OCAD University Associate Professor Min Sook Lee’s documentary There Are No Words topped the winners at this year’s Reel Asian International Film Festival.
There Are No Words scored the Reel Asian-DOC Institute Best Documentary Award among the prizes handed out on Nov. 6, 2025.
The NFB doc tells Lee’s personal story and that of her parents as she gets her guarded father to open up about the harmful consequences of his behaviour and his impact on Lee’s mother, who died by suicide after the family moved to Canada from Korea.
“At once brave, beautiful, and heartbreaking, there are no answers in this investigation of transgenerational silences intertwined with personal and political histories of migration, violence, and family secrets,” remarked the jury in a statement. “This haunting film is a moving ode to living on in the face of grief and difficult inheritances.”
The film also won an honourable mention for Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.