Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival features LGBTQI2S+ creators and content

***The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night***

This year’s Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival will feature a hybrid model of online & in-person with the opening night film screening in Toronto and the rest of the screenings being available across Canada.

The festival takes place from November 10-19th.

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival® is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from the Asian diaspora. Works include films and videos by Asian-identifying artists in Canada, the U.S., Asia and all over the world. As Canada’s largest Asian film festival, Reel Asian® provides a public forum for Asian media artists and their work, and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada.

This year's festival features a diverse range of subject matters, cast and filmmakers - with many filmmakers choosing to identify their films or themselves as part of the LGBTQ2S+ community. See list below. A full festival index can be found here →

See You Then:

Program: Feature Presentation

Synopsis: A decade after abruptly breaking up with Naomi, Kris invites her to dinner to catch-up on their complicated lives, relationships, and Kris' transition.

LGBT Tie-In: Queer themes

Your Hand In Mine:

Program: Wee Asian (free all ages programming)

Synopsis: Set across three separate timelines, a couple struggle to openly love each other.

LGBT Tie-In: Filmmaker identified film's genre as Animation/Queer

Imperfectly Complete

Program: Shorts Presentation: Feel The Beat

Synopsis: Imperfectly Complete features a resonating performance from Burmese American Chrissy Aung in the role of Lucy, who struggles whether to reveal the truth of herself when the blind guitarist she cares for is about to regain his vision.LGBT Tie-In: Burmese Trans Actor

The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night

Program: Shorts Presentation: Family Core

Synopsis: All cards are on the table when Noor brings Luz home for the first time on the family's annual game night.

LGBT Tie-In: Premiered at TIFF and received press for queer muslim representation on screen

Red String of Fate

Program: Shorts Presentation: Ecologies of Place

Synopsis: In the year 2090, Sam tries to bring her lover back to life.

LGBT Tie-In: Screened at Inside Out this year, Queer local actors, Genre: Sci-Fi/Queer

F1-100

Program: Shorts Presentation: In The Moment

Synopsis: Combining multiple artistic formats, this intimate portrait is a transnational meditation through time and space of an international art student studying abroad in the United States.

LGBT Tie-In: Genre: Documentary/Queer, Director Emory Chao Johnson is a non-binary filmmaker

Little Sky

Program: Shorts Presentation: Midnight Snack

Synopsis: Tenderly dedicated to their chosen family, Sky, a non-binary Chinese American drag sensation, returns to their hometown and ends up confronting their estranged father about childhood memories that continue to haunt them

LGBT Tie-In: Genre: Documentary/Queer

Huwag Mataranta!

Program: Shorts Presentation: Feel The Beat

Synopsis:Commissioned by the Polaris Music Prize to honour the 2020 shortlist nomination of Pantayo’s self-titled debut, Huwag Mataranta! follows BB, who finds her power in a mystical night market run by figures of Filipino folklore.

LGBT Tie-In: Filmmaker Tricia Hagoriles is an award-winning, Toronto-based filmmaker who received the inaugural Inside Out + OUTtv Outspoken Documentary Financing Fund for her upcoming work, The Archivist.

Fresh Blood

Program: Midnight Snack

Synopsis: Subverting the body-horror genre, Fresh Blood follows 14-year-old Maya, who is left to process her own fears of entering womanhood alone when she gets her first period.

LGBT Tie-In: Co-director Julianna Notten identifies as a queer filmmaker