Film Categories: Asian

  • Rock Garden: a love story

    An allegory about love, loneliness and the healing power of acceptance, “Rock Garden: a love story” is the tale of two neighbors who struggle and toil with everyday existence and how the most unlikely of objects changes them both. Described as “absolutely beautiful” by director Atom Egoyan, “Rock Garden: a love story” is seemingly a tale about two warring neighbours, but reveals itself as a social commentary on sexual and gender identity. Its unexpected plot twist illustrates how in the most unlikely of ways, we can be freed from our selves. With no dialogue, the film features deeply textured music…

  • Devotion

    “Devotion: a story about Ogawa Productions” is an 82-minute documentary of an important Japanese post-war documentary collective that made significant films of social struggle and village life. This investigative documentary situates the revolutionary lifestyle and films of Ogawa Productions within the framework of the global student movement of the New Left in the mid-’60s and the emerging documentary movement in Japan. In-depth stories from the collective members who contributed to this unique film making process are examined from a variety of perspectives and understandings. OSHIMA Nagisa, HARA Kazuo and HANEDA Sumiko, well-known film directors, present their personal recollections of this…

  • Awash

    “Awash” is a song for the mortal, depicted through images of, within and around water.

  • Kolam (Pool)

    “‘Pool’ is a touching portrait of a community attempting to rebuild and heal itself following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that shocked the world. The titular swimming pool is a temporary makeshift basin created to help the children of Aceh, Indonesia, face their fear of water and learn to swim again, despite the losses their community suffered when the sea came crashing in. Chong Chan Fui observes their progress with affection and a poet’s eye.” – Andrea Picard, Toronto International Film Festival In Indonesian, Acehnese and English with English subtitles. Awards: Winner of the Award for Best Canadian Short,…

  • Dark Sun; Bright Shade

    “Dark Sun; Bright Shade” is a one-hour dramatic film which explores the cultural, social and political fabrics between two gay Chinese men living under parallel traditions within the Chinese social structure. Through the unfolding of events following the 1989 T’ien An Men Square Massacre in Beijing, the film focuses on Paul, a young Chinese-Canadian artist, and Kai, a foreign student in exile from mainland China, as they confront the differences in their politics, sexuality, cultural upbringing and family relationships. As they are drawn closer together it becomes obvious that, for the many displaced Chinese around the world, there lies ahead…

  • Nocturne for the Fireflies

    A group of little girls parade through a forest at night, each carrying a brown paper bag that glows with firefly-like flickering light. “Nocturne for the Fireflies” is a cinematic interpretation of a dream that explores the interconnected relationships among young girls. Evoking the storytelling style of folktales or children’s lullabies, the film depicts a midnight procession of young girls as a magical and transformative collective.

  • American Nurse

    America’s war in Vietnam is over, but the scars of that war remain with many Asian-Americans who served there. More than 60,000 Asian-Americans served in the United States armed forces during the Vietnam War. Many who lived through this lost war in Southeast Asia still silently suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But there are others willing to speak out about the conditions that they as Americans of Asian ancestry experienced in Vietnam. Lt. Lily Lee (Adams) now of Mill Valley, California, nursed wounded soldiers and worked in triage for a year in Cu Chi. Her story in “American Nurse” chronicles…

  • Block B

    A building becomes a living painting. The concrete homes and contradicting soundscapes frame the lives of an expatriate Indian community in Malaysia. “The grand scale of an aging modernist apartment block in the Brickfields neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur sets the stage for a macroscopic analysis of the quotidian activities of its inhabitants. Seemingly trivial actions assume significant meaning as lives entwine between the rigid lines of the building. Observational cinema at its extreme, ‘Block B’ reveals much about the social structure of the Indian working class in the outskirts of a Malaysian metropolis.” – Alex Rogalski, Toronto International Film Festival…

  • Others, The

    Of Spanish, Scottish/Irish, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Cherokee ancestry actor Lou Diamond Phillips is an icon of difference and otherness due to the numerous ‘ethnic characters’ he’s played in Hollywood movies (primarily in the late 1980s and early 1990s) including Mexican, Navajo, Inuit, Lakota, Puerto Rican and Arab. “The Others” features found footage of Phillips’ numerous ‘ethnic characters’ and places them in dialog with each other, literally, by employing classic Hollywood editing style and storytelling tropes. Through these conversations comes an investigation of identity, ethnicity and authenticity. “The Others” is part of the Trinity Square Video Themed Commissioned Project: ICONS.…

  • Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis

    “Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis” is Saïto’s second collaboration with musician Malcolm Goldstein, who composed and performed the original structured improvisation score for the film. The film explores familiar landscape imagery Saïto and Goldstein share in their neighbourhood at the foot of Mount-Royal Park in Montréal. Using images of maple trees in the park as the main visual motif, Saïto creates a film in which the formations of the trees and their subtle interrelation with the space around them act as an agent to transform viewer’s sensorial perception. Richly colored and entirely hand-processed, “Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis”…