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The stories of communities across the Asian diaspora will be represented in the fifth annual FascinAsian Film Festival, which officially gets underway on May 22. Five feature-length productions, dozens of shorts and a wide variety of programming will be presented in conjunction with Asian Heritage Month.
Formed back in the public health lockdown days of 2021, the festival has expanded dramatically over the last five years, with satellite festivals opening in Calgary and Edmonton. The festival has grown to include a variety of in-person events, including panel discussions, case studies on films and receptions.
“It’s grown like a weed, to be honest,” says festival president Alan Wong. “It’s really quite amazing, and a lot of that is due to the passion and dedication of all the people, all the volunteer organizers that work the festival.”
The film offerings in this year’s festival were carefully chosen by a committee to not only reflect the realities of the Asian diaspora, but also to highlight the unique experiences of certain communities. While Wong notes that it can be a challenge to ensure representation in the lineup, each of the films that are chosen have interesting shared characteristics that can speak to any audience.
“You see the similarities between the cultures,” Wong explains. “It’s in the little nuances in the etiquette or the practices or... the familial bonds. You learn so much about Asian cultures when you watch these movies because each one gives a little snippet of what it’s like.”
The educational element of the festival stretches to its programming, which is meant to encourage and empower more people from Manitoba’s Asian community to become more involved in the province’s thriving film industry.
“Film is a highly collaborative art form,” Wong elaborates. “No one does it by themselves. It’s really important for networking and being a part of a group to celebrate these films and each other’s work.”
Being a part of this group of film artists also means that stories sharing the experiences of the Asian diaspora will be able to be shared and preserved. “[Film is] one of the top mediums for telling stories and giving messages, inspiring people,” says Wong. “Everybody has a screen in their home, right?
“The stories may be timely and of a time, we should say, but it’ll always be of that time. And so, it’s really the way to capture the zeitgeist, the feeling of what is topical now, what is important to their lives now, what kind of stories they want to tell.”
The FascinAsian Film Festival will be on at Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq through May 25. For more information and for tickets, visit the festival’s website.