The migrant experience is given gentle, thoughtful realisation in RICEBOY SLEEPS, a slow burn story of a single mother trying to survive in an alien environment.

Following her boyfriend’s suicide and the birth of their son, Dong-hyun, So-young flees South Korea to settle in the suburbs of Canada in the last decade of the 20th Century.

Determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in her native country, she does her best to overcome the constant racial and cultural challenges that confront them.

As Dong-hyun gets older, he becomes increasingly curious about his Korean heritage and in particular, about his deceased father – a topic that So-young refuses to address. Instead, she is set on continuing to build on her new life which now includes a relationship with a kind Korean-Canadian man who is eager to take on the role of Dong-hyun’s surrogate father.

This only exacerbates the tense relationship between her and Dong-hyun. Then, sudden devastating news prompts the mother and son to return to South Korea for the first time since their initial departure with hopes of reconnecting to their roots and reconciling their tragic past.

Writer, Director, Producer, Actor & Editor, Anthony Shim has taken this simple, incredibly personal story and fashioned it into an authentic cinematic experience, elevating the mundane into the sublime.

Choi Seung-Yoon’s performance as So-young is heart rendering and honest, happy to integrate into Canadian society but fiercely protective of her son and demonstrably prickly over any perceived prejudices inflicted.

Ethan Hwang Dong-hyun as the adolescent Dong-hyun is superb as the sulky, surly teen hemmed in by his hyphenation, Korean-Canadian.

RICEBOY SLEEPS is another fine example of independent filmmaking producing a more satisfying experience than some of the overly saturated studio offerings- a film celebrating the true meaning of multiculturalism.