CHRISTIE PITS FILM FESTIVAL
Sunday, August 13, 2023

Riceboy sleeps

With the short film Desi Standard Time Travel

Winner of TIFF’s 2022 Platform prize and the Canadian Screen Awards’ best screenplay award, Vancouver filmmaker Anthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps promises to give us one of those very special Christie Pits Film Festival nights to remember. The semi-autobiographical story finds young Korean newcomer mother So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) and her son Dong-Hyon/David (Ethan Hwang) as new immigrants in 90s Vancouver. Emotionally frozen, they live in an in-between space between a Korean past they were forced to leave behind and a Canadian present that is unwelcoming of them. So-Young holds her memories close to her heart, until a time comes when mother and son are prompted to look back in order to build meaningful new stories. Anyone who has experienced immigration – or had parents, grandparents, or ancestors who did – will find themselves recollecting memories of past lives in another world.

Rounding out this double bill of poignant inter-generational stories about moving between time and space, Desi Standard Time Travel follows new father Imran as he time travels to three decades earlier and gains a profound understanding of how his immigrant parents' decisions have shaped his adult self. Set in Brampton, director Kashif Pasta’s latest film continues his focus on South Asian Muslim families, exploring their stories with heartfelt pride and abundant creativity.