By This weekend I attended Toronto’s Reel Asian International Film Festival, a celebration of East and Southeast Asian cinema and homegrown talent. Toronto is one of, if not the, most multicultural cities in the world, with nearly 50% of the demographic comprised of ethnic populations. Given that, Toronto is a great stage for any cultural cinematic event, not just the more recognized Toronto International Film Festival. With all the diversity Toronto has to offer, there is not only an audience for most events, but a force of creative initiative from within the cultural groups that these events promote. An important mandate of the Reel Asian festival is to give voice to often marginalized experiences and lifeways, or as the introduction to each film read, to “sew new narratives into the picture.â€
While I could not attend the entire run of the festival, I have come away with a sample of Asian cinema that I think covers the extreme ends of more than one spectrum. On one end is Suite Suite Chinatown, a non-linear audio-visual presentation created by seven local emerging filmmakers, most second generation Canadians. Suite Suite Chinatown qualifies as an amateur experimental piece compared to other films on…
This weekend I attended Toronto’s Reel Asian International Film Festival, a celebration of East and Southeast Asian cinema and homegrown talent. Toronto is one of, if not the, most multicultural cities in the world, with nearly 50% of the demographic comprised of ethnic populations. Given that, Toronto is a great stage for any cultural cinematic event, not just the more recognized Toronto International Film Festival. With all the diversity Toronto has to offer, there is not only an audience for most events, but a force of creative initiative from within the cultural groups that these events promote. An important mandate of the Reel Asian festival is to give voice to often marginalized experiences and lifeways, or as the introduction to each film read, to “sew new narratives into the picture.”
While I could not attend the entire run of the festival, I have come away with a sample of Asian cinema that I think covers the extreme ends of more than one spectrum. On one end is Suite Suite Chinatown, a non-linear audio-visual presentation created by seven local emerging filmmakers, most second generation Canadians. Suite Suite Chinatown qualifies as an amateur experimental piece compared to other films on the schedule (IP Man 2, Dooman River), but represents an important merging of young and old generations, and old world and new world negotiations. On the other end of the spectrum, in both the professional and geographic senses, is the workshop and showcase I attended put on by Japanese award-winning animator, Koji Yamamura.
Continue after the jump to hear more about Suite Suite Chinatown. Another post on Koji Yamamura to follow this Tuesday.
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Suite Suite Chinatown is a collaboration between seven local directors and animators (all but one, pictured above), that focuses on their interpretations of the Chinese immigrant experience–mostly their impressions of the generations that immigrated before them–and the spacial phenomena that is Chinatown. While most everyone knows what Chinatown is, or where the local version of it resides, they may not realize how Chinatown is or why. As one of the film’s directors–and the festival’s Artistic Director–Heather Leung explained, Chinatowns emerged at the turn of the twentieth century as ghettos, segregated areas that Asian communities resigned themselves to in response to racial and systemic prejudice.
At the same time, Chinatowns are a heartland of culture within North America for generations of Chinese Americans and Canadians. The title credits for Suite Suite Chinatown features an iconic Chinatown gateway, like the one pictured above (this image comes from dir. Lilian Chan's vignette), drowning in water, lines blurring, while the title characters float across the screen and away. That was the story I thought I would see. History slipping away. Sadness. But as Leung also noted after the screening, the film aims to create a positive experience out of what has been marginalized for over a century. The collaborative approach makes this task possible, weaving in and out of a collective narrative, touching down briefly, but on many perspectives, with great vibrancy, humour, and frankness. Highlights include animated Mandarin and Cantonese lessons (dir: Howie Shia) and Chan’s animated piece on cultural disposability and diaspora.
Suite Suite Chinatown was a true pleasure to behold. And I saw it all from third row, centre. The name comes to mean "sweet," in the context of homage to family and celebration, and in the novel presentation, featuring a 20-piece high school orchestra that looked both adorably proper and nervous (pictured above with dir. Aram Siu Wai Collier). The film is "suite" in the musical context, with Theo Mathien’s original compositions played skillfully by the students and live accompaniment by electronic and acoustic duo EXERCISERS (Angie Molina & Arthur Yeung). Musical highlights included a tongue-in-cheek Spanish interlude, provided by Molina.
The filmmakers were as interested in inspiring cultural awareness–sewing new narratives–as it was participation, inviting the audience to provide “live foley” for it’s concluding vignette, “The Suprise Party” (dir: Joyce Wong). When I entered the Royal Theatre, I noticed that all the cup holders had been stuffed with colourful tissue paper, and thought, “Genius decorating tactic.” As it turns out, the paper was the perfect foley prop for creating the sounds of birthday party clean-up, and the construction of beautiful paper air balloon. People also stomped and rustled around, and were genuinely thrilled in the moment, as they were the rest of the Suite Suite Chinatown experience.
For anyone reading this in the Toronto area, the entire experience is being recreated on Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m in the rotunda of the Scarborough Civic Centre.
[gateway image via Reel Asian; all other images by author]