Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in an alternative, unique and marginal environment, are creatively finding ways to occupy time. Like many kids, going on a trip to buy candies often seems like a great option to avoid boredom. In the legacy of a docu-fiction, this film plays with the sense of boundaries between what is real and what is fiction.This short film is an ode to the power of reality and fiction, about the love of two brothers, and the countryside’s beauty.

敬祖 · PAYING RESPECTS’ is a short film using the Chinese ritual of burning joss paper to reflect on questions of death & diaspora. Yiqing explores her grief by offering her ancestors everything they couldn’t afford. Everything she burns gets sent to the afterlife. The film plays with themes of memory, distance and dreams.

Surrendered is an intimate short film exploring the moment when resistance collapses and truth surfaces. Through fragmented images and restrained narration, the film traces a psychological and emotional unraveling shaped by memory, control, and survival. Rather than offering resolution, Surrendered lingers in the suspended space between agency and submission, where the body remembers before language can intervene. The film observes surrender not as defeat, but as a necessary threshold — a point where endurance gives way to exposure, and where letting go becomes the only remaining form of agency.

The Shrimp and his human puppet, Dave, are the chefs at a gourmet Chinese restaurant. This mockumentary follows The Shrimp as he seeks redemption against Rat Bitch – a certain rodent who was the benefactor of a wildly successful animated children’s movie about his culinary prowess. Meanwhile, Dave, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, is put at risk of deportation by The Shrimp’s actions. With Dave under The Shrimp’s control, the two showdown with Rat Bitch in a TV cooking competition show to finally decide which animal-controlled-chef reigns supreme.

Gulabrr features a playful, curious, majestic and unsettling character whose material, vocal and corporeal boundaries are porous. Bathing in a sound design made entirely of acoustic vocal sounds, the character moves through dreamscapes and melts into quivering, malleable, syrupy and sparkling textures.

A 7 year-old narcoleptic girl discovers an otherworldly bond to her late mother’s past within dreams of the Burmese jungle.

Tara, a queer Palestinian woman in her late 20s, attempts to suppress her internal emotional turbulence during a phone call with her best friend Sarab, with whom she is in love.

A devoted immigrant mother sets out to deliver a cake for her son’s birthday, but as the day unravels, she is forced to confront the reality of her son’s situation.

It is estimated that 1 in 50 Canadian children under the age of 17 have a diagnosis of ASD (Autism spectrum disorder), a condition which affects communication and relating to others. The short dance film Weirdo Schmerido, directed by Marites Carino and choreographed and performed by Emmanuelle Lê Phan, is inspired by neurodiversity. In this creative world, nervous behaviours triggered by social anxiety metamorphose into unexpected choreography, and difference is applauded instead of mocked.

Drifting through the winter quiet of British Columbia, Cami drives alone—grappling with her mother’s fading health and the long shadow of an absent father. Her journey is slow, reflective, marked by roadside motels, half-heard radio signals, and voices caught on aging tape recorders. Shot in part with thermal cameras, the film lingers in texture and mood, using experimental tools to explore grief, distance, and the quiet ache of connection. At the heart of it all: a remote transmission tower, humming softly in the cold.

Take a deep breath. As you exhale, imagine that in about three years, anywhere you would go on the planet you will find molecules that were inside you in this moment.

After immigrating to Canada, Ming becomes a stay-at-home father while his career-driven wife, Fei, continues to pursue her dream as a First Officer in China. Struggling with societal pressure of being an unemployed man and a growing sense of inadequacy within his family, one day, Ming sees a lost flamingo named José. He decides to rescue the bird.

Chinese Canadian dance artist Tony Chong dives into his family’s history to find his place in the world. A heartwarming and sometimes absurd film that blissfully and cautiously surrenders to the great adventure of life. A playful interpretative recounting of an immigrant’s story and legacy that launches a world of possibilities and repercussions for a diaspora future generation that seeks to find and re-identify themselves.

Revealing the Invisible, weaves and dances through the telling of a Chinese family’s story – an imaginative jigsaw puzzle crossing between reality, fiction and fantasy with larger-than-life heroic characters. Creating a fractal kaleidoscope with dance as a portal that leads us to other dimensions of time, jumping in and out of a non-linear journey into the past and back to the present.

After an unexpected interaction with her Buddhist mentor, 14-year-old Jean faces a terrifying dilemma: to stay silent, or to risk it all by confessing the ugly truth to her deeply devout Buddhist mother.

Feeling stuck in her limited immigrant status, a young Korean woman eats spicy fire noodles every day for the thrill, instead of taking risks in her own life.

A divorced Dad attempts to impress her daughter as a rockstar over a weekend full of mixed emotions.

It’s summer and the days are getting shorter. As autumn approaches, a woman reflects on her new face.

When her Mother forgets about her upcoming choir competition, 7-year-old Moa resorts to desperate measures to gain her attention and secure her attendance.

Blending memories, fiction, and confessions, Silk Spun tells the history of three generations of women from a Vietnamese family since their arrival in Quebec in 1975. In the intimacy and vulnerability of her intergenerational relationships, the director exposes the contextual disparities transforming the relationship to individual identity among the women of her family.

Locked in a room, while her daughter is watched by an ISIS sniper outside, Iqbal starts doubting ISIS promises to keep her daughter safe in exchange for the ultimate sacrifice, realizing that everything she believed in was a lie.

In Washed My Hands of It, handwashing becomes a metaphor for shedding life’s burdens. Elmira’s trembling hands portray anxiety, evolving into rawness symbolizing emotional strain. Despite the pain and bleeding, the washing persists futilely, reflecting the relentless struggle against adversity. The film delves into Elmira’s past experiences and challenges in her homeland, capturing the unyielding nature of these struggles.

Feeling inadequate as a father, Naim starts to notice unsettling changes in his wife’s behaviour and the increasing visits from his best friend Javed. With his son Talha also sensing that something is wrong, they quietly navigate their suspicions and the complexities of their family relationships.

Two small-time burglars kidnap the son of a wealthy businessman, demanding twenty thousand dollars. But when they discover that the boy is a victim of harsh discipline at home, they face a moral dilemma that blurs the line between criminals and protectors.

FISH BOY is a lyrical meditation on faith and queerness through the eyes of an Asian American teenager. When 16-year-old Patrick (played by Ian Chen, Fresh Off The Boat) questions his love for God and his sexuality, his self-discovery manifests in his skin.

Based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Dédé Chen is an author and filmmaker interested in exploring the dynamics of filiation. She holds a degree in anthropology from Laval University and completed a master’s in international relations at the University of Beijing. Upon her return, she began developing a writing practice, blending poetics and politics, and focusing on themes such as sexual violence, the body as territory, and archival work. She co-edited Les Asiatitudes (2024), the first French-language anthology of authors descending from Asian diasporas in Quebec, and has published autofiction works in literary journals such as Le double de la mère in Moebius (2021), Femmage in Le Crachoir de Flaubert (2022), and Renasiance in Estuaire (2024). Her first short film, Papaya (2022), premiered at the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, and was awarded the Prix du Coup de Coeur at the Festival Accès Asie, as well as an honorable mention at the Festival Filministes and the Vancouver Festival of Recorded Movement.

She feels a need to reconnect with her community of origin in the city and amplify the voices of adopted people. In 2021, she co-founded Soft Gong, the first French-speaking organization by and for adoptees from China.

Of Cambodian and Vietnamese origin, Laurence Ly holds a master’s degree in cinema and moving image from UQAM and a diploma in directing from L’inis. He has directed the web series LES LAURIERS (2022) and the short films CORRESPONDANCE (2022) and LE PETIT PANIER À ROULETTES (2024), which have been shown at local and international festivals. His next short-film project, with the support of the CAC and CALQ, is LA NUIT DU CANTONNIER, a fantastical tale of a Chinese road-mender in 1939. He works as a producer, director and screenwriter, and curates and programs films for Festival Accès Asie.

Steven Lee is a programmer for the Asian section of the Fantasia festival. He previously participated in the selection of short films for the HorrorHound festival. He has written film reviews for websites such as Montreal Rampage, Borrowing Tape, and Movie Marker. He has always had a personal goal of promoting Asian representation in film and music, while expressing his passion for Korean cinema.

My An (she/her) is a creative writing student and professional spectator (according to Émilie Perreault). Her poetry explores women’s anger, the legacy of immigrant families, and the joys of being a modern witch. She critiques theater from the perspective of a racialized feminist and promotes Asian artists in Quebec.

Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian origin, living between Berlin and Tiohti:áke/Montréal. Her work received multiple awards and has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Whitney Museum, Annecy, Sundance, TIFF, Videonale, among many others. Her films were nominated for the Canadian Screen Awards and for the German film critique awards.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Athena graduated from the SFU Film Production program and was a mentee at VIFF 2019. As a Taiwanese-Canadian writer-director, she likes to tell stories exploring family dynamics, culture clashes, and self-identity. She has had experience directing in both Taiwan and Canada. Her short films have been showcased in numerous festivals such as the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Taiwan’s Golden Harvest Award, and the Los Angeles Asian Film Festival. She has also received awards such as the A&E Short Filmmaker Award for Best Film and the Shaw Media Fearless Female Director Award. In May 2023, her short film for Language We Know was selected by the Aesthetical Film Festival and the Cannes Independent Film Festival. Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, and the National Film Board, Athena just completed her next short film, Sitting Bird. It is selected for Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent showcase at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner. Currently, she’s in the initial development and research phase for her first feature film script.

Bianca Rose Cheung 𐩕 is a queer Hong Kong-Canadian director and writer based in “Vancouver, BC”.

Their short films blend surrealism, emotional depth, and offbeat humour, exploring themes of identity, memory and connection. Self-taught in 3D animation, they also experiment with analogue film processing and thermal printing.

In 2025, they were selected for the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Catalyst Cohort and their short film My Dad is an Astronaut premiered at VIFF 2025. 

They acknowledge they live and work on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation and stand in solidarity with Indigenous struggles for land, sovereignty and justice.

Christopher Yip is an award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto whose works examine faith, sexuality, and love through a distinct diasporic lens.

Diego Galafassi is a director, writer and producer of documentaries, experimental film, new media and participatory performance. Diego is a transdisciplinary artist from Brazil with a practice grounded at the interface of art, sciences and co-creative processes. Galafassi’s ‘Breathe’ is an awarded mixed-reality experience that premiered at the New Frontier Program at Sundance Film Festival 2020.

Dylan is a Chinese film director from Toronto, Ontario. His most recent short film, Shrimp Fried Rice had its World Premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival where it won Best Screenplay and the Silver Audience Award for Best Short Film. 

Elmira Laki is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist based in Montreal, working across performance, video, film, drawing, and painting. Her work explores identity, diaspora, and the ways we are seen (or overlooked) within different cultural contexts.

She is developing a trilogy, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. The first part, Yesterday (2022), reflects on life in Iran and recent uprisings. Today, a long-term project that began upon her arrival in Montreal, combines scenes from her daily life with performance, capturing the presence of an Iranian woman in diaspora and exploring visibility, observation, and connection.

Laki’s work has been shown internationally. Through her interdisciplinary practice, she creates reflective spaces that invite audiences to consider belonging, memory, and the complex dynamics of being seen in a changing world.

Gavin Seal is a Writers Guild of Canada prize-winning screenwriter, Golden Sheaf-winning director and award-winning producer at Intersectionnel Films. His films explore the tension between social expectations and individual agency when faced with seemingly impossible life choices.

Giran Findlay-Liu is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker whose work blends documentary realism with intimate, character-driven storytelling. His films probe the unspoken tensions in everyday life, using a restrained yet deeply personal approach to explore identity, repression, and emotional isolation. Drawn to ambiguity, he crafts narratives that resist easy resolution, inviting the audience into the interior worlds of his characters with quiet intensity.

Graduated from Concordia with a major in film production and a minor in studio arts, Grace D. Singh is a multidisciplinary artist. She practices filmmaking and writing and illustrating. She also as a diploma in documentary filmmaking from Rivière-du-Loup’s CEGEP. Grace’s work is a dive into the fringe, ugliness and sublime beauty. Her cinema practice is informed by communautaristic values and selfrepresentation as a formal tool to create artwork.

Haaris Qadri is an emerging filmmaker based in Toronto and London and a graduate from York University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production Specialized Honours. He is currently a resident of the 2025 Canadian Film Centre Directors Lab.

His last short film majboor-e-mamool screened at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau, was featured on the Short of The Week and won Best Canadian Short Film presented by the National Film Board of Canada at the Canadian Academy recognized film festival, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. He has also screened at the 2023 TIFF Next Wave Film Festival and the Canadian Film Festival. His latest film, Jo Mera Woh Tumhara enters the film festival circuit this year.

Haaris aims to make films that blend the authenticity of naturalism with the vividness of a painter’s realism. His works delve into the essence of everyday life, capturing the subtle moments that evoke deep emotions and perhaps change. Haaris is drawn to diasporic narratives, exploring themes of identity, familial fragmentation, and the nuances of intergenerational dynamics.

Haaris has had his work supported by the Canada Council of the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the International Film Festival of South Asia’s inaugural Bright Lights Talent Fund and the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.

Hannah Polinski is a writer and filmmaker. In her work, she explores sexual expression, gender, and diasporic Asian experiences. Her first film perennials premiered at the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival (2022) and screened at multiple festivals. From poetry to film criticism, her writing has appeared in publications like the Malahat Review, Contemporary Verse 2, Frontier Poetry, and more. As a playwright and theatre director, her original works have been performed on stage in France, and most recently at the Montreal Fringe Festival (2023). She is now in post-production with Sex Dream, an experimental documentary about sexual fantasies and their realities. She lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and loves parties.

Jennifer Fan Jiang is a Chinese writer, directorbased in Toronto, Ontario. Her recent directing work Under The Kasaya was selected by several international film festivals. Her recent editing and producing work Rambha was selected by Cannes Short Film Corner and several other film festivals. Oftentimes, she tells stories by observing individuals and society, as well as her past living experience. She loves to explore humanity, religion and self-identities.

Jessica Wu is a visual artist with a background in journalism and documentary studies. She is interested in retracing stories of immigration through cultural, political and historical lenses in an attempt to answer ever-entangled questions of identity and diaspora.

Karl Kai is a Hong Kong-born Canadian writer, director, and editor. His films, showcased at FNC (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma) and DOXA, blend naturalism with a surreal, lyrical quality. Working with both actors and non-actors, he crafts immersive, emotionally resonant narratives driven by authenticity and deeply felt performances.

Kevin Jin Kwan Kim is a Korean-Canadian director and editor based in “Vancouver, BC,” the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

With a background in editing, his work sustains a distinct sense of rhythm while capturing emotions by finding the most powerful connections between shots. He values the length of every shot and has been recognized for his ability to tell intimate, relatable stories in a short span of time. He cherishes collaboration in his work and aspires to raise the voices of those in the BIPOC community.

His series of micro-shorts about his heritage including What Did They Say?, Daniel “Jun Ho” Lee and Halmeoni received viral attention as they gained over 30-million collective views across various social media platforms and has been recognized at the YDA in Cannes, Webby Awards, Shots, CBC and more. His short film Sun, Moon and Four Peaks premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival and won Grand Prix RPCE at the Oscar-qualifying Festival du Nouveau Cinema.

Kevin is currently in development of his debut feature film, My Dad, the Rockstar.

kimura byol lemoine is a conceptual multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker. Ze focuses on multi-identities such as diaspora, displacement, colorism and gender. In 1988, zer debut short film Adoption won the Grand Prix “To Be Young in Europe” at the Brussels International Super 8mm and Video Festival. In 1996, ze won the First Prize for the Scenario Competition at the First Seoul International Documentary Film Festival for To Korea, Mother Nation, and #6261 with Regard sur Montréal Cinema residency (NFB/Microclimat Films, 2016). Ze is an art curator seeking projects that give voice to (in)visible minorities.

Marguerite Ranger is a Quebec-Vietnamese artist based in Montreal, whose work revolves around video art, film photography and drawing. She began her studies in Art History and Cinema at Concordia University, before turning to a bachelor’s degree in Film Production at UQAM. Through her immersive visuals, Marguerite questions childhood reminiscence, dual identity and art as a therapeutic device. Her work revolves around retrospection as a motor for transformation and evolution. Her practice continually strives to be part of a perspective of healing, immersion, and union.‍

Filipina-Canadian documentary filmmaker and interdisciplinary research-creation artist based in Montréal. Marie-Josée Desharnais practice develops through oral-memory research, participatory fieldwork, sound, writing, and material archives, and focuses on adoption, diasporic identity, language loss, embodied memory, and relational presence. Since 2012, she has maintained a long-term writing and listening archive that forms the structural basis of her work.

Her current feature-length research cycle Weaving Identity (2025–2028) unfolds through modular scenes combining textile practices, sound research, gesture, and personal archives to examine how identity is assembled through material, relational, and sensory processes. The project is supported by UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art (NYC) and has been presented within Festival Accès Asie and CPH:X (Denmark) contexts.

Her short experimental film Surrendered (2025) explores dissociation and survival through embodied perception, while This Is Not Me / Assembly Line (2025) is a participatory living installation activated in public space, inviting passersby into acts of assembling, erasure, and recomposition.

Her rEsearch methodologies are informed by community-led and decolonial collaborations with Centre Kapwa, Refugee States (University of Toronto / Université de Montréal), the Decolonized Healing Podcast, the AAPI History Museum, and academic research initiatives focused on transracial adoption and diaspora.

While in elementary school, Marites started her journey as a bunhead, but in her teens was forced to hang up her pointe shoes. Years later, she picked up the pen to write instead about people wearing pointe shoes as the dance editor of the Montreal Mirror for more than a decade. With her background in dance and broadcast journalism, she combines her passion for dance and film through her award-winning shorts and interactive installations that have been shown internationally.. She thrives on sharing people’s stories, and particularly those who use art to overcome obstacle. She is fond of dancing slowly to fast music, biking with no hands, dish washing karaoke, and writing about herself in the third person.

Maytham Jbara is an Iraqi, Toronto-based film producer, writer, and director. He is an alumnus of the NSI–CMF Accelerator Fellowship and the EAVE On Demand Access Program for producers. He is the founder of Purattu Films, a Baghdad- and Toronto-based production company behind the award-winning feature Hanging Gardens (Venice Film Festival 2022), alongside numerous shorts and several features in development. His projects have received support from major Canadian and international institutions, including Telefilm Canada, the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils, the Red Sea Film Festival, and Beirut DC with ART.

Richard Dang is a Cambodian Canadian director dedicated to authentic and accessible storytelling. He collaborated on Carleton University’s Passage of Freedom project, helping capture over 100 oral histories from Southeast Asian refugees. He is currently developing narrative features exploring Southeast Asian diaspora identities and experiences. He looks forward to sharing approaches to accessible filmmaking through community workshops and educational programs.

Robert Mentov is a Canadian filmmaker with over a decade of experience in independent cinema. He has studied under Apichatpong Weerasethakul and participated in international film labs with B2B Doc, Tabor, and Sacdoc. Currently, he is involved in the production of several feature films, including the Burmese documentary White Tiger Column.

Rui Ting Ji is a Canadian-Chinese animator and filmmaker based in Montreal, Quebec. Playing with new and old art forms, she works in animation, interactive narratives, documentary, and animated comics. She is most interested in sharing stories of hidden perspectives and finding beauty in the smallest details. Her films tend to focus on real people or issues, and have screened around the world. She has animated for award-winning documentaries, feature films and short films alike and teaches animation in college. Her most recent film, still moving,  is an animated short film exploring the liminal moment between “what was” and “what is next” between a mother and her daughter.

Shelly Seo Bahng (she/they) is a queer writer, filmmaker, translator, facilitator and mystic born in Korea and based in Toronto. Her work is dedicated to exploring themes of misunderstandings and unbelonging, both in one’s own body and in spaces.

Sita has a pluridisciplinary design practice. Immersed within material researches and explorations, she is also fascinated by visual communication and graphic design. Her approach is intuitive and Earthcentric. Being a second generation immigrant, she wishes to contribute to the empowerment of the BIPOC communities on the land where she grew up and lives. It is by surrounding herself with collaborators sharing similar motivations that she believes and works towards the decolonization of current paradigms.

Soomin Choi (She/Her) is a Korean writer/director born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She is currently completing her BFA in the film studies program at Toronto Metropolitan University. She explores profound human nature and inner conflict by making films. She pursues a creative and personal writing style and a simple visual style allowing the audience to be immersed in a character. Her goal through films is to grant validity to those emotions that people call negative emotions.

Teyama Alkamli is an award-winning Syrian-Canadian writer, director, and producer living in Toronto. She is an alumna of DocNomads, the European Mobile Film School, Hot Docs Emerging Filmmaker Lab, the Canadian Film Centre’s Director Lab, and a current TIFF Talent Accelerator participant. Teyama’s film, Hockey Mom, was awarded Best Documentary Program at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards. Her other works have screened at international film festival such as Doc Lisboa, TIFF, and the Berlinale. She is currently developing her narrative feature debut, My Name is Jala.

Tony Chong is a multifaceted artist, born and raised in Vancouver, and based in Montreal since 1994. He is a versatile choreographer, dancer, performer, and creative director with a deep interest in diverse artistic forms, including dance, theatre, new media, film, cooking, and photography. His creative work has been recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Tony’s artistic journey has included pivotal roles, including Artistic Assistant Director for Cirque du Soleil’s Totem and Co-director of Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa. These experiences led him to co-find the collective RNTF (Remember Not to Forget) with long-time collaborator Carol Prieur. 

His film Revealing the Invisible—co-directed with filmmaker Marlene Millar—premiered at DWFNY2023 in New York. The film is currently broadcasting on BC’s Knowledge Network and is screening at festivals across Europe, Asia, and Canada. In parallel, Tony and RNTF are touring Invisible无形, a 50-minute solo dance with lasers since 2022. Tony, with his duo Wolves, recently performed at the 2025 Busan International Dance Festival in Korea and his solo, L’Inconnu, at the 2025 Furies Festival in Marsoui. 

Throughout his career, Tony has collaborated with celebrated dance companies including Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Carbon 14, La Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault, Système D (Dominique Porte), Louise Bédard Danse, Compagnie Flak (José Navas), Sinha Danse, Germany’s Steptext Dance Theatre, and Line Nault. He is also a core contributor to the Toronto/Brooklyn-based Bluemouth Inc. Collective, in the 2025 Dora Mavor Moor-winning immersive production Elephant, and worked on their interactive AI project LUCY AI, developed with artist David Usher.