Montreal, My Beautiful
Featuring Joan Chen | Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother living in Montreal, has spent her life shaped by duty — to her family, her culture, and a loveless marriage. But when she meets Camille, a spirited young Québécoise, a long-buried desire is awakened. In the balmy and joyful Montreal summer, Feng Xia takes the radical step of choosing herself — embarking on a journey of forbidden love and long-overdue self-discovery. Her awakening becomes a profound reckoning with identity, exile, and the steep cost of liberation.
Shorts Block: In Transit
“In Transit” explores the immigrant experience and the transformations that occur along their journeys. These are stories of triumph, inclusion, and discovery but also of tribulation, heartache, and struggle as they build their new lives.
Shorts Block: Drawing Lines
“Drawing Lines” showcases films that beautifully illustrate the diverse and evocative medium of animation. This collection vividly brings complex emotions into singular focus through a wide array of techniques to tell stories of nostalgia, identity, belonging, and more.
Shorts Block: After Dark
“BAAFF After Dark” features films that are sure to make you cower, laugh, and maybe even tip your delivery driver a little more. Designed to provoke, this block of bite-sized genre films will take you from a violent past to a dystopian future, with everything in between.
Shorts Block: Familes Forged and Found
“Families, Forged and Found” highlights the bonds made between friends, neighbors, communities, and beyond. It’s the stories of the families we’ve created or found in the unlikeliest of places.
The Road to Sydney (preceded by Sheesh, a Taylor Love Story)
The Road to Sydney follows Philippine dance master and choreographer Sydney Loyola, who found refuge in dance after a childhood of bullying in Palawan. Now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sydney faces the painful realities of job loss and eviction following her gender transition and affirmation. Through courage and artistry, she embarks on a journey of healing, identity, and reconciliation with her estranged father.
In Waves
In Los Angeles, AJ, a shy teenager, meets Kristen. She lives for surfing; he loves skateboarding and drawing. They fall madly in love, and a happy future seems within reach. But everything changes when Kristen faces a sudden illness. Together, they face adversity, driven by the strength of their love, their friends, and their newly shared passion for surfing and the ocean.
Y Vân: The Lost Sounds of Saigon
Y Vân: The Lost Sounds of Saigon tells the epic story of Y Vân, a legendary Vietnamese composer, and his granddaughter Khoa as she journeys to uncover and preserve his lost music.
A story told across three generations, Y Vân: The Lost Sounds of Saigon brings to life the golden age of Saigon and uncovers a timeless tale of love, music and family.
Chinatown Cha-Cha
The 92-year-old previous nightclub dancer Coby Yee decides to get back on stage again after joining the senior dance troupe Grant Avenue Follies. Together they go on a tour for the last time, bridging once isolated Chinese communities in the US, Cuba and China.
Jersey Boy
Shattered by a family tragedy in the wake of 9/11, a young Sikh boy struggles to hold onto love, family, and identity as he grows up in a country feeling like he doesn’t belong.