Join us for two nights of films that explore Southeast Asian life and culture.
Day 1 | Wednesday, 05 March 2025 | 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to reserve a seat.
Day 2 | Wednesday, 12 March 2025 | 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to reserve a seat.
Screening location for both days:
Nick Mirkopoulos Screening Room | Room 004, Accolade East Building, York University, Keele Campus
[Click on the following for: Directions via transit or car | Google Maps | Parking]
The selected films include a feature-length documentary that explores the lives of underprivileged youth in the Philippines who study dance and hope for a better tomorrow, and a series of shorts that explore racial tensions, identity, and the challenges faced by migrants.
This selection of films were previously screened at international film festivals, including the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, and collectively have won numerous festival awards.
We are screening them for you, the York University community and the wider community at large, for free!
Reserve your seat today!
The event is presented by the York Centre for Asian Research, and brought to you in partnership with the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. It is sponsored by the Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative / Initiative canadienne pour l’étude du sud-est asiatique (CSEASI/ICESEA) funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. For more on CSEASI/ICESEA Initiatives see: https://cseasi.ca/.
DAY ONE
Day 1 | Wednesday, 05 March 2025 | 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to reserve a seat.
Nick Mirkopoulos Screening Room | Room 004, Accolade East Building, York University, Keele Campus
[Click on the following for: Directions via transit or car | Google Maps | Parking]
Two films (by York University professors!) will be screened, a feature-length and a short.
One Thing I Can Afford, by Louie Sanchez
Short | 2024 | 4 mins | Canada | Dir: Casey Mecija
The music video for One Thing I Can Afford, by Louie Sanchez, broadly addresses queer and trans friendship in the diaspora, Filipinx masculinities, and everyday enactments of transgenerational care.
Casey Mecija is an accomplished multidisciplinary artist, primarily working in music and film. She is an Assistant Professor at York University in the Department of Communication and Media Studies.
A Will To Dream
Feature Length | 2021 | 95 mins | Philippines | Dir: Patrick Alcedo
A WILL TO DREAM touches on issues of teenage pregnancy, illegal drugs, precarity of labour, and inconsistent governmental support in poverty alleviation. It movingly illustrates how dance when partnered with altruistic teaching has the power to possibly overcome these socio-economic inequities and political challenges.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/555462876
Patrick Alcedo is a dance ethnographer, a specialist on Philippine traditional dances and a documentary filmmaker. He is a Professor in the Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance.
DAY TWO
Day 2 | Wednesday, 12 March 2025 | 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to reserve a seat.
Nick Mirkopoulos Screening Room | Room 004, Accolade East Building, York University, Keele Campus
[Click on the following for: Directions via transit or car | Google Maps | Parking]
A series of five short films will be presented that will collectively tell a loose narrative. It begins with the lives of youth in island Southeast Asia and transitions to the lives of Southeast Asian migrants to the West.
Easter Epic
Short | 2024 | 16 mins | Canada | Dir: Alejandro Yoshizawa & Y-Dang Troeung
On the evening of the 1987 "Easter Epic" hockey playoff game, a young Cambodian girl grapples with her Canadian identity in a small town in rural Ontario.
Alejandro Yoshizawa is a Vancouver-based filmmaker specializing in grassroots and marginalized people’s stories, oral histories, and community documentaries.
Y-Dang Troeung (張依蘭) (ទ្រឿងអ៊ីដាង) was a writer and scholar based in Vancouver, who passed away in fall 2022 of pancreatic cancer.
Lola
Short | 2023 | 11 mins | USA | Dir: Grace Hanna
Tessie, a 13-year-old science prodigy, journeys into her grandma's deteriorating mind to save one precious memory they have together.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/914981514
Grace Hanna is a Filipino American filmmaker. Their film, Halcyon Days, is sponsored by Film Independent and received Panavision’s NFP Grant. Their short, Lola, won the Directorial Debut Award at Indy Shorts.
Perfected Grammar
Short | 2023 | 11 mins | Hungry, Indonesia | Dir: Andrea Suwito
A Mother teaches her Hungarian-speaking Daughter her native language, Indonesian, but the lesson unearths the Mother’s turbulent relationship with her homeland. Against the liveliness of Budapest, the Daughter uncovers poignant truths, their everyday moments narrating Indonesia’s dark history and a longing for a place once called “home”.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3WEN1e_jI
Andrea Suwito is a filmmaker from Semarang, Indonesia. Her films have been screened at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Doc Edge International Film Festival and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, amongst others.
Rosa's Flowers
Short | 2024 | 18 mins | Canada | Dir: Amanda Ann-Min Wong
In 1998 Indonesia, two girls promise to stay friends forever. Twenty-five years later, after experiencing a traumatic event, Emily dreams about Rosa, her childhood friend.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosasflowers__/
Amanda Ann-Min Wong (they/she) is a Toronto-based filmmaker. Originally from Southeast Asia, their work often explores memory, nostalgia, and community from a tenderly crafted diasporic perspective.
Washhh
Short | 2024 | 23 mins | Ireland, Malaysia | Dir: Mickey Lai
Set in Malaysia's National Service training camp, Jia Hui, a female ethnic-Chinese trainee, is commanded by her teacher to lead her multiracial female comrades in washing stained sanitary pads in the middle of the night.
Trailer: https://vurchel.com/v/29509/washhh-mickey-lai
Born in Malaysia, Mickey Lai is a filmmaker who graduated with a master of film and TV production at MetFilm School in London. Lai is interested in telling stories about diverse cultural values, mortality, and self-identity.
The event is presented by the York Centre for Asian Research, and brought to you in partnership with the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. It is sponsored by the Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative / Initiative canadienne pour l’étude du sud-est asiatique (CSEASI/ICESEA) funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. For more on CSEASI/ICESEA Initiatives see: https://cseasi.ca/.