Timothy Yeung's Finch & Midland, which follows the stories of four families who move from Hong Kong to Canada in 90s, is one of six homegrown features at this year's Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.Supplied
For many families who immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada after the British handover of the island to China in 1997, the intersection of Finch and Midland in Toronto was a communal space. They would gather at one of the Cantonese plazas that dotted the neighbourhood, filled with restaurants and milk tea spots.
For filmmaker Timothy Yeung, this junction became an apt setting for Finch & Midland, a film about four families who moved from Hong Kong to Scarborough in the mid-1990s but continue to deal with their struggles as immigrants almost three decades later.
Yeung’s film is one of six homegrown features screening at the 29th Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, billed as Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival. Celebrating contemporary Asian cinema, the festival runs Nov. 5 to 15, with 17 features and 45 short films from around the world including China, Pakistan, Sweden and Vietnam.
The festival’s Wee Asian programming also returns, offering free drop-in activities for all ages. For those who haven’t had enough of K-Pop Demon Hunters, Reel Asian will celebrate creator and co-director Maggie Kang’s Toronto roots, with the film’s production designer Helen Chan in attendance.
Yeung is excited to be part of the Reel Asian roster with a film that mirrors his own experiences and reflects the complex lives of his community.
“When I was a kid, I would go to Finch and Midland for breakfast, to meet some family. Then we would go grocery shopping, and then go buy DVDs or to a bookstore,” he says, naming establishments such as Very Fair Seafood restaurant and Marathon Cafe. These eateries still exist, and continue to offer classic items, such as Hong Kong milk tea, to cater to long-time customers looking for that old-world charm.
Finch & Midland is an anthology-style film that draws from Mr. Yeung's interviews with members of Toronto’s Cantonese community and follows characters from different socioeconomic backgrounds.Supplied
The location was the perfect backdrop for his film, a cultural shorthand that would be immediately apparent to his community, Yeung says. When a previous project that he was working on got shelved because of the pandemic, he started to think about the stories he’d been collecting since his late teens, working in Chinese restaurants. A Canada Arts Council grant allowed him to interview members of Toronto’s Cantonese community, and come up with an anthology-style film following characters from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Finch & Midland is a specifically Canadian film, and it’s important that Reel Asian has always made space for a pocket of Asian cinema that is not from East Asia, says Yeung. Especially in today’s cultural context, where a sense of isolationism seems pervasive.
Granting agencies such as Telefilm relaxed their language restrictions for funding films, which has helped projects like his predominantly Cantonese film get greenlit, he says.
“When we start seeing different stories about Canadians, as well as films from other places, I think at the end we realize that we’re actually more alike than our differences,” Yeung says.
A still from Finch & Midland.Supplied
The festival received more than 1,600 submissions, and the programmers watched several hundred more films to curate this year’s lineup, says Aram Collier, artistic director of Reel Asian. Filmmaking remains challenging, with funding limitations and more competition for viewers’ attention than ever before, he says. In spite of initiatives such as Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program, it’s still a rocky road for them to pursue their cinematic dreams.
Reel Asian organizers try to encourage a range of voices to be heard and seen, Collier says. For example, this year’s festival features works by Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Kid Koala and Vancouver-based writer, actor and director Mayumi Yoshida, both of which took more than a decade to realize, alongside veteran filmmaker Ali Kazimi’s debut 1994 documentary feature Narmada: A Valley Rises.
“We’re in a place where media feels very disposable because there’s just a constant stream of it. But I think it’s important to remember and honour the work that goes into [making a film], and the persistence people put into the work,” Collier says. And at this moment, given the discussion about the need to invest in Canada, it’s all the more urgent to remember that the Asian experience in Canada is also part of that conversation, he says.
Besides the economic benefits of employing people in film and the cultural benefits of starting conversations about a Canadian identity, telling our stories has a multiplying effect that can’t be calculated on a balance sheet, says Collier.
Films and the arts at large are a good investment, he adds. “It’s way cheaper than a tank.”
Special to The Globe and Mail