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Asian Film Database

Paced (2013)

5min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Stephen Chen (Singapore)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: By exploring the different meanings of pace (as speed, as measure, as constraint), Paced investigates the twin paradoxes of modern nomadism: alienation from increasing connectivity, and the constant movement of everyday life that keeps returning one back to the same place. (CFMDC)
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Painted Nation (2005)

48min. Documentary, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Cyrus Sundar Singh (India)
Production Company: Salaam Shalom Productions Inc.
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: India
Summary: As a child in India, Cyrus Sundar Singh was mesmerized by the hand-painted posters and hoardings he saw all around, advertising everything from the latest movies to the gods themselves. In their beauty and intensity, they seemed to encapsulate India's abiding spirituality. As India evolves into a twenty-first century economic powerhouse, many traditions and practices are beginning to fade away. Increasingly, the handmade works that Cyrus once loved are disappearing, replaced by mechanically produced posters and signs. But does computer-created imagery have a soul? In this documentary, Cyrus looks at a vanishing art form - and the spiritual values that are vanishing with it. (University of Toronto Libraries)
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Pamphlets (1997)

23min. Narrative, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Chris Fung
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary:
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Pan Tian Shou (2003)

6min. Animation, Colour
Language(s): Sound
Director/Filmmaker: Joe Chang (China)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Adapted from Chinese master painter Pan Tian Shou's life and paintings, this animated short features a creative and unique combination of static and animated scenes.
(YouTube)
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Panic (1997)

84min. Drama, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Bashar Shbib (Syria) 
Production Company: Bashar Shbib (Syria) 
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Harry (Robin Andrew Wilcock), a shabby but dignified transvestite, writes radio dramas. One night, he goes into the studio to record his latest work, 'Panic', about a woman whose greatest dream is to write pulp fiction. Harry is assisted by Jack (Patrick Garrow), a macho and homophobic sound technician. Harry's drama follows the adventures of Marion (Diane Carlson), a shy and dowdy writer who gets her first break when she is offered a contract to write a story in three days. Confronted with the opportunity and the deadline, she experiences writer's block. Borrowing a tape recorder from a friend, Marion begins seeking inspiration from the conversations of strangers, and weaves a tale about murder and intrigue in the art world. Gradually, she finds herself being sucked into a fictional world of beautiful people with exotic circumstances, while the line between fantasy and reality becomes increasingly blurred.
As Jack watches Harry in the recording booth, his initial contempt turns to curiosity and then respect. A cautious friendship develops between the two men, revealing that they are not as different as it may have seemed at first. (www.oneira.com)
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Paper, Scissors, Rock (2005)

4min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Jane Kim (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: This rock and roll story uses archival footage and personal memories to describe an inspiring moment liveration. Continuing her examination of women's social issues through short narratives, Jane Kim's Paper, Scissors, Rock reclaims a sense of pride in feminism.
Source: Reel Asian

 

A Paper Son (2004)

5min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Gein Wong (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: At the beginning of the 20th century, laws banned Chinese people from immigrating to North America. One of the only ways to get in was to obtain a fake piece of ID, take on a false name and hope that no one would notice.
Source: Reel Asian

 

Paper Wings (2011)

7min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Vincent Toi (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary:

A young boy and his grandfather visit an aviation centre and the boy's dreams lift him towards the sky.

Source: Reel Asian

 

Paper World (2011)

6min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Blair Fukumura (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary:

The playful journey of a paper boy who is rescued by a forgotten Japanese paper doll.

Source: Reel Asian

 

Partial Selves (2000)

9min. Documentary
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Gloria Kim (South Korea)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards: Runner up for the Best Experimental Film at the 2003 International Festival of Cinema & Technology
Setting: Canada
Summary:
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Partita (2013)

67min. Documentary, Colour
Language(s): Chinese
Director/Filmmaker: Yi Cu (China)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: China
Summary: This film is a poetic documentary essay set in a remote region in northwest China. The area is essentially the only corner in the country where shadow theatre still survives as a part of the rural community life. The film follows a group of folk artists as they struggle between the glorified stage of 'National Heritage Preservation' and the dwindling stage of local performance. (IMDb)
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Paruresis (2004)

4min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Richard Yum (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Paruresis is the social condition which results in the inability to pee in the presence of others. Two men in a public washroom exchange glances while trying to relieve themselves. Let the race begin!
Source: Reel Asian

 

Passage from India (1998)

Documentary, Colour and Black and White
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Ali Kazimi (India)
Production Company: White Pine Pictures
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards:  
Setting: India, Canada
Summary: This is an enduring testimony to the hard work of thousands of Indians like Bagga Singh. Filmmaker Ali Kazimi faithfully and passionately documents the history of the Singh family and eloquently articulates the hopes, struggles and desires of all Canadians whose roots lie in India. The film is episode 10 of the Scattering of Seeds documentary series. (White Pine Pictures)
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The Past Perfect (1999)

10min. Short, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Tsai Gi-ying (Taiwan)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Poetic images of the directors memory of her friend, who died in a car accident, and her own experience in a foreign country. (Reel Asian)
Source:  

 

Pearls of the Far East (2011)

103min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): Vietnamese
Director/Filmmaker: Cuong Ngo (Vietnam)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada, Vietnam
Summary: Seven stories about Vietnamese women spanning different generations, exploring their inner lives and forbidden loves. (IMDb)
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Peking Turkey (2006)

13min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): Cantonese/English/French
Director/Filmmaker: Michael Mew (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Chris Wong takes his French Canadian boyfriend "homo" for Christmas. Chris and Pierre are in love, to his traditional Chinese parents' dismay, and are now secretly engaged. Nerve wracked, Pierre has the task of announcing their engagement.
Source: Reel Asian

 

People & Place (Bartron Nursing Home Series) (2002)

9min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): English, Chinese
Director/Filmmaker: Heather Keung
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: People & Place is a series of short portraits taken at the Barton Nursing Home in Toronto, where the filmmaker befriended several people during her grandmother's illness. Simple, intimate portraits that focus on old age and illness. For the filmmaker, these small instances are part of a difficult process of observation and understanding. It is composed of seven short videos. (Vtape)
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Perfect Day (2007)

8min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Paul Wong (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards: Winner, National Film Board Best Canadian Film and/or Video Award, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, 2008
Setting: Canada
Summary: The artist records himself at home proudly indulging in the happiness of a drug (heroin and cocaine) inspired perfect day. The music of Lou Reed: Heroin and Perfect Day. Recorded on Sunday, edited on Monday. Be Happy. (Vtape)
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The Perfumer (1997)

80min. Comedy, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Bashar Shbib (Syria) 
Production Company: Oneira Pictures International
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Edward Pinchbeck (Jimeoin), a 35-year-old professional perfumer who owns a modest perfume boutique, lives reclusively with his pet parakeet and enjoys discussing the virtues of pheromones and musky secretions. Edward's drab life drastically changes when, one day, he stumbles across an orchid with an astonishing scent. Determined to get a cutting form the flower, Edward is thwarted by his old acquaintance, plant geneticist Millicent Hedgerow (Diane Carlson). Undeterred, Edward finally succeeds in stealing a piece of the orchid and concocts a perfume from its petals. The newly fabricated perfume, bizarrely enough, is an aphrodisiac with an overpowering effect on those who are exposed to it. Edward, now irresistible to men and women alike, unleashes upon a series of sexual misadventures. (www.oneira.com)
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Permute (2008)

5min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Lydia Fu (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary:

Existential heroine Lulu is caught in a film-noir cityscape fraught with mystery, anxiety and apprehension.

Source: Reel Asian

 

Petals (2001)

16min. Narrative, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Suresh Natarajan
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: In 1999 the newspapers in Kerala, India broke a shocking tale of two young lesbian girls who ended their lives beneath a train. A note they carried stated that they were ending their lives because they had failed in their long struggle to live together in the harsh and hypocritical society of Kerela. This film picks up on the agony of those innocent girls and many others who still struggle for their emotional rights. (CFMDC)
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Peter Fucking Wayne Fucking Peter (1994)

5min. Short, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Wayne Yung (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Could getting fucked by a white man be the ultimate transgressive act for the political Asian fag? Decide for yourself in this fearless exploration. (Reel Asian)
Source:  

 

Phone Come to Jammu (1998)

7min. Narrative, Black and White
Language(s): Sounds
Director/Filmmaker: Nila Gupta
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: When her relatives in India finally gets a phone, a young woman contemplates how this "new" technology will narrow or widen the gap between her lesbian diasporic self and her relatives overseas. Does easy access guarantee closeness? (CFMDC)
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Photocopier (1997)

4min. Short, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Jennifer Lam (Hong Kong)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Centering on a guy who is obsessed with photocopying his own photographs, Photocopier investigates the absurdity of our ever increasing fascination towards photographic reproduction and manipulation. (Vtape)
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The Photographer's Diary (2001)

26min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Wayne Yung (Canada) 
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: A lush, layered, homoerotic dance video inspired by the portrait series 'The Ramboys: a bookless novel', by Montreal photographer Evergon. (wayneyung.com)
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The Picnic (1999)

14min. Short, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Ahn Young-seok (Korea)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: The picnic on a serene winter afternoon takes an unexpected turn in this stunning evocation of one family's loss. Inspired by bloodless newspaper reports about suicides in the wake of koreas economic crisis. (Reel Asian)
Source: Reel Asian

 

Picture Perfect (1989)

Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: mina Shum (Hong Kong)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards: Nominated for "Best Short Drama" at the 1989 Yorkton Film Festival.
Setting:  
Summary: A man obsessed with pornography and the effects of media on his personal life. (femfilm.ca)
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Pioneers of X-Ray Technology: A Film about Grandpa (1991)

15min. Experimental Documentary, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Ann Marie Fleming (Japan)
Production Company: Sleepy Dog Films
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: A film that juxtaposes the exploits of Grandpa with the unmentioned women that made them all possible. (femfilm.ca)
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Plants Out Of The Sunlight (2010)

10min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Vu Van (Franco) Nguyen (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Mia works her fingers to the bone at a thankless factory job. She longs for a better relationship with her son, who has taken to staying out all night and sleeping all day.
Source: Reel Asian

 

The Playground (2007)

17min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Anh minh Truong (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: When 40-something Jerôme starts to blend in with his office décor, an old friend unexpectedly appears to remind him to live a little. A bittersweet trek through mid-life malaise, nostalgia, and the Québecois winterscape.
Source: Reel Asian

 

Pleasure Dome (2010)

12min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Alison S.M Kobayashi (Canada)
Production Company: Created for Pleasure Dome's Flipworks Auction. Six artists were given a Flip video camera and were asked to create a video.
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Very little is publicly known about what is inside Pleasure Dome. This broadcast was made to learn more about Pleasure Dome from those who inhabit it. (Alison S.M. Kobayashi)
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Pleasure Film (Ahmed's Story) (1995)

6min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Ann Marie Fleming (Japan)
Production Company: Sleepy Dog Films
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Film
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: A woman recounts Ahmed's dream of desire while a man sings to us about the ineffability of happiness. (Sleepy Dog Films)
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Point of Departure (2008)

26min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Iris Ng (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: To what extent and to what end can familial memoirs be (re-)experienced? Point Of Departure converges scattered pieces of family history as Ng combines audio interviews, archival footage, and sites on 16mm film of Hong Kong to test the parallels between architectural spaces and the strength of personal memories.
Source: Reel Asian

 

Point of Return (2013)

30min. Documentary, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Anne Marie Nakagawa (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada, United Kingdom, India
Summary: The film examines the question "does capitalism exist in nature?" in a cultural and economic paradigm that increasingly seems to suggest that it does. (http://annemarienakagawa.com)
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Pool (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: A part of the Scorched series, this video features an abandoned pool used by skateboarders, remnants of a former yacht club on the Salton Sea in the Mojave Desert. The 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)
Source:

 

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Po Mo Knock Knock (1998)

3min. Short, Black & White
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Greg Pak (USA)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPd6u05BGbE
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: A pair of artists confront the impossibility of communication by telling post modern knock knock jokes. (IMDB)
Source:  

 

Porn: PWong Optic Compilation (2001)

8min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Patrick Wong (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Try not to be disappointed. Most porn is anti-climactic... or perhaps a better choice of words is over-rated... or was that sex? (Vtape)
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Portrait as a Random Act of Violence (2013)

5min. Experimental, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Randall Lloyd Okita (Canada)
Production Company: Canadian Council for the Arts
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards: Best Experimental film, LA Shorts Fest
Setting: Canada
Summary: The film incorporates performance and sculpture to examine themes of protest, and destructive and restorative transformations. (vimeo.com)
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Portraits on a Blustery Day (2006)

6min. Uncategorized
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Howie Shia (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: A series of animated character portraits based on the history and myth of world cultures, Howie Shia's animations include Man on a Blustery Day, Dragong (I), The clown, the gGiant, and the Magician, Izzy Shakespeare, and World's Greatest Child Actor. These shorts were initially animated on behalf of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme to celebrate and promote the third UN World Urban Forum.
Source: Reel Asian

 

Postcard to an Unknown Solider (2004)

5min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Wayne Yung (Canada) 
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards:  
Setting: Canada, Germany
Summary: In 1942, the National Film Board of Canada produced a film describing Hitler's plan to build a world empire, by conquering the oilfields of Iraq and Iran. Commissioned as part of the -40 Remix Project. (wayneyung.com)
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Post Concussion (1999)

82min. Biography, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Daniel Yoon (USA)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: First-time filmmaker Daniel Yoon's irreverent, semi-autobiographical film "Post Concussion" is a brutally funny, unsentimental yet oddly inspiring portrayal of one man's journey after a serious head injury. (IMDB)
Source: Reel Asian

 

Potolitam (2004)

3min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Yoshimi Schimizu (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: "I wander through an incoherent scenery just like a dream I have intermittently while taking a nap." – Yoshimi Shimizu
Source: Reel Asian

 

The Power of Kangwon Province (1998)

110min. Drama, Colour
Language(s): Korean (English subtitles)
Director/Filmmaker: Hung Sang-soo (Korea)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: Helmed by one of Korea's leading directors, Hong Sang-soo, Jisook joins two of her girlfriends for a holiday in Korea's Kangwon Province. But in an eerie twist of fate, her former lover, Sangkwon, plans a getaway for the same destination, where tragedy brings them together once again. (IMDB)
Source: Reel Asian

 

Prey (1995)

27min. Drama, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Helen Lee (South Korea)
Production Company: Canadian Film Centre
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Prey is a story of pursuit where the gender tables are turned: the girl ends up with her man and the gun. The brilliant pairing of Sandra Oh and Adam Beach as Il Bae and Noel guarantees temperatures will rise. Il Bae's father's convenience store has been robbed again. Noel looks like a thug, but that only makes her more curious. Grandma's unconvinced and doesn't hesitate to say so in Korean. (femfilm.ca)
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Prime Cuts (1981)

20min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Paul Wong (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Excerpt
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: About style, technology and sexuality, this video is delivered in an apolitical and distanced view and not unlike a commercial, we see life as an endless stream of sensuality. Complete with a state-of-the-art accessories, beautiful young adults work out, make out, frolic in the sun and dance until dawn. (Jeanette Reinhardt, ed., Video Out Distribution Catalogue, Vancouver: Satellite Video Exchange Society, 1990, p. 33.)
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Prix Fixe (2003)

8min. Comedy, Colour
Language(s):  
Director/Filmmaker: Nobu Adilman (Canada)
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting:  
Summary: A heart wrenching tear jerking, heart breaking comedy on the new millenium Bonnie and Clyde of dine and dashers taking a city's restaurants by storm.
Source: Reel Asian

 

The Puck Hogs (2009)

90min. Comedy , Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Warren P. Sonoda
Production Company: Protocol Entertainment/Peace Arch
Trailer/Excerpt/Film: Trailer
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: The Puck Hogs follows a men's recreational, beer-league hockey team through a particularly brutal and hilarious weekend tournament. A hocku-mentary with heart, we see the ice-prone boys skate their way to become (semi) serious men, shooting the puck over the goal line of their (mid) lives. (shootgoodfilms.blogspot.com)
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Puri (1998)

6min. Uncategorized, Colour
Language(s): English
Director/Filmmaker: Arif Noorani
Production Company:  
Trailer/Excerpt/Film:  
Awards:  
Setting: Canada
Summary: Who will value our desires in this modern day spice trade?
A dream-like series of vignettes that explore complex sexual power dynamics and invisibility, creating an alternative landscape ruminating on desires, fantasy and passion. Featuring Bollywood actors, schoolteachers, childhood friends, fathers, brothers and a cute corn-boy from little India. (Vtape)
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