Scene from Thai film Agrarian Utopia, being screened at Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival in November.
The Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival is going to be my saviour in the cold, grey, lifeless November days. Normally I’d already be in Southeast Asia by the time it rolls around so I’ve missed it for five years now. My friends won’t be round either because they’re leaving soon for Thailand. I won’t follow until mid-December so it’s just me and my shard of coal.
It was a friend who suggested I wait till the winter really sets in and escape. Makes sense but little did I know how another six weeks feels looking at it from the wrong end. I’m sure it’s the better plan and maybe the suffering will make it all feel so much better when I arrive. And I can laugh at the snowy, frigid streets of Toronto from my stool at the Londoner pub at soi 33, Sukhumvt.
So thank Buddha for the chance to lose myself in the film series, which runs Nov. 11 to 15. The hump. After the series closes, I’ll have only four weeks to suffer! You see, last winter, I was in Southeast Asia for the entire season, which, from all reports, was as miserable a winter as could be, with lows of minus 30C. (There’s a blog subject: how I became a tropical bird that shivers at anything under 20.)
The five-day series presents 48 works. One Thai rice-farming feature, Agrarian Utopia, is on the schedule. Yes, there will be other nations represented, the group comprising Hong Kong, U.S., Philippines, Canada, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and gasp(!), a movie from North Korea. I am picturing 1 hour, 49 minutes of Kim Jong Il smiling benevolently from the wall of a school room. No?
The pic from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is called A Schoolgirl’s Diary, directed by Jang In-Hak. The 94-minute film is shot in video format. It’s appeared at several European festivals since 2007, when a French distributor picked it up, according to IMDB. Otherwise, a Google search brings up 0 (as in zero) links.
The fest begins with a gala Wednesday, Nov. 11 and finishes with a party Sunday, Nov. 15. It’s quite the eclectic program comprising features, shorts, videos, installations and performances. Of course, I’ll be most interested in the 13 features. But I’ll keep an open mind about it all. I hope to review a few of them, although I won’t be able to make the afternoon screenings because of the need to appear before my employer on a predictable basis.
Only three and a half weeks to the festival! And then it’s four weeks to liftoff to Land of Smiles, with an intermediate highlight in December, that of the best motorcycle show of the year. Boy, talk about trying to find warmth in a shard of coal.
- Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, Nov. 11-15
- Complete schedule of the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival
- Official site for Agrarian Utopia
- Review of Agrarian Utopia, film from Thailand
- A Schoolgirl's Diary, from North Korea
- Meager report at IMDB report on A Schoolgirl's Diary
- UPDATE: Review of Agrarian Utopia, Yang-Yang
