Celebrating Asian stories

Truth be told, Angeline Javier’s latest film came from her mother’s diary.

Back in high school, the now 23-year-old was doing some tidying up and stumbled upon a journal with a floral design — a private collection of reflections her mother made upon moving to Winnipeg from the Philippines.

The emerging filmmaker and screenwriter — an alumna of Sisler High School’s filmmaking and animation track and a graduate of Red River Polytechnic’s digital film and media production program — held her mother’s words and experiences close.

“I’d always wondered what it was like for her to come to Canada in the 1980s,” says Javier, whose documentary Please Handle With Care — a student film about the legacy of balikbayan boxes — was named best Manitoban short at the 2023 Gimli International Film Festival.

With All the Words — a 10-minute short playing Saturday (5:15 p.m.) at Winnipeg’s FascinAsian Film Festival — Javier delves into that wonder through the intergenerational stories of Claudia and Elisa, using both English and Tagalog dialogue to showcase the characters’ differing diasporic experiences.

Though the personal writing excerpts in the film were written and developed with her cast, the diary they hold in the film is the very same one Javier’s mother escaped into when she first came to Winnipeg during her high school years.

As a teenager, Claudia (Ana Ilagan) exists in a bubble of solitude, living with her father (Chris Ilagan), who watches television and does crosswords to gain better command of the English language.

As an adult, Maricar Faderon plays Claudia, whose experiences are reflected in thought-provoking parallels with her teenage daughter Elisa (Kirstin Caguioa).

Among Javier’s filmmaking inspirations are Filipino director Lino Brocka, specifically his 1975 film Manila in the Claws of Light, Before Sunrise director Richard Linklater and Korean-Canadian Celine Song, whose 2023 feature film Past Lives is a clear antecedent to All the Words.

The short was shot in 2024 and produced in large part with funds Javier received through the Winnipeg Film Group’s Mosaic Award, a $10,000 prize that went toward production costs and equipment rentals. The award also included a one-on-one mentorship with Winnipeg artist Hazel Venzon, as well as a screening last month at the Black Lodge Studio along with work by local filmmakers Nathan Flores and Melvin Daligdig.

That type of community celebration is exactly what FascinAsian co-founder Alan Wong had in mind when the festival launched in 2021.

“The goal has always been to highlight and celebrate Asian stories in film, and it all happens to start Asian Heritage Month,” says Wong, the former artistic director of the Gimli film fest.

“It’s an opportunity to provide an additional platform and support for these underrepresented stories to be told.”

A multi-city festival with events in Edmonton and Calgary, FascinAsian features works by local artists including Javier, Quan Luong (Portraits, a profile of a night-market sketch artist in Vietnam, Saturday at 12:45 p.m.), Sidney Phommarath (the Laos-set documentary Dear Nya, Sunday at 12 p.m.), Evan Rivard and Gabriel Beso (the snackish comedy Friendchips, Sunday at 2:15).

But it also showcases a well-curated collection of Asian cinema from around the world, including the opening night feature Montréal, ma belle (tonight, 7 p.m.).

Presented in partnership with francophone fest Cinémental and LGBTTQ+ fest Reel Pride, the latest work by Chinese-Canadian director Xiaodan He follows 53-year-old Feng Xia (Joan Chen, Twin Peaks), a wife and mother whose long-buried queer identity is awakened when she meets Camille, a spirited young Québécoise (Charlotte Aubin.) The filmmaker will participate in a post-screening Q&A.

Saturday night’s feature Akashi (7:30 p.m.) is described as a “multigenerational love story,” which, like Javier’s short, is told across parallel timelines. Writer-director-actor Mayumi Yoshida — a Japanese-Canadian artist — flits between British Columbia and Tokyo in the twisty romantic epic.

Yoshida — who has been mentored by Palm d’Or winning Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda (Shoplifters) — will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A with producer Nach Dudsdeemaytha.

Tickets and festival passes are available for all FascinAsian screenings at fascinasian.ca/winnipeg-2026, where viewers can find the full festival guide.

Passholders get an added perk: proof of purchase grants access to the Dave Barber Cinematheque’s upcoming series The Cinema of Edward Yang (May 8-13), featuring new restorations of the Taiwanese master’s Taipei Story, Yi Yi, Mahjong, Confucian Confusion and A Brighter Summer Day.

winnipegfreepress.com/benwaldman