Asian Film Database

Labo's Last Spin (2005)
8min. Uncategorized
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	Allen Tong (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
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Summary:	It is Toronto-based DJ Labo's last competition at the DMC World DJ Championships. All he dreams of is finally becoming world champion before retiring. Will he manage to best them all for one final shot at glory? In this documentary, local filmmaker Allen Tong follows the DJ's preparations and conversations before that fateful night.
Source:	Reel Asian

La mule et les émeraudes (1995)
76min. Drama, Colour
Language(s):	French
Director/Filmmaker:	Bashar Shbib (Syria)
Production Company:	Chbib Productions
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	The jeweller Salomon has entrusted Gorem (Frédérick Duval) with a special job, to deliver some gems to Charlie, who is known as 'the Wolf of the Caribbean'. What this young 'mule' doesn't know is that the emeralds have been stolen and are coveted by rival gangs. When Salomon is bumped off, Gorem has to deal, one after the other, with Andrew, Max, Sebastien, Lena (Anne-Marie Leduc) and his brother George (Claude Larivière), all of whom succeed in making the hunt for the emeralds just a little more complicated. Although, what worries Gorem most is the affair of his beloved Jeanne (Susila Maraviglia) with a certain Marc (Pascal Auclair). But Gorem has a plan – he will sell the emeralds for big bucks and use the money to take Jeanne far away. He sets up a meeting with one of the gangs and arranges to meet Jeanne at the same spot. Unbeknownst to Jeanne, she is followed by a rival gang. It is the confrontation between all of these upstanding characters that will take a most unexpected turn.... (www.oneira.com)
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Lahoot (لاهوت (1998
17min. Cinematic Poem, Colour
Language(s):	Persian
Director/Filmmaker:	Shanin Parhami (Iran)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Trailer
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A cinematic poem about one woman's journey through life. (shahinparhami.info)
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Laila (1999)
6min. Short, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Ruba Nadda (Canada)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Belly dancing has transformed from the exotic to the everyday as the filmmaker demonstrates the unavoidable invisibility that one faces in the urban environment. (www.nmsl.uregina.ca)
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Lakme Takes Flight (2000)
12min. Queer, Colour
Language(s):	English, French
Director/Filmmaker:	Sheila James; Melina Young
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	This piece is a cheeky and beautiful musical subversion of "Sous le Dome Epais" of the "flower duet" by Leo Delibes. This short critiques European opera's reliance on 'the orient' for exotic flavour. This lesbian remake features 'actual' South Asian women (Veena Sood and Andeep Singh) in the contemporized roles of Brahmin Princess Lakme and her amid servant Mallika. (Vtape)
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Lana in Love (1990)
74min. Drama, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Bashar Shbib (Syria)
Production Company:	Oneira Pictures International
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Once the ad ran in the "personals" you'd think that Lana (Daphna Kastner) would just sit back and choose from the young men who'd come calling. Well, think again! Unfortunately for Lana, she encounters Marty (Clark Gregg), a cocky, beer-guzzling plumber who is sent to Lana's address by mistake. He thinks he's stumbled upon a beautiful young business woman's attempts to seduce him. And she thinks he's the doctor that responded to her ad. When the real doctor (Ivan Roth) calls, life for Lana becomes even more complicated. What follows is a hilarious adventure of failed romance and twisted human relationships. (www.oneira.com)
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Lan & Lea (2008)
8min. Uncategorized
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Director/Filmmaker:	Khoa Le (Canada)
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Summary:	Waiting for a bus on a rainy day, Lan and her teenaged daughter Léa find themselves distanced by bananas, black clothing and, ultimately, their generational differences.
Source:	Reel Asian

Landslide
3min. Animation, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Ann Marie Fleming (Japan)
Production Company:	Sleepy Dog Films with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	About a father-daughter relationship, this work was produced for the 2008 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and Gendai Gallery Empty Orchestra Video Commission. (Sleepy Dog Films)
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Language of the Maria (2000)
Uncategorized
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Louise Noguchi (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Excerpt
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Thomas A. Edison's Black Maria Studio produced this moving image of Annie Oakley in 1894. At the time of the production, Oakley was performing for Buffalo Bill's Wild-West Show and was considered the best-known entertainer in the world, while Edison was the proud new inventor of the movie camera and kinescope. In some ways this short clip could be regarded as the moment when film began to eclipse live acts as the main source of entertainment for the masses. The footage of Oakley has been slowed down in order to reveal each image that was shot by Edison's Black Maria Studio and sound has been added. This video is a part of the Language of the Rope series (1998-2005), which stemmed from Noguchi's lessons in trick-roping that she received from a wild-west rodeo performer. (louisenoguchi.com)
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The Last Chapter (2012)
83min. Drama, Colour
Language(s):	English, Dutch
Director/Filmmaker:	Bashar Shbib (Syria)
Production Company:	Sunset Pictures
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Ron Weer (Bashar Shbib) is a unpublished writer from the city asked by his employer, a publisher, to pick up an overdue book manuscript from Yan de Rilke (Jan Kuilman), an isolated writer who lives in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Yan is suspicious and reluctant. With difficulty, Ron manages to gain Yan's trust. They hit it off, and Yan allows Ron to read and comment on his manuscript. They argue throughout the day until night about love, politics and philosophy. As night falls Ron is invited to sleep over. The film is interwoven with Yan's novel, Lulu in June, which tells the story of Lulu (Rebecca L. Rau), a lonely, naive and innocent young woman as she adventures with love. Everything seems to be weaving together famously until the last chapter. (www.sunsetpictures.ca)
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Last Run (2008)
6min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Brian Yung (United States)
Production Company:	Acacia Avenue Productions
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A blind man's journey along a winter trail is repeatedly intersected with the path of a running man. When the former takes notice, he is compelled to move towards the elusive figure. Time and time again, he tries to catch the man just out of his reach, each time a little faster and more determined than before. Whether or not he gets there, however, will depend on his frame of mind. (CFMDC)
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Last Year (2010)
6min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	Silent
Director/Filmmaker:	Paul Wong (Canada)
Production Company:	Paul Wong Projects
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Excerpt
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Approximately 6,000 images, 1,000 still photographs a minutem, flash on and off the screen. A year of pictures mash into an intense viewing experience. Using the iphoto software, Last Year is the result of compiling all 2009 photographs from several different computer sources onto one central database. (paulwongprojects.com)
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Le Boucher (2008)
23min. Comedy, Drama, Colour
Language(s):	French, Arabic
Director/Filmmaker:	Amar Chebib (Syria)
Production Company:	Salam Films
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Trailer
Awards:
Setting:	France, Canada
Summary:	Mimoun, an obstinate middle-aged Arab man, runs a once profitable halal butchery in a French ghetto. He receives a lucrative offer for his business and must reexamine his choice to live with stress, poverty, and destruction. (IMDb)
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Left Behind Woman (2010)
24min. Uncategorized
Language(s):	Mandarin (English subtitles)
Director/Filmmaker:	Tony Lau (Canada)
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Summary:	A documentary about women in the rural area of Benxi, China, and how the mass migration of male workers to more central cities affects their daily lives.
Source:	Reel Asian

The Leone Drive Project (2011)
20min. Video Document, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Pouyan Jafarizadeh Dezfoulian with Kyath Battie, Philip Hoffman, Janine Marchessault (Iran)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	In 2009, several houses in Willowdale, Ontario were slated for demolition to make way for a new residential development. This collaborative video document is based on the Leona Drive Project, a site specific exhibition curated by Janine Marchessault and Michael Prokopow from 19-31 October 2009. Several artists were invited to produce multi-media installations for public exhibition that took place in six post-war vacant houses in the 'inner suburb' of Willowdale, Ontario. This video document explores the exhibit from a personal perspective, under the cover of night, allowing viewers a more intimate and aurally rich experience of each installation that is imaginatively represented through fluid editing and detailed sound design. The video document was inspired by the artists' engagement with architecture and spatial designs of houses typical of modernist dwellings of the prosperous and decidedly homogenous decades of post-Second World War in Canada. (Vtape)
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Let Me Start by Saying (2001)
3min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s):	Sound
Director/Filmmaker:	Chris Chong Chan Fui (Malaysian Borneo)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A gay man has fallen in love with a woman; she has gone away, and the image of her face haunts him. Desperately, he tries to come up with a way to be close to her again. (CFMDC
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Letters From Pyongyang (2012)
28min. Uncategorized
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Director/Filmmaker:	Jason Lee (Canada)
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Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:	Recipient of the Golden Award at the Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Palm Springs Film Festival.
Setting:
Summary:	The filmmaker and his father embark on an urgent quest to reunite with their long-lost family in North Korea.
Source:	Reel Asian

Let's Talk about It
40min. Documentary, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Deepa Mehta (India)
Production Company:	Filmblanc
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	This film explores domestic violence from the perspective of children. Through interviews with their parents, with a special focus on immigrant women, this film encourages dialogue and discussion. (femfilm.ca)
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Life is Elsewhere (1996)
14min. Short, Colour
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Director/Filmmaker:	Simon Chung (China)
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Summary:	Wealth is just a few stock points away, a better life is merely an immigration interview away, and love and regret is over with a blink of an eye. Characters struggle to climb over the fence to get a greener view. (Reel Asian)
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Lifesize (1998)
10min. Short, Colour
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Director/Filmmaker:	Lynne Chan (USA)
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Summary:	Part video love letter, part obsessional fantasy about a gum smacking Jersey girl, Lifesize plays with the concept of "hyper autobiography" and explores themes of performance, memory, desire and cynicism. (Reel Asian)
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Life Tastes Good (1999)
90min. Crime, Drama, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Philip Kan Gotanda (USA)
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Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
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Setting:	USA
Summary:	Two San Francisco detectives discover a corpse in an abandoned car. From the dead man's wallet and a tape recorder, they determine the man was a money launderer. The story is then told in flashback, narrated by the dead man. Seems he was being pursued after robbing a partner who had been robbing him. Hiding out in a warehouse, he tries to re-establish contact with his children. In the warehouse, he then is contacted by a woman who frequents it because her husband died there and becomes obsessed with its new inhabitant as the reincarnate of her husband. Of course, following all of these goings-on, he ultimately must face down his pursuers. (IMDB)
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Lims Live in Ottawa (1996)
25min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English, Toisan, Cantonese
Director/Filmmaker:	Melina Young
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	In 1913, George Lim arrived as a young man in Ottawa where he lived the rest of his life except for visits to China. Typical and extraordinary, his life and the lives of his family are cast in the history of the migration of overseas Chinese and the history of Canada. With the help of an interpreter, Melina Young interviews member of the Lim family who recall events in their lives and speak of aspirations in this country. The Lim family's story is embedded in contexts - past and current immigration policies, rallies remarks by Members of Parliament, the reflection of friends - that make sense for the videomaker at this time in her life.
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Link (1999)
11min. Uncategorized , Colour
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	Kang Man-jin (Korea)
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Summary:	A drunken salaryman descends into a seemingly deserted underpass literally the bowels of Seoul night life- losing more than his shirt in a remarkable encounter with a naked stranger. Who is the victim and who is the aggressor? (Reel Asian)
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Lip Service: A Mystery (2001)
49min. Animation, Live-Action, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Ann Marie Fleming (Japan)
Production Company:	Sleepy Dog Films
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:
Summary:	A single, unemployed, lipless woman hires herself out as a private detective, but the only thing she finds is her own vulnerability. (Sleepy Dog Films)
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Little Big Horn (2010)
3min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Paul Wong (Canada)
Production Company:	Paul Wong Projects
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:
Setting:	United States
Summary:	Custer's Last Stand. Sitting Bull Wins. Recorded in South Dakota, this video is part of Paul Wong's '5', a series of site-specific events and installations commissioned by the City of Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Programs. (www.5.paulwongprojects.com)
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Little Phoenix and the Fists of Fury (2010)
5min. Action, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Mishann Lau (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Imagine a high school where everybody knows Kung Fu, including the bullies. Being late for school lands Phoenix an unfortunate introduction to Saber and her Fists of Fury. Phoenix will have to keep her cool if she wants to keep the shirt on her back! As taunts turn into shoves, everybody seems to have forgotten the first rule of Kung Fu school: There is NO Kung Fu fighting! (IMDb)
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Little Phoenix and the Reign of Fists (2007)
4min. Action, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Mishann Lau (Canada)
Production Company:	Pride Toronto 2007
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Walking into the wrong park at the wrong time, Little Phoenix comes face to face with Queen. What starts out as a push and shove match quickly escalates into an all out battle royale between two very beautiful but deadly rival gangs. (Vtape)
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Liver and Potato (1998)
22min. Short, Colour
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	Iigon Song (South Korea)
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Summary:	Story of Cane is presented through eight chapters of experiences. A reconsutrction of the biblical story of Cain and Abel with a reflection on violence, sacrifice and baseic human instinct. (Reel Asian)
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Living in Half Tones (1993)
9min. Uncategorized, Colour, Black and White
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Anh Me-K (South Korea)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A metaphorical reconstruction of the artist's developing identity as an adopted Korean girl in America who returns to Korea for the first time "to search for bits and pieces of my past." A visually powerful autobiographical lamentation on displacement and the search for home. (www.twn.org)
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Living Stone (1999)
7min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Patrick Wong (Canada)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	At Living Stone, no-one ever seems satisfied. We're all happy business is still booming there. One can only hope something good will come out from there… (Vtape)
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Logic Problems (2012)
7min. Comedy, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Vincent Ternida (Philippines)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	With the impending "end of the world" this coming Friday (I don't know whether it's PST, GMT, or some other place in the world, for all we know it can be as early as Thursday if it's in the North American side of Earth), this could possibly be my last film. Joking aside, Logic Problem was casted, shot and edited in the span of two weeks for the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon. It did not win awards, however the film was made and I haven't made a film in nearly three years. So here it is, possibly my last hurrah. (https://chubbybros.wordpress.com)
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LoLo's Child (2001)
82min. Drama, musical
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	Romeo Candido (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ty6XqjXhs
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Setting:
Summary:	Inspired by his father's death Junior embarks on composing the soundtrack to his life. After a two year exile, Junior comes home to bury his father, to bury his childhood and to bury the memories that drove him away. Upon his return he discovers that his absence has left his old world unaffected. Jason his childhood nemesis, his longtime love, Sarah and his history of abuse and anguish all remain as he left it ... unresolved. (IMDB)
Source:	Reel Asian

Lonesome Town (2013)
3min. Uncategorized
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Director/Filmmaker:	Grace Wang (Canada)
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Summary:	Of the most popular seaside towns in America, Coney Island experienced decades of neglect and a super storm that nearly destroyed it. What is left is nostalgia for a past long gone.
Source:	Reel Asian

Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (2002)
90min. Fiction, Colour
Language(s):	English, Cantonese
Director/Filmmaker:	mina Shum (Hong Kong)
Production Company:	Chum Television, Massey Films, Massey Productions Ltd.
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Film
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Twelve-year-old mindy Ho inexpertly tries Taoist magic to fix her single mother's financial situation and seemingly hopeless romantic prospects. mindy's misdirected charms cause an aging security guard to lose his job and a local butcher to win the lottery. The guard, the butcher and her mother's stories all intersect, bound together by mindy's attempts at magic intervention. Set in the Chinese-Canadian community, Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity is a story of hope and the importance of keeping faith in this sometimes difficult world. (femfilm.ca
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The Longest Summer (1998)
128min. Drama, Colour
Language(s):	Cantonese
Director/Filmmaker:	Fruit Chan (China)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBrIKhdoSYU
Awards:
Setting:
Summary:	It is July 1st of 1997, and Hong Kong is bright in celebration. The United Kingdom handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China leaves Ga Yin, and his fellow soldiers without work. Which leads them to find employment and money any way they can get it. Without much success, Ga Yin decides to join his brother Ga Suen in the triad gang world. (IMDB), Jason Gervais
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Loop Holes (2008)
12min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Nobuo Kubota and Annette Mangaard (Canada)
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	For Loop Holes, Kubota uses the Video Lab to recontextualize a single, 14 minute, improvisational sound poem. By sequentially staggering and then looping and rearranging each sequence in a random pattern, Kubota's performance is transformed into an endless, aleatoric nonet which combines meta-language, vocables and physical gestures in a fascinating recuperation of space, time and memory. (Vtape)
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Lose Yourself (2008)
5min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Alison S.M Kobayashi (Canada)
Production Company:	Commissioned by the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, Gendai Gallery Empty Orchestra Video Commission with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A silent film actor performs a literal interpretations of the lyrics from the rap song, 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem. (Alison S.M. Kobayashi)
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Losing to Winning (2005)
5min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Heather Keung
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Losing to Winning uses video footage from Heather Keung's competitive performance at the 2005 National Taekwondo Association Championships to construct two versions of the same event. Comparing real-time to extended time, the work places emphasis on how simple treatment can be used to reconstruct different experiences. (Vtape)
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Loss is Inevitable / January Batch (1999)
15min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Jinhan Ko
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Setting:	Canada
Summary:	See http://www.vtape.org/video?vi=4256
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Lotus Sisters (1996)
5min. Short, Colour
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	Wayne Yung (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Excerpt
Awards:
Setting:
Summary:	A day in the life of Yung's gay male "Lotus Sisters". From the noodle house to Stanley Park, this video captures a specifically West Coast Asian queer sensibility. (Reel Asian)
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Love $ Greed (1991)
80min. Comedy, Colour
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Bashar Shbib (Syria)
Production Company:	Chbib Productions
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:
Awards:
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	Love $ Greed is a romantic comedy that offers a skewed look at contemporary relationships, personal wealth and the ever-deflating value of love. (www.oneira.com)
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Love In (1991)
Uncategorized
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Director/Filmmaker:	mina Shum (Hong Kong)
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Summary:
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Love Story (1997)
20min. Drama, Black & White
Language(s):	English
Director/Filmmaker:	Ayana Osada (USA)
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Setting:	USA
Summary:	Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Boy meets boy. A love triangle set in Chinatown, NYC. (Asian American Film Database)
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Luminous Pollution (2011)
1min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):	Silent
Director/Filmmaker:	Paul Wong (Canada)
Production Company:
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:	Excerpt
Awards:	Selected for the Everyday Heros Film Festival, a Canada wide film festival of one-minute eco-films for Earth Week.
Setting:	Canada
Summary:	A great idea, a donkey with cart sit outside of a yard festooned with whimsical hanging wind sculptures and draped with garlands - all made from recycled bottles, an inspired work of authentic pop art. (www.5.paulwongprojects.com)
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Lust In Translation (2005)
8min. Romance
Language(s):
Director/Filmmaker:	David Eng (Canada)
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Summary:	In the animated Dialogue Between Two, men live on land while women are under the sea. They communicate via random objects that magically transform into eggs, fish, and ants. But when the communication breaks down, what we have left is a perfect example why gender is sometimes the hardest bridge to gap.
Source:	Reel Asian