SPOTLIGHT

REEL ASIAN RETURNS WITH 30TH ANNIVERSARY REEL LINE-UP

A Sunflower in Delhi - RevantikaGupta - Still

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival (Reel Asian), Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival, announced its 2026 programming lineup, marking the festival’s 30th Anniversary.

Running from November 11 to 21, 2026, with selected feature films and all shorts available online across Canada from November 16 to 29, 2026, Reel Asian’s milestone edition celebrates three decades of contemporary cinema and work from Asian, Asian diasporic, and Asian Canadian filmmakers and artistes.

The 2026 lineup features 15 feature films and 42 short films, showcasing unique contemporary stories from Canada and around the world. The festival offers attendees 10 exciting days of galas, screenings, forums and workshops.

Opening this year’s festival is Ba’s Book, the latest film by Vietnamese-Canadian director Ashley Duong, who transforms her father’s memoir into an intimate cinematic portrait. Ba’s Book won the Documentary Magazine Award at the 2026 Cannes Docs, and recently had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Centrepiece Gala presents Sunburn, the Best Canadian Film winner at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. A vibrant ode to Toronto, Sunburn unfolds on the hottest day of the year, when the popsicles are dripping, the pimples are popping, and the power is out. Best friends Vince and Shay head out into their neighbourhood in search of shade, encountering family, friends, and crushes along the way.

Other local filmmaker highlights include the 2001 charming documentary Film Club by Cyrus Sundar Singh from the newly introduced Anniversary Screening programme; The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony, from three-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and journalist Habiba Nosheen; the coming-of-age drama The Bryce Lee Story, fresh from the Vancouver International Film Festival; Strong Son, the feature debut by Winnipeg’s Ian Bawa, a former Reel Asian participant who expanded his short film into a feature; and An Incomplete Calendar, the final documentary in Sanaz Sohrabi’s essay trilogy.

“As we mark 30 years of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, we are reflecting on how the festival has grown and evolved alongside the Pan-Asian community of storytellers, filmmakers and audiences we have connected with,” said Deanna Wong, Executive Director of Reel Asian. “This milestone is an opportunity to honour the many voices that have shaped our history while embracing new ideas, perspectives and creating possibilities that will carry the festival forward for many generations to come.”

Julie Roy, Executive Director and CEO of Telefilm added, “Festivals such as Reel Asian hold a vital place in the global film ecosystem. As spaces for discovery and dialogue, they put films at the heart of the conversation and spark collective reflection, contributing to the vitality and reach of cinema from here and around the world.”

A still from Naveen Chaubal’s Pinball.

Highlights include:

Film Club (anniversary screening), Dir. Cyrus Sundar Singh*, Sat, Nov 14 AT 10:00 am, TIFF Lightbox Cinema 4: In 1971, Canada became the first country in the world to recognize multiculturalism as official government policy. In that context, 11-year-old Cyrus Sundar Singh joined an after-school film club whose members all happened to be the children of immigrants. While learning to love film, they also grappled with their identities – were they Chinese, Indian, or Italian? Were they Canadian? Together, they made a short film that explored these ideas and more. In this charming and deeply nostalgic 2001 documentary, Sundar Singh reunites his classmates to talk about their experiences growing up in a multicultural Toronto neighbourhood – the everyday racism and bullying and the struggles at home, and how the club gave them a sense of belonging that their country did not yet offer.