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Directors (1788)
"k" (77)

Julia Kwan (4)

Julia Kwan

Julia Kwan

Julia Kwan is a Vancouver-based filmmaker whose cinematic works often delve into the Chinese-Canadian cultural experience. Raised in Vancouver by Chinese immigrant parents, Kwan studied film at Ryerson University in Toronto and was a director resident at the Canadian Film Centre when she made her award-winning short film Three Sisters on Moon Lake, about Chinese-Canadian sisters who discover the beauty and tragedy of the imagination.

In 2005, Kwan made her feature-film directorial debut with Eve and the Fire Horse. The coming-of-age story about a precocious nine-year-old premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and played at Sundance, where it won the coveted Special Jury Prize for World Cinema. In 2007, Kwan received the Claude Jutra Award for the best feature by a first-time director in Canada.

In 2014, Kwan directed Everything Will Be, an NFB feature-length doc that captures the subtle nuances of Vancouver’s Chinatown in the midst of transformation. The Zoo is her first animated film.

 

  • Blossom
    Blossom
    Julia Kwan 2010 6 min
    Julia Kwan's short film captures the experience of a young woman as she travels to a new country. As summer opens into spring, mother and daughter build a life together. The taste and texture of each season, whether the ice-cream smell of summer, the crisp birch air of autumn, or the warmth of winter dumplings -- are lovingly rendered in animation, sound and image. Throughout the passage of time, the persistence of love endures, as resolute and unchanging as the cycle of the season.
  • Surfacing
    Surfacing
    Julia Kwan 2015 6 min
    This short film explores the passions of acclaimed musician and songwriter Sarah McLachlan, using her own words and drawings to guide us through her rich creative world, the founding of the groundbreaking Lilith Fair, and her philanthropic work at the Sarah McLachlan School of Music.

    Produced by the NFB in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2015 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
  • The Zoo
    The Zoo
    Julia Kwan 2018 11 min
    The Zoo follows the parallel lives of a polar bear cub in a popular city zoo and a Chinese boy who visits him until they’re both in their twilight years.
  • Everything Will Be
    Everything Will Be
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    Julia Kwan 2014 1 h 26 min
    Julia Kwan’s feature-length documentary Everything Will Be captures a significant moment of time in Vancouver’s Chinatown, with the influx of condos and new, non-Chinese businesses. The film follows a year in the life of several Chinatown denizens, including a 90-year-old Chinese newspaper street vendor and a second-generation tea shop owner, as they navigate this community in flux.

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