A heartbreaking love letter from a daughter to her father. This short film combines animation and archival footage to explore the realities and inner turmoil of many immigrants’ lives. As a child, Anne Koizumi was ashamed of her father and his Japanese culture. Ashamed that he was a school janitor, ashamed that he called her by her Japanese name in front of her friends when she desperately wanted to integrate without making a fuss. Through a two-voice dialogue, the director uses film to reconnect with her father; to give him a voice and put images to his heritage and personal history, in order to achieve a long-delayed but hopeful reconciliation. A superb film about multicultural identity. (Bruno Dequen)

Presented in collaboration with Radio-Canada

In the Shadow of the Pines