Running from November 5 to 15 in Toronto, the 29th edition of Reel Asian will feature a series of queer films…
Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival is back for its 29th edition with 17 features and 45 short films from around the world. From November 5 to 15, the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival (Reel Asian) will celebrate contemporary Asian cinema. For those not in Toronto, select films will be available online nationally between November 10 and 23.
This year, Reel Asian is partnering with Inside Out, Toronto’s annual 2SLGBTQI+ film festival, to present a series of shorts under the collection Let’s Do The Time Warp Again! The line up is teased as boundary pushing with films reimagining queer storytelling. One of the shorts, Reviving The Roost by Vivek Shraya, is an ode to a closed Edmonton gay bar.
“We are incredibly proud of this year’s lineup, which reflects the richness and diversity of voices from emerging talent to returning and established filmmakers,” said Deanna Wong, Executive Director of Reel Asian. “As we approach our 30th anniversary, Reel Asian continues to be more than just a film festival. It is a space for community, dialogue and discovery where audiences can connect through screenings, workshops, panels and conversations that celebrate Asian storytelling in all its forms.”
Let’s take a look at the 2SLGBTQI+ content coming to Reel Asian.
CHARGED UP! (SHORTS)
Defiance can loudly turn heads around, or remain subtle and carefully camouflaged. Between these styles, this programme sees longings vary from self-preservation, justice, vengeance, and spectacle. Experience this collection on November 7, at 8:30 p.m. and keep an eye out for the following 2SLGBTQI+ films:
CORRECT ME IF YOU’RE WRONG (CHINA, GERMANY, US): Caught in a struggle of love, legacy, and belief, a filmmaker undergoes a series of home remedies and spiritual rituals as their Southwest Chinese family seeks to rid their queer heir of what they perceive as an unwanted entity.
RAT+CAMMIE=FOREVER (CANADA): Cammie, a personified webcam that dreams of becoming a livestreamer, and Rat, an introverted rodent girl, are brought together on the digital self-help app, BetterHell. So unfolds this love story of two unlikely beings united by their fears of unrealized dreams and alienation.
TAKE CARE, TILL SPRINGTIME (CANADA): After a Chinese medicine practitioner is brutalized by police at a recent protest, his community comes together in quiet acts of healing.
WATER SPORTS (PHILIPPINES): Jelson and Ipe, two students deep in love, undergo trials of mind and body as they prepare to survive a world devastated by climate change.
FUCKTOYS
Directed and starring Annapurna Sriram, this dark humorous tale will screen on November 8 at 8:30 p.m.
AP (Sriram) has been cursed and needs $1,000 for the hex-breaking cure. They embarks on a sex worker’s odyssey through pre-millenium Trashtown, U.S.A., where the grass is brown and the cops are kinky. Desperate for a life reset, AP embarks on a scooter-driven adventure with her always-and-forever-tethered ex-lover Danni. It’s a campy, crude movie that is a queer take on the buddy film genre.
K-Pop Demon Hunters
This film is resonating with 2SLGBTQI+ communities for its story about identity, self-worth and finding the courage to be yourself. On November 10 at 7:30 p.m., the film’s creator and co-director, Maggie Kang, is coming home to Toronto for a special sing-a-long screening!
If you don’t know the story of the K-Pop Demon Hunters, it’s simple. Rumi, Zoey, and Mira are HUNTR/X, a world-renowned K-pop group who also hunt demons to protect humans from the underworld. But one of them has a secret that could disrupt all they’ve worked for.
LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! (SHORTS)
On November 6 at 8:30 p.m., the festival will screen a series of animated shorts curated by Inside Out. The line-up features eight titles including one from three-time Canadian Screen Award winner Vivek Shraya. The shorts include:
I AM A FLOWER (GERMANY): A deviant artist and proud flower person spends one last day in a flower spa with his mother before his final performance act.
MISERY LOVES COMPANY (SOUTH KOREA): One night, while Seolgi is lying on a grass field with friends, a shooting star falls and dark intrusive thoughts hit her, bursting with movement and blooming bright colours.
HEY DAD (TAIWAN, UK): I’ve practised these words for 20 years now, but maybe being candid isn’t the best idea. I’m starting my countdown again — another 20 years. Maybe it will be the right time by then.
ACID GREEN (SINGAPORE, USA): One night, a person brushes a dog’s teeth and turns into a bus.
ADORABLE (UK): The journey of a queer person told across 2,000 hand-painted frames. The short illustrates modern queer society where discrimination, freedom, and love coexist.
REVIVING THE ROOST (CANADA): With pulsating neon-light animation, this short is about community complexity and longing. It is an elegy to a lost space and ode to a now-closed iconic Edmonton gay bar.
WELL WISHES MY LOVE, YOUR LOVE (MALAYSIA, SWEDEN): Newly orphaned and freshly wounded from a loss, a boy lends his companion a prosthetic arm for the day. The slow and meditative film is about everyday gestures of love, communicated through our universal understanding of body language.
PASSING BY (SOUTH KOREA): A girl unexpectedly bumps into her childhood best friend. The encounter leaves her torn between rekindling their lost connection or letting the moment slip away forever.
MANOK
Manok, the feisty owner of a venerable lesbian bar in Seoul, is preparing for the annual Pride celebrations. However, the younger organizers want a new vibe, leaving Manok’s bar on the fringes. Irritated at her obsolescence, Manok closes the bar out of spite and moves back to her rural hometown with a fresh start on her mind. But is that possible in a town run by her ex-husband? If anybody can do it, Manok can. The Canadian premiere takes place November 8 at 3:30 p.m.
MONTRÉAL, MA BELLE
This Canadian film, in French and Mandarin, follows Feng Xia, a 53 year-old living a modest but decent life in Montreal. Xia has a house and is married with two children, but finds herself growing dissatisfied with her loveless marriage and cloistered life of obligation. After taking a conversational French class, she finds the city has opened up to her in new ways, including curious dalliances with dating apps. There, she meets Camille, a Quebecois woman who challenges her spiritually and sexually. Their affair awakens Feng Xia’s long-buried desires during a glowing Montreal summer. Watch the film on November 7 at 8:15 p.m.
OTHERWORLDS (SHORTS)
In this shorts presentation on November 8 at 6:30 p.m., viewers will enter worlds that feel both impossibly extreme and unsettlingly real. Thrust against the grain, these protagonists take back control of their narrative, despite forces that seek to define them otherwise. The queer film in this presentation is:
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE (Taiwan): Sixteen-year-old Lolo becomes entangled in a Freudian loop centred on a strawberry shortcake and her mother, Norma. As Lolo sinks into the loop, the boundary between reality and the dreamscape becomes increasingly blurred.
UNQUENCHABLE (SHORTS)
This shorts presentation, on November 8 at 9:00 p.m., features films exploring explore desire, both inter-personally and intra-personally. Between quietly blossoming desires and glowing inner temptations, this collection strides toward you with a sly wink, a shy smile, and a glimmer in its eye. The 2SLGBTQI+ films featured here include:
AUTOMAGIC (FRANCE, INDIA): On his return home, androgynous-looking Madhu attempts to seduce Ratnakar, his rickshaw driver, who is staying celibate in preparation for a religious pilgrimage.
STUBBLE (CANADA): Merging reality and staging scenes to develop settings of fantasy where subjects play, each person explores the longing for one’s softness and roughness, and what it means to hold both at the same time.
THANK YOU FOR LOVE (USA): Two dogs timidly try to seek intimacy.
UNSUNG VOICES 14 (SHORTS)
Six emerging filmmakers embarked on a months-long filmmaking workshop this past summer. On November 9 at 1:30 p.m., their films will make their world premieres at the 14th edition of Reel Asian’s filmmaking program. Watch out for the 2SLGBTQI+ film:
SAME TIME NEXT YEAR (CANADA): Expecting another uneventful Jummah, Safa finds herself trapped with her overbearing family and an angry ex.
For the full film line-up visit the ReelAsian.com.
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