school and thus pursue a coveted college basketball career. While her parents work vigorously at their doughnut store and can’t attend her games, Chea bonds with her Japanese American coach, who helps her with doctor's appointments and even attaining her driver’s licence.

Chea must now overcome a serious knee injury and rebuild her sense of self-worth, all in time to impress recruiting college coaches at her upcoming major tournaments. Being highly competitive, she struggles to lead her team to victory and overcome obvious class and racial differences, all while also being a super moody teenager and growing apart from her parents.

– Arisa Chirawu

Pakistan202498 minUrduToronto PremiereAnimation, Family-friendly

A young, gifted Vincent and his father Tomas run the finest glass workshop in the country, creating delicate, magnificent pieces of art. Their close bond is soon put to the test with the arrival of an army colonel and his young, aspiring violinist daughter Alliz, to their hometown. Amidst the rumblings of an impending war, Vincent and Alliz eventually fall in love, a relationship that is continually opposed and challenged by their fathers.

Using precise and absorbing hand-drawn animation, bursting with rich detail and colours, The Glassworker is a groundbreaking production, pieced together over a decade by Mano Animation Studios, Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animation studio. Much in the vein of a Studio Ghibli feature, which director Usman Riaz credits as inspiration, The Glassworker uses each frame with deep intention to tell a heart-tugging story about the fragility of life, particularly one lived through conflict.

– Mariam Zaidi

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