MAIFF 2026  -

AmérAsia

There Are No Words

May 14

17:30

Cinéma du Musée

Documentary

98

minutes

English

Content Warning:

Suicide

About the Film

Director

Min Sook Lee

Country

Canada

Year

2025

Program

Opening Ceremony

Curated by

MAIFF Programming Team

Description

Award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee turns the camera on herself in this urgent documentary, searching for memories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when Lee was just 12 years old. Confrontational and speculative, There Are No Words contemplates how trauma fractures memory as Lee revisits the people and places of her childhood in Toronto, Canada, and Hwasun, South Korea, her place of birth.

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About the Director
Min Sook Lee
Director
Min Sook Lee has directed numerous critically acclaimed works, including the Donald Brittain Gemini-winning Tiger Spirit, Hot Docs’ Best Canadian Feature winner Hogtown, Gemini-nominated El Contrato and the Canadian Screen Award-winning The Real Inglorious Bastards. Lee’s most recent documentary, Migrant Dreams, was awarded the Canadian Hillman Prize in 2017. Lee’s exceptional contributions have garnered her prestigious accolades such as the Cesar E. Chavez Black Eagle Award and the Alanis Obomsawin Award for Commitment to Community and Resistance. Mayworks, Canada’s oldest labour arts festival, even named the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award in her honour. As an Associate Professor at OCAD University, Lee’s area of research and practice focuses on the critical intersections of art and social change in labour, border politics, migration and social justice movements.
Film Stills
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Awards & Festival Recognition

Toronto International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Reel Asian International Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival

Press & Articles