Filmi 21! Virtual Edition
Filmi Toronto’s South Asian Film Festival Celebrating 21 Years!
December 27th, 2020
21st Filmi: Toronto’s South Asian film festival
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0 Loretta’s flowers
SYNOPSIS
Loretta’s Flowers is a queer character drama about a persistent and insatiable hunger for connection, even in the face of diverse social abundance. During the course of a long summer’s day in Toronto, a young woman named Loretta cycles between increasingly intimate encounters with three strikingly different people, and yet still goes home lonely and unsatisfied.
First, she meets Camille, a recent transplant to Toronto from Winnipeg, at a patio bar in Kensington Market. Camille earnestly tries to initiate conversation, eager to make a friend in her new city, but Loretta struggles to reciprocate, seeming irresolute and unresponsive to cues. Camille grows confused, and Loretta eventually resigns herself to the limitations of their interaction. Heading out of the downtown, Loretta stops outside the home of Bailey, an aging part time punk rocker.
While Bailey initially assumes a paternal role for Loretta during a somewhat familiar conversation, she hints at a desire for deeper rapport. When Bailey seems to ignore her signals, they share a moment of physical affection that complicates the nature of their relationship, and the certainty of Loretta’s sexual orientation.
Finally, we find Loretta in the bed of another woman, Frances, shortly after making love. Reduced to trying to rouse her attention by tracing lines in Frances’ back with a pointed finger, Loretta is at a low moment, feeling a million miles away. Frances, in her efforts to reassure Loretta, only exacerbates things. But, their level of personal familiarity implies a longer term relationship, which makes the nature of Loretta’s previous encounters more obscure.
Brendan Prost
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0 Do we belong?
An Indian immigrant in Kansas is shot and killed in a senseless hate crime, leaving his wife to grapple with the question of whether America is truly her home.
Director:
Sofian Khan
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0 Maternal
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Synopsis:
As a young Canadian-born daughter waits for acceptance to her dream arts program, her
excitement turning to despondence as time goes on, her Caribbean mother must make a heartwrenching
decision to make sure her daughter escapes the cycle of poverty the two are caught in.
DIRECTOR
ANDREW SIMPSON
After completing the film production program at Confederation College, Andrew has gone on to work in the film industry in a myriad of different roles ranging from on set work to behind the scenes as a CSR at William F White. Select filmography includes directing Ils L’ont Pendu, working as Director of Photography on Bondage Prison and 1st assistant director on films The Railpath Hero, Esmerelda’s Castle and Melissa! Before Maternal, Hey Abbott! was Andrew’s latest directorial effort currently in festivals.
WRITER
RICHARD YOUNG
Richard is a South Asian-Canadian screenwriter/actor and an alumnus of both the Writers’ Guild of Canada Bell Media Diverse Screenwriting Program and the Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) Kid’s TV Writing Bootcamp. He has written for the television cartoon 16 Hudson (TVO), co-created/wrote the digital series Sudden Master (OMNI/Rogers) and created the digital sketch series Off2Kali which screened at ReelWorld. Richard’s acting credits include the feature The History Of Love (acting opposite Sir Derek Jacobi), Taken (NBC), My Secret Valentine (Hallmark), Kim’s Convenience(CBC), Incorporated (SyFy) and The Strain (FX). Instagram/Twitter: @RichardYoungRY
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0 Blindspot
Blindspots
Genre : Drama
Length : 5 min 51 secs
Synopsis
A woman in her 30s left astounded when bitter truths about her so-called perfect life revealed in an unforeseen encounter
Director’s Bio :
Manu is a Toronto based filmmaker pursuing his passion for creative and artistic expression showcasing characters relative to our heart from day to day life. His debut into film making started with an award winning short It’s Within which was selected as a finalist and screened at 30+ film festivals across the globe
Being born and brought up in India, he brings rich set of cultural and diverse experience along with his life experiences of living in US for the past 10 years. His background in psychology reflects in the thoughts, ideas and representation of himself and his stories.
Attached the posted and Director’s pic
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0 Cake and Insulin
Title: Cake and Insulin
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 7:16
A diabetic family physician is stopped by his nephew when he wants to eat a slice of cake.
Director: Haaris Qadri
Haaris Qadri is currently in his fourth year studying film production at York University. Inspired by his community, he aims to showcase narratives currently underrepresented in mainstream media.
This is a personal short film- almost entirely based on an experience with my uncle. Imran is directly based on my uncle (and is played by him) being a family physician and a diabetic he is aware of his dietary restrictions but persists on making his own lifestyle choices. With this film I aim to share a personal film and preserve memories of my uncle as well as presenting core themes and issues which exist in South Asian households using comedic accents. Ultimately I want the film to feel universal with audiences being able to directly relate to this experience with family members.
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0 Dust to Dust
Title: Dust to Dust
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 12.16
Dust to Dust touches upon the fundamental truth of life – death – and the eternal human quest to transcend it. In the ageless city of Lahore, Pakistan, it is business as usual for Ashraf as he digs yet another grave. His work as a gravedigger requires him to deal with death on a daily basis. Nevertheless, as he digs deeper, he grows firmer in his resolve to rise above darkness.
Director:
Mahnoor Zaidi
Director’s Biography: Mahnoor Zaidi is a director(film and theatre), writer, actor and a producer from Pakistan. She studied film production at York University, Toronto, graduating in 2017. Since a young age, she has started making content that has made an impact on the society. Among her accolades are achieving a semi-finalist position in the Student Oscars, best documentary awards and many official selections in Film festivals.
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0 Becoming Leela
Title: Becoming Leela
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 11
Becoming Leela is a coming of age story of a closeted yet feisty teenager, Leela, living with her high-handed all knowing mother who wants her daughter to fit herself into social gender expectations. Rejecting all of her mother’s opinions, Leela looks forward to leaving her home in Delhi to go to university in the west with her secret girlfriend where she could be free of all that limits her. Things don’t work out according to Leela’s plan, yet finds herself in Toronto on her own with a chance at a new life. In her new world she is confronted with the losses she has had to bear to get a chance at a different life. In her quest for freedom, she finds a new connection to her mother and a home in herself.
Director Biography – AJ
AJ is a queer brown immigrant & third culture kid. They have often been drawn to exploring themes about survival, revival, healing, journeys, and home.
AJ is an avid fiction reader and TV watcher. Their taste ranges from Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death to Gossip Girl. They love dancing, fashion and dreaming about beaches.
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0 Candyland
Title: CANDYLAND
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 10
Clementine finds herself trapped in a dollhouse-like room adorned with treats, trinkets and plenty of hard candies. Her only companion is Rosemary, an unsettling young girl that deeply cares for Clementine and wants to keep her safe forever within this candy-coloured purgatory
Director Biography – Simone Swaby
Simone Swaby is a Jamaican-Canadian York University film student from Toronto, Canada. She has been enamoured with the power of images since a young age. Thus, she continues the challenge herself and her crew to make visually rich and thematically relevant films.
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0 Working Lunch
Title: Working Lunch
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 12
Synopsis:
A regular work day for an Indian-American, a queer professional, and a Trump voter is changed when they find someone has scrawled graffiti on their lunch restaurant. They come together to remove the message of hate themselves with a unique solution.
Director:
Shilpa Sunthankar is a screenwriter, director, and producer with an affinity for stories about different cultures in coexistence, thanks to her background as an Indian-American woman raised in the “cowboy country” of Colorado. Her experience has spanned the worlds of independent film, animation, and commercials, as well as creative agencies like Wieden + Kennedy and Ziba. She was awarded Best Director at the Los Angeles FirstGlance Film Festival for her short thriller, The Company of Thieves, which was also licensed by the ShortsHD Channel and launched on IndieFlix. Her award-winning short, Biography of an American Hostess, was licensed by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Shilpa graduated with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts after interning for BBC London, and attending the 35mm Filmmaking Master Class at FAMU in Prague. She now lives in Portland, Oregon and is working to direct her first feature, Continental Divide, an outdoor thriller taking place on the U.S.- Mexico border.
Links:
http://www.pushstartpictures.com
http://www.facebook.com/WorkingLunchShortFilm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6974054
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0 Stall
Title: Stall
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 2
Synopsis: An office worker is surprised by an unwelcome visitor at the worst time.
Director: Elvis Deane makes things. He has directed the feature films Separation Anxiety (2014) and The Ex (2018). His short films include Blindfold (2017), Automate (2017), and Deadline Dawn (2015).
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0 Heart
Title: Heart
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 8
On a day filled with great news a couple waits for the perfect moment to celebrate.
SYNOPSIS- Monica and Kevin are a happily married couple dreaming of building a family together. But Kevin has been out of work and their finances are strained. Monica finds out that she’s pregnant with their first child. She day dreams about what their family might look like but she doesn’t know how they’ll manage if Kevin is out of work.
Director: Julie Brar
Julie Brar was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Julie went to theatre school in Los Angeles. She has split her time between L.A, Toronto and Vancouver. Julie is a Toronto based actor, writer and producer who works in film, television and theatre.
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0 Trust issues
Title: Trust Issues
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 4
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0 Priya
Title: Priya
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 8
Priya, a timid high school graduate, struggles to find balance between appeasing her conservative Indian mother and preventing her secret relationship with Ashley from falling apart.
Director(s):
Daniela Pinto
Kyle Smith
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0 Raising the Bar
Title: Raising the Bar
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 8
Uh oh! Neil Daffodil doesn’t know how to flirt, so he goes on an epic quest to learn the sacred art. Shot on iPhone SE with Filmic Pro, edited in Final Cut Pro X. Audio recorded on a Zoom H5. Special thanks to STACK and Capo Salerno in Toronto.
Director:
Satraj Bajaj is an Indian-born Canadian writer/director living in Toronto, Canada. Satraj started his filmmaking career in middle school, making LEGO stop-motion films with his friends during lunch break. He continued on to make several live-action films throughout middle school and high school, and attends George Brown College for Video Design and Production. He is most notable for his fondness of time-travel stories, his obsessive attention to audio clarity and video stability, and his repeated (and ongoing) use of Neel Soman as an actor in his films.
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0 To No Man’s Land
Title: To No Man’s Land
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 12
When a catastrophic attack puts a peaceful galactic nation on the brink of war, a lowly Scout is sent to an isolated planet to obtain the whereabouts of the one man who may know who committed the attack. But he quickly finds out, that there are other players in the game, trying to incite a war between the peaceful factions in the universe.
Director Biography – Khizer Khani
Khizer is a Pakistani director, screenwriter, and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He studied as an Engineer before making the switching to Digital Media. In the midst his switch in programs he started to get into storytelling. From writing short stories to novellas, we loved to write. He eventually fell into writing screenplays and eventually started to direct the stories he would write.
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0 Dark Nun
Title: Dark Nun
Premiere: Theatrical Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 5
Synopsis: A Priest receives a letter from a Dark Nun with the words “Help Me” written in Blood!
Director Bio:
Sarvan Singh is a Writer, Producer, and Director. He is operating Dalewood Productions since 2010. Sarvan Singh has always enjoyed film-making. In fact, by the time he was 4 years old, he had already been acting in student films . Soon afterwards Sarvan Singh began writing, filming and directing his own films. After graduating in 2008 from the Toronto Film School; Sarvan went on to direct, edit and shoot projects from around the world. Some big names include Netflix, HBO, Worldstar Hiphop, Weedmaps, just to name a few..
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0 ClownLove
Title: Clown Love
Premiere: Theatrical Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 11
Synopsis: Its the night of the big dance and Randy is ready to ask the girl of his dreams Jane Wilkson to be his date. Unfortunately for Randy Jane doesn’t feel the same way and after a bitter rejection and being called a clown the dark demons of Randy consume his innocence.
Director Bio:
Sarvan Singh is a Writer, Producer, and Director. He is operating Dalewood Productions since 2010. Sarvan Singh has always enjoyed film-making. In fact, by the time he was 4 years old, he had already been acting in student films . Soon afterwards Sarvan Singh began writing, filming and directing his own films. After graduating in 2008 from the Toronto Film School; Sarvan went on to direct, edit and shoot projects from around the world. Some big names include Netflix, HBO, Worldstar Hiphop, Weedmaps, just to name a few..
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0 A Birthday Surprise
Title: A Birthday Surprise
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 12
A Birthday Surprise
An Indian boy Rahul is waiting for his birthday surprise from his girlfriend Melissa. Melissa has promised to Rahul that she will travel from Paris, France to give him a birthday surprise. Rahul receives a package for his Birthday. Package contains a GPS that is pre-programmed so that he can navigate to the surprise. He finds more and more clues on his way which eventually turns into something disturbing. End of the day, did he meet Melissa? was it a real surprise?
Director – Praveen Raj Ganesan
Praveen is a Director, actor, editor and producer living in Pickering, Canada. Born in Sri Lanka to Indian Parents, raised in India, Salem, Tamil Nadu. By the age of 18 he had travelled all over India and the Philippines to study Aviation. He holds a Commercial Pilot license from the Philippines.
Acting, directing was always a passion for him from his early childhood days and that lead to a lot of stage plays and a few TV shows. Stage plays that he directed and acted in his school days won alot of awards between the year 2003 and 2005. To support his family financially he studied IT computer Networking he moved to Canada in December 2010. After finishing his studies he started working as an IT Network Security Consultant. This did not make him stop chasing his dream. He started networking and built his own team to produce short films and commercials. He learned photography, cinematography and editing to support his films. He is 9 to 5 as an IT geek and the rest of the time he has worked, learned and made movies. After about 5 years of working full time he quit is job to start his own IT, media and Digital Marketing company Kural Inc. so that he has more time on hand to make films.
His first Short film in Canada was Ethiri The Enemy(2015), a tamil Short film. In 2016, 2017 he founded Thamziha foundation a nonprofit to help Indian farmers that he has featured in a lot of political awareness videos. Some of his videos has earned around 1 Million views in Facebook.
FB Link: https://www.facebook.com/nnthamizha/videos/278548585926803/
2017 he has worked in the following short films
Mr Moden (2017) – Director, Producer
Happy Birthday Rahul (2017) – Director, Actor, Producer, Editor
Lecture (2017) – Actor, Producer
My Favourite Dinner (2017) – Director, Producer
Dumped (2017) – Director, Producer
Ethiri (2015) – Director, Actor, Producer, Editor (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPJ_tLC8mQ)
His first feature film is in the preproduction phase and expected to be released by late Summer 2018
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0 Doori
Title: Dhoori
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 8
In a strange, unfamiliar place, Gurjit tries to navigate life with ‘the man’. Homesick,
isolated, yet hopeful, Gurjit tries tackling a mundane existence, and at the same time tries to appease a companion she knows nothing of. What is greater, the distance between her new home and the life she previously lived, or the distance between her and ‘the man’?
Director: Sumit Judge
Talent and writer with the People of the Community YouTube channel. This includes producing and speaking on a weekly podcast, in addition to writing, acting and directing comedic sketches and live charity roasts. Wrote, directed and produced two short films. One of which won the Air Canada Award at the 2015 Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, leading to the film being screened on Air Canada flights in May 2016. Other gigs include script supervisor and assistant director on various short films. Also acted as the short-film coordinator for the Mosaic South Asian Film
Festival held in Mississauga, Ontario in 2017.
A member of the South Asian diaspora using film and comedy to bring light to untold stories within our community. Moreover, working towards completing a legal degree in the hopes of utilizing said degree to both fund my filmmaker aspirations and work towards securing justice for downtrodden members of society.
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0 Faceoff
Title: Faceoff
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 5
http://taalproductions.com/index.html
Faceoff starts by capturing the fine details of the instruments, the fibres and textures of the Tabla, Mridangam and Violin. One at a time we see hands playing and slowly moving to reveal the faces of the players. The beginning depicts a feeling of solitude, slightly dark and dramatic, musicians in their own space.
As the music starts to build up we see a few glimpses of a beautiful dancer, sitting almost like a statue clad in a bright crimson dress.
She slowly starts to move by making a few hand gestures, a ritual to prepare her dance.
Although we don’t see the players and dancers in the same space, there is a feeling they are aware of each other.
The dancer looks as if through a veil to see who is on the other side. The players are getting prepared for something.
As the music intensifies the dancer turns into their space where they begin to faceoff into a final crescendo.
The ending signifies the last final detail of the mudra (hand gesture) and brings back the close ups from the beginning of the film.
As in Indian classical music the ending also signifies the beginning of something new.
The look and surrounding of the film is kept minimalistic and stark, with the intention to bring out the beauty of the instruments and the art form itself.
Director Biography – Melissa Das-Arp
Melissa Das-Arp was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and watched her father create storyboards, direct, produce and edit documentaries.
When she moved to Canada she became involved in North Indian music (tabla) and started producing promotional videos.
Now Melissa works mainly on creating storyboards, directing and producing videos for music and dance.
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0 My Favorite Dinner
Title: My Favourite Dinner
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 3
A stoic couple are concerned about the health of the younger generation and how that will affect their meal quality.
Director Biography – Praveen Raj Ganesan
Praveen is a Director, actor, editor and producer living in Pickering, Canada. Born in Sri Lanka to Indian Parents, raised in India, Salem, Tamil Nadu. By the age of 18 he had travelled all over India and the Philippines to study Aviation. He holds a Commercial Pilot license from the Philippines.
Acting, directing was always a passion for him from his early childhood days and that lead to a lot of stage plays and a few TV shows. Stage plays that he directed and acted in his school days won alot of awards between the year 2003 and 2005. To support his family financially he studied IT computer Networking he moved to Canada in December 2010. After finishing his studies he started working as an IT Network Security Consultant. This did not make him stop chasing his dream. He started networking and built his own team to produce short films and commercials. He learned photography, cinematography and editing to support his films. He is 9 to 5 as an IT geek and the rest of the time he has worked, learned and made movies. After about 5 years of working full time he quit is job to start his own IT, media and Digital Marketing company Kural Inc. so that he has more time on hand to make films.
His first Short film in Canada was Ethiri The Enemy(2015), a tamil Short film. In 2016, 2017 he founded Thamziha foundation a nonprofit to help Indian farmers that he has featured in a lot of political awareness videos. Some of his videos has earned around 1 Million views in Facebook.
FB Link: https://www.facebook.com/nnthamizha/videos/278548585926803/
2017 he has worked in the following short films
Mr Moden (2017) – Director, Producer
Happy Birthday Rahul (2017) – Director, Actor, Producer, Editor
Lecture (2017) – Actor, Producer
My Favourite Dinner (2017) – Director, Producer
Dumped (2017) – Director, Producer
Ethiri (2015) – Director, Actor, Producer, Editor (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPJ_tLC8mQ)
His first feature film is in the preproduction phase and expected to be released by late Summer 2018
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0 Nigel and Percy go to Niagara
21st Filmi: Toronto's South Asian Film Festival 2021 