Riceboy Sleeps
Book Tickets
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A strong-willed Korean single mother and her young son start a new life in 1990s Canada. Anthony Shim’s semi-autobiographical drama has won more than 20 international awards.
Seoul-born Canadian filmmaker Anthony Shim’s second feature is an achingly intimate portrait of a mother’s love for her son. With delicacy and tenderness that never tips into sentimentality, Shim charts the difficulties faced by So-young and Dong-hyun as they attempt to fit into Canadian suburbia in a time when virtually no support was available. Years later we meet Dong-hyung (now known as David) as a wayward teenager who’s grown distant from his mother until a critical event takes them on an unpredictable journey into their Korean past. This shot-on-16mm treasure, drawing laudatory comparisons with Minari (SFF 2021), is superbly performed by dancer-turned-actor Choi Seung-yoon in her first feature role and 2022 TIFF Rising Star award winner Ethan Hwang.Hear from the filmmakers of Riceboy Sleeps at a talk at the Korean Cultural Centre - Growing Up Outside Korea.
Special Guests
Anthony Shim
Director
Anthony Shim was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to Vancouver, Canada with his family in the early 90s. His sophomore film, Riceboy Sleeps, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and was named the winner of the prestigious Platform Prize.
Choi Seung-yoon
Cast
Choi Seung-yoon is a dancer, choreographer and actor based in Seoul, South Korea. In 2019, she co-directed and starred in I By You By Everybody (2019), a documentary feature about dancers’ lives in Seoul, which screened at several film festivals including Busan International Film Festival and Doclisboa.
- Program Strand
- Features
- Year
- 2022
- Classification
- M
- Country
- Canada
- Language
- In English and Korean with English subtitles
- Director
- Anthony Shim
- Producer
- Bryan Demore, Rebecca Steele, Anthony Shim
- Cast
- Choi Seung-yoon, Ethan Hwang, Dohyun Noel Hwang, Choi Seung-yoon, Ethan Hwang, Dohyun Noel Hwang
- Screenwriter
- Anthony Shim
- Cinematographer
- Christopher Lew
- Editor
- Anthony Shim
- Premiere
- Australian Premiere
- Genre
- Festival Award Winners, Asia
- Company Credits
- Australian Distributor: Icon Distribution
