Winning awards at five different international film festivals–including Toronto and Busan–not to mention nominated for nine Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, Anthony Shim’s semi- autobiographical film Riceboy Sleeps is sure to astound American audiences as well.
After losing her husband to suicide, So-young (Choi Seung-yoon) moves to a Vancouver suburb in the early 1990s with her son, Dong-hyun (Dohyun Noel Hwang as a child; Ethan Hwang as a teenager). Young Dong-hyun cannot find acceptance at school, is bullied mercilessly by classmates and regarded as a problem by teachers and staff. So-young faces similar troubles at her factory job, enduring racism and sexism in equal measure, not to mention a profound loneliness. Shifting forward in time to the late 1990s, we see that the pair have endured for better or for worse, until a need to return to South Korea both complicates and enriches their lives. Anthony Shim’s patient camera soaks in the lives of these two survivors in a film of astonishing compassion and warmth. “[A]n affectionate, sharply-observed portrait of family life.” –Allan Hunter, Screen Daily
Director Biography
Anthony Shim was born in South Korea and raised in a suburb of Vancouver. He has dozens of acting roles to his credit, and is the director of the short film “Bailed” (2011, appearing in the anthology two x 4) and the feature film Daughter (2019). Riceboy Sleeps (2022) is his most recent film.
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