Short film by recent U of T Scarborough grad to debut at upcoming international film festival

Rebecca Hong and her mother (left) in Kirkland Lake, Ontario.
Image captures Rebecca Hong and her mother (left) in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Hong’s short film explores the experiences of raising a child as an immigrant and the bicultural identity-conflict among second-generation Canadians (Photo courtesy of Rebecca

Raquel A. Russell

The unique experiences of a Chinese-Canadian mother raising her family in small Ontario town is the focus of Rebecca Hong’s debut short film at the upcoming Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.  

Hong, a recent U of T Scarborough graduate and filmmaker, says her film A Mother’s Love is a personal story that explores what it’s like to raise a child as an immigrant and the identity conflict that can arise as a bi-cultural, second-generation Canadian.

“This whole project began when I was invited to create a piece as a part of the Been Here So Long project,” says Hong, who graduated with a specialist in arts management and major in art history.

The Been Here So Long project is funded by the Ontario150 program and run by Reel Asian and Vtape, a Canadian not-for-profit distributor of video art. The eight works to come out of the program are created by young artists, several of whom are U of T alumni.

The Been Here So Long project is funded by the Ontario150 program and run by Reel Asian and Vtape, a Canadian not-for-profit distributor of video art. The eight works to come out of the program are created by young artists, several of whom are U of T alumni.

“Our prompt was to create a film that reworked and reimagined archival footage and home videos based on and inspired by Asian Canadian histories, specifically within Ontario,” says Hong.

“I wanted to explore areas that I fondly remembered as a child that I associated being Chinese with in comparison to places and experiences I connect with now as a part of the Asian Diaspora,” says Hong. “I didn't have a lot of filmmaking experience, so the approach I took to my film was very experimental.”

“I wanted to explore areas that I fondly remembered as a child that I associated being Chinese with in comparison to places and experiences I connect with now as a part of the Asian Diaspora,” says Hong.

Before her family moved to Toronto in 2000, Hong grew up in Kirkland Lake, a small town in Northern Ontario made up of predominately white residents and, according to a 2006 census, only about 25 Chinese Canadians.

“Like many second-generation Canadians, I rejected my Chinese heritage at a young age for the sake of fitting in,” she says.

It wasn’t until recently that Hong says she began to “reconnect with what (she) lost” mainly through discussions with her mother.

Rebecca Hang
Rebecca Hong, director of A Mother's Love. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Hong)

“My mother has taken care of me my entire life as a single immigrant parent and she was the only connection I had to my Chinese heritage,” Hong says. “I wanted to explore our relationship and see how she kept my Chinese culture alive in a culturally scarce environment.”

Up until she began work on A Mother’s Love, Hong had no prior knowledge of filmmaking despite interning with the Reel Asian Film Festival for several years.

“Over the past summer I was motivated to follow through with this project and learn everything from scratch,” she says.

“Reel Asian, Vtape, and Charles Street Video provided me with some guidance on how to approach filmmaking with one-on-one sessions and weekly meetings,” she says. Hong also used online tutorials to learn technical elements such as video editing, sound editing and filming.

Although the film will screen in a forum that brings together Asian-Canadian histories, Hong is adamant that it’s a presentation of her own family experience and is not meant to speak for “other Asian-Canadian experiences.”

“I hope people will find something they can connect with through my film and the other projects in Been Here So Long,” she adds.  

A Mother’s Love, along with seven other short films, will be screened at the 21st Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival on Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema. 

Tickets are available here. An additional screening for the Been Here So Long project runs at The Commons @ 401 Richmond from Nov. 9 to Nov. 18.