Riceboy Sleeps

Riceboy Sleeps

Winner of the Platform Prize at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and named one of Canada’s Top Ten Films of the Year, Riceboy Sleeps is a tender, deeply personal drama about motherhood, identity, and the immigrant experience. Written and directed by Anthony Shim, the film is both intimate and expansive—an achingly beautiful portrait of love, resilience, and the quiet strength it takes to begin again in a foreign world.

Set in the 1990s, the story follows So-young (Choi Seung-yoon), a Korean single mother raising her young son Dong-hyun (Ethan Hwang) in suburban Canada after the death of her husband. Determined to build a better life, So-young faces isolation, racism, and economic hardship, all while trying to preserve her son’s connection to their culture. As Dong-hyun grows into adolescence, he begins to question both his identity and his mother’s choices, leading to a poignant journey of rediscovery when they return to South Korea years later.

Shim’s direction is patient and deeply empathetic, combining tender domestic realism with lyrical cinematography that captures both the ache of displacement and the beauty of belonging. Choi Seung-yoon delivers a radiant, award-winning performance, anchoring the film with quiet power and emotional precision.

Riceboy Sleeps is a film about love as endurance—about how memory, grief, and identity intertwine across generations. Profoundly moving and visually exquisite, it stands as one of the most affecting explorations of family and cultural identity in contemporary Canadian cinema.

Screening With:

For Roy

Canadian Short Showcase

Inspired by true events, an imaginative Asian-Canadian girl attempts to fold a thousand cranes as she learns to lose her father during his final days in the hospice.

10 mins
Canada, 2022
Dir. Vivian Cheung
Language: English

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