DESI DIARY

REELWORLD FILM FESTIVAL RETURNS

Vinay Giridhar’s documentary feature, Emergence: Out of the Shadows, follows the story of three Sikh Indians in Metro Vancouver sharing their raw and honest coming out stories.

The 21st edition of the Reelworld Film Festival returns October 20 to 27 with an even greater selection of films by racially diverse Canadian filmmakers and media artists from across the country.

Canada’s leading racially diverse film showcase, the Reelworld Film Festival, stands firm in its continued commitment to exclusively showcasing and investing in Canadian filmmakers who are Indigenous, Black, Asian, South Asian, and People of Colour.

This year, the festival showcases 41 Canadian directors and the hundreds of racially diverse Canadian producers, writers, actors and crew members involved in the creation of these films. There will also be 13 panel discussions focusing on the film topics and their impact and perspectives on relevant social issues. Live industry panels will connect filmmakers and audiences with veteran industry professionals who share their experience and knowledge and mixers will help connect emerging artists with gatekeepers.

The festival takes place with a hybrid format this year with both in-person screenings at the Paradise Theatre in Bloorcourt Village (1006c Bloor St West) and digital screenings via Reelworld’s Digital Cinema.

This year's schedule boasts a line-up full of impactful stories that remind us of the importance of human connection and how the past informs our present.

Highlights include:

• Vinay Giridhar’s documentary feature, Emergence: Out of the Shadows, follows the story of three Sikh Indians in Metro Vancouver sharing their raw and honest coming out stories.

For Kayden, Jag, and Amar, awakening to and expressing their sexuality within conservative South Asian families was a lonely and terrifying experience. Denial, shame and despair haunted their youths, even threatening their lives. Their disparate journeys converge around a shared sense of compassion and healing as they bravely convey their often heart-wrenching stories. Confronted with tradition and taboo in their Punjabi Sikh cultures, resisting silence, Jag’s parents and Amar’s mother choose love over rejection, offering courage and inspiration to individuals and communities struggling with acceptance. Tender, thoughtful and teary, Emergence: Out of the Shadows asserts a potent and transformative voice in support of marginalized queer youth and their families.

Canada legalized gay marriage back in 2005. India decriminalized homosexuality only in 2018, with same-sex marriage still a far-off dream. These disparate timelines may help explain why many Indian immigrants in Canada still struggle to accept LGBTQ+ folks in their own communities.

• In The Rumbling Belly Of Motherland by Brishkay Ahmed. With suicide bombers around the corners and sporadic Taliban attacks, Afghan reporters’ lives are in the hands of destiny. Even worse for Afghan female journalists, who do double-duty battling both the extreme dangers and the conservative, patriarchal society that continues to ignore the women’s abilities in the name of tradition. Brishkay Ahmed portrays the daily operation of Zan (Farsi for woman) TV – Kabul’s female-operated news agency.

• Pink Lake by Emily Gan and Daniel Schachter scrutinizes an ongoing, bittersweet conversation among couples concerning having vs. not having children, and Emily and Daniel pour their real-life experience into it.

• Mr. Emancipation: The Walter Perry Story. Preston Chase brings to the screen the story of the man behind the largest Emancipation Day celebration in the world in Windsor, Canada in the hope of raising public awareness about Black history and Canada’s little-known history of slavery and discrimination and preserving it for the next generations.