One of Canada’s leading Asian film festivals has unveiled its prize winners in advance of this year’s screenings. And the RBC Best Canadian Feature Film Award at this year’s Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival went to Montréal, Ma Belle.
Directed by Xiaodan He, it stars Joan Chen as Feng Xia, a 53-year-old immigrant mother of two who becomes restless in her loveless marriage. In pursuit of excitement, Feng starts scrolling through dating apps and ultimately falls for a young Québecoise woman named Camille (Charlotte Aubin).
Montréal, Ma Belle will be screened at 8:15 p.m. on Friday (November 7) at TIFF Lightbox C3.
Reel Asian also announced that Mayumi Yoshida’s Akashi won the Ostler Best First Feature Award. Yoshida also stars in the film as Kana, a Vancouver artist who returns to Japan for the funeral of her beloved grandmother. This elder shared a secret with Kana, which brings forth mixed feelings about the meaning of love and duty.
Akashi will be screened at 7 p.m. on Sunday (November 9) at TIFF Lightbox C2 as the festival’s Centrepiece Gala Presentation.
The festival’s Dipchand LLP Best Feature Film Award went to Fucktoys, which was directed by and stars Annapurna Sriram. It revolves around a young woman who raises $1,000 for psychics to try to break a curse. The Nashville-raised Sriram plays a dominatrix in this post-apocalyptic comedy-drama highlighting a growing gap between rich and poor.
Fucktoys will be screened at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday (November 8) in TIFF Lightbox C3.
Meanwhile, Toronto director Min Sook Lee is the recipient of the Reel Asian – Doc Institute Best Documentary Award for There Are No Words. This highly personal film chronicles Lee’s efforts to understand why her mother died by suicide more than four decades ago.
Lee made her documentary with the National Film Board of Canada.
“Silence and shame followed my mother’s suicide. I realized that if I didn’t make this film, a default narrative would take over that amounted to a permanent death of who she was and could have been,” Lee, an associate professor at OCAD University, said in an NFB news release. “I used this documentary to give life back to both of us.”
There Are No Words will be screened at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (November 13) at Innis Town Hall.
Reel Asian honours short films
The Samansa Short Film Award winner is “There Will Come Soft Rains”, which was directed by Elham Ehsas. The promo states: “Haunted by rising sea levels, a daughter digs up her father’s grave to move his body to higher ground.” It will be screened at 1 p.m. on Saturday (November 8) at TIFF Lightbox C4.
The DGC Ontario and WIFT+Toronto Film Award went to another short, “Same Time Next Year?”, by Toronto director Anushay Sheikh. The promo states: “Expecting another uneventful Jummah, Safa finds herself trapped with her overbearing family and an angry ex.” It will be screened at 1 p.m. on Sunday (November 9) at TIFF Lightbox C2.
The Armstrong Acting Studios Outstanding Performer Award in a Canadian short went to Sumanthy Balaram for playing the title role in “Karupy”, directed by Kalainithan Kalaicheivan. Balaram’s character announces at her 65th birthday party that she will be ending her life that night. It will screen at 6 p.m. on Friday (November 7) at TIFF Lightbox C3.
The festival also announced that “Karupy” is one of the five Air Canada Short Film or Video Award winners. The other four were:
- “HAIR!”, by Sara Jade Alfaro-Dehghani, which screens at 1 p.m. on Saturday (November 8) at TIFF Lighbox C4;
- “We Were the Scenery”, by Christopher Radcliff, which screens at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday (November 8) at TIFF Lightbox C4;
- “Bigsuck”, by Silverfish Studios, which screens at 9 p.m. on Saturday (November 8) at TIFF Lightbox C4:
- “Motel, Grand-Pré”, by Calvin Liu, which screens at 1 p.m. on Sunday (November 9) at Tiff Lightbox C2.
In addition, the Canadian Society of Cinematographers has given its Best Cinematography award at the festival to Motel Grand-Pré, which is a short film by Calvin Liu. It will be screened at 1 p.m. on Sunday (November 9) at TIFF Lightbox C2.
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For more information on the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, visit the website. Learn more about the communities that make up Canada on the Toronto Spark website. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
