After screening TANW, drove down to Hwasun for a few quiet days. Returned to the small school where the film’s final scene was shot.
Just down the road is the shuttered mine. On this same road, my mother once lived alone in a shack — unmarried, with her first baby, determined to survive.
I think of her often here. Unbowed. Fierce. Determined to make another life for her children.
엄마, 나 왔다.
Screening There Are No Words in Korea was more than I could understand- until it happened. Probably will only really feel it after in reflection, as it unspooled it felt all too fast. Three packed screenings. So many intense responses. Recognition and a kind of reckoning in the room with so much that hangs unspoken. Silence, family violence, suicide and afterlives of Cold War and normalization of forever wars. And here an immediacy to knowing this story- no need to explain cultural weight of it all. Did many interviews with Korean dailies and grateful yo my uncle for travelling from Hwasun to festival. I know he told me to just forget about it all. But now a part of his sister’s story has been told. #jeonju
#MAIFF2026 #nfbcanada ENG: We are deeply honoured to welcome filmmaker Min Sook Lee to MAiFF 2026 for a special discussion at our Opening Ceremony, alongside the official Opening Film, There Are No Words.
We chose this film to open the first edition of MAiFF because it embodies the kind of bold, urgent, and deeply personal storytelling that defines this new chapter for our festival. In There Are No Words, Min Sook Lee turns the camera toward her own family history, retracing her childhood between Toronto and Hwasun, South Korea in search of understanding following her mother’s death. Moving through memory, testimony, and fragments of the past, the film becomes an intimate reflection on grief, inherited trauma, silence, and survival.
For years, Lee has created work that confronts difficult social and political realities with honesty and care. In this film, she speaks openly about violence within her own life and family history, while also drawing attention to the larger histories of division, displacement, and unresolved trauma that continue to shape Korea beyond the polished images often presented in mainstream media. As Lee has shared, her future works will continue exploring the legacies of war, separation, and violence in Korea more directly.
Currently touring the international festival circuit and receiving widespread critical acclaim, There Are No Words is a powerful opening statement for MAiFF 2026 and the conversations we hope to create through cinema.
Join us for this special opening screening and discussion with Min Sook Lee. Tickets available through our website and the link in bio. #nationalfilmboardcanada #TIFF #artseastwest
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ENG: Did you know that director Min Sook Lee will be present for a discussion at our Opening Ceremony following the screening? You can now preview a special clip from There Are No Words here.
There Are No Words invites us into the quiet, complex spaces where memory, identity, and family intersect. With a deeply reflective lens, Lee retraces moments from her past, creating a cinematic dialogue between who we are and where we come from.
Spanning Toronto and Hwasun, the film moves across geographies and generations, weaving together personal history with broader questions of belonging and inheritance. Through intimate encounters and revisited spaces, it reveals how time reshapes our understanding of the people closest to us.
Rather than offering simple answers, There Are No Words embraces uncertainty—opening up space for reflection, connection, and deeper recognition.
Join us for this special Opening Night screening and stay for a rare opportunity to hear directly from Min Sook Lee as she shares insights into her process and the journey behind the film
There Are No Words is a film that explores the worlds of postmemory. Those of us in the diaspora of the global south contend with trauma that formed our lives but we haven’t experienced personally. To show this film to Korean audiences in Jeonju is deeply meaningful. @jeonju_iff is in its 27th year and this town has embraced cinema in a way that is so powerful. My first screening is this afternoon. Looking forward to the conversations afterwards.
I’ve only been here a few days but it feels like a half lifetime. The beauty of springtime in Seoul. Heard Lee Chang Dong speak on films and suffering. His vulnerability was powerful. Made me understand some of the intensity behind that film Secret Sunshine. The pain on screen is almost unbearable to watch. The next day I visited with the activists at @mediact01 who have persevered despite being blacklisted twice by previous fascist govt. The power of media to change the world is in grassroots indy media centres these.
@jeonju_iff opens tonight. There Are No Words screens May 1, May 2 and May 4. All three screenings are sold out. Not sure what to expect.
ENG: Bitterness has a way of sharpening what we take for granted, and There Are No Words by Min Sook Lee brings that truth into focus with remarkable courage. In turning the camera on herself, Lee, a self-taught documentary filmmaker, undertakes a brave and deeply vulnerable act: confronting the memory of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when she was just 12 years old.
Our Opening Film, There Are No Words moves between Toronto and Hwasun, tracing fractured memory, inherited trauma, and the silences that shape a life. Confrontational and speculative, the film examines how grief resists language, as Lee revisits the people and places of her childhood, including her father, her last direct connection to her mother, whose memories are marked by distance, contradiction, and a history of abuse.
At its core, the film insists that some stories must be told, even when there are no words for them. In doing so, it reveals how bitterness and loss can deepen one’s understanding of life—not by offering resolution, but by giving weight to what remains.
Awards & Festivals:
Official Selection — Toronto International Film Festival 2025
Honourable Mention, Best Canadian Feature — Toronto International Film Festival 2025
Official Selection — Windsor International Film Festival 2025
DOC Institute Best Documentary Award — Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2025
Official Selection — Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2026
Official Selection — Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2026
Official Selection — Jeonju International Film Festival 2026
Official Selection — Incheon Diaspora Film Festival 2026
Min Sook Lee has directed eight feature documentaries, focusing on labour, migration, and social justice issues. We are honoured to present this extraordinary work as our opening film, and we extend our sincere thanks to Min Sook Lee for her trust, her presence, and for sharing a story of such depth and difficulty with our festival community. (French in comments)
I’ve arrived early. Heading to @jeonju_iff in a few days. I’ll be attending a psychoanalysis conference for Lee Chang Dong’s keynote lecture on the themes of shame & guilt in his film Secret Sunshine. Themes I know well.
Every-time I land here I get such a strong sense of overwhelm. An emotional pull when I see people so comfortable in their own skin. Outside/in I watch and always ask ‘what if?…
Its especially strong now that I have arrived with my film. Not sure what to expect.
Back in Toronto. $10 train from airport, public transit still wins.
@fullframefest stayed with me.
@truenorthdocumentary - precise & poetic use of archives that surfaces buried history of Black activism in Canada and collusion of police and uni administrators to repress
@thegreatexperimentfilm an archive of the present, vast patience. Impressive in scale and craft.
@stealthisstoryplease urgent, powerful portrait of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman
Missed more than I wanted. Glad to see American Doctor and A Fox Under a Pink Moon take awards at the BBQ.
Thanks to the festival staff, programmers, volunteers, and audiences for building something real in Durham.
