Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival: - 11/27-12/1/02 - Festival Wraps

Rock music, Oedipal rebellion and cinema history were the highlights of the sixth Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. The autumnal festival gathers the cinematic best of the global Asian diaspora, shunning the chop-socky flicks of the Fantasia festival and ignoring the big-budget Jet Li's of Hollywood. Shorter, yet more focused than last year's edition, this year's program highlighted Thai cinema and Asian-Canadian film pioneer, Mary Stephen.

The Bloor, Toronto's venerable rep cinema, was packed for opening night film, Lolo's Child, by hometown director Romeo Candido. The audience warmly received this drama about a young Filipino-Canadian coming home to resolve his relationship with his abusive father who's dying. Lolo's Child evolved out of a one-man stage show and book on domestic violence. The movie is an uneven but sincere debut that suffers from excessive voice-over narration and a patchy script. The film doesn't dig deep enough into the central father-son relationship and could have lost some of its minor characters and subplots. However, Lolo's Child is stylishly edited and features a tremendous soundtrack. Candido has a sharp ear and eye that will yield great rewards in the future.

The generation gap also ran through the Dirty Laundry program, a strong collection of shorts examining dysfunctional families. Helen Haeyaung Lee's Sophie is a chilling study about a Korean-American girl trying to whisk her and her mother away from her abusive father. Writing, acting and direction are solid. The complex mother-daughter relationship feels real and poignant as the child gets caught in the middle of conflicting family loyalties. Surplus, by American Joy Dietrich, offers a more sympathetic Korean father, a peasant who must sacrifice one of his four young daughters so he can feed the rest. Set in rural Korea in the past, Surplus never lapses into melodrama. It tells the tragic tale of child abandonment with economy and grace. In contrast, Georgia Lee's Educated is a delightfully vicious black comedy about an Asian-American girl who can't stand the pressure of scoring top marks to get into university. With a nod to Heathers, Educated's kids are led on leashes by their shallow, materialistic parents .

Two Canadian shorts, Ohm-Ma by Ruthann Lee and Carolyn Wong's Yin Yang/Jade Love, try to bridge the generation gap. Both are bittersweet valentines to the filmmakers' mothers. The former examines the gulf between a daughter and her mother who disowns her for being a lesbian--taboo in Korean culture. The latter is a compelling bio about Wang's grandmother, who endured forced marriage and racism to immigrate from China. The story of Wong's grandmother could be that of countless Chinese women who moved to Canada at the turn of the century when it was hostile to Asians. Life was hard and unfair, yet she endured for the sake of her children. She emerges as a hero.

The festival paid respect to two pioneers. Hong Kong immigrant Mary Stephen returned to Canada from France (where she now edits Eric Rohmer's movies) to deliver a Q&A and host two of her pictures; the drama, Ombres de Soie, and the profile documentary, Vision from the Edge: Breytenbach Painting the Lines. Similarly, the festival unearthed the 1966 Canadian feature, The Offering, a rough gem by David Secter (Winter Kept Us Warm) about an Anglo-Canadian stagehand (Ratch Wallace) who falls in love with a dancer from the visiting Peking Chinese Dance Troupe. Probably the first Canadian feature with an interracial cast, The Offering is solid, engaging and long overdue for a revival.

Art and fun comingled at this year's festival. Art-house pictures such as festival-circuit darling, Mysterious Object at Noon by Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul, played alongside the Hi-8 video rawness of Scumrock by San Francisco's Jon Moritsugu (too raw in my book). The rock 'n' roll spirit carried over to many parties featuring live bands and DJs at downtown night spots. Credit should go to the new programming triumvirate of executive director Sally Lee and artistic directors Jane Kim and Nobu Adilman for opening up this niche festival. This year's filmmakers reached beyond the traditional themes of identity and race and examined more personal issues.

The Asian population in North America is expected to double in a decade, and Toronto holds the second-largest population of Asians on the continent. Yet the Western mainstream continues to marginalize Asian filmmakers. This is where film festivals come in. They must encourage filmmakers and challenge audiences. So far, Reel Asian is succeeding. Now, will Asian filmmakers seize this opportunity?

Allan Tong is a Toronto filmmaker and freelance journalist. His film, The Red Album, which features a North American/Asian cast, is in development.

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