The Mother and the Bear 2025 Asian Film Festival Dallas
The Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD) announced the film lineup for this year’s 24th edition of the popular film festival. Taking place July 24-27, AFFD’s Opening Night selection is Shinji Araki’s Japanese thriller Penalty Loop, Centerpiece will be Johnny Ma’s comedy-drama The Mother and the Bear, and the Closing Night selection is Yugo Sakamoto’s Japanese action-comedy Baby Assassins: Nice Days. AFFD’s special Saturday Women’s Showcase spotlighting female filmmakers will feature Mye Hoang’s latest feline-inspired documentary 25 Cats From Qatar, and Dương Diệu Linh’s Vietnamese fantasy/drama Don’t Cry, Butterfly. All screenings will take place at the Angelika Film Center Dallas (5321 E. Mockingbird Lane, #230).
AFFD Programming Director Paul Theiss, said, “This year’s festival is especially exciting as we present our latest Women’s Showcase, celebrating powerful works by female filmmakers from across Asia—South Korea, India, Singapore, and Vietnam—as well as the United States. For the festival as whole, while fans can still count on the high-energy action films we’re known for, a deeper theme emerged as I programmed the lineup: the power of connection. This year’s festival explores the deep human need to reach out, be seen, and never go it alone. And what better place to celebrate that spirit of connection than at a film festival, which brings us together through the shared experience of storytelling.”
Opening night on Thursday, July 24, features Shinji Araki’s Penalty Loop. The Best Asian Film winner at the Fantasia Film Festival, which screened in front of a sold out audience there, Araki’s film gives the time-loop movie treatment an action-filled edge. The film follows a man who wakes up one morning and proceeds to exact revenge on the man who murdered his lover. However, when he wakes up it is the same day, and he finds himself forced to kill the man again and again and again. And that man also begins to realize he is caught in the same loop destined to be killed over and over and over again. Thus, a time loop cat-and-mouse between the two men is set into motion.
Johnny Ma’s The Mother and the Bear is a two-time festival award-winner making its way to Dallas and AFFD for the Centerpiece Screening on Friday, July 25. The Chinese Canadian filmmaker tries his hand with a lighter touch after building a critically-acclaimed reputation with dramatic fare with this film about a mother who discovers she doesn’t really know her own daughter after she has an accident and falls into a coma. Along with learning about her life, she starts working on some matchmaking for her daughter to take place post-coma as well as possibly starting a new relationship herself. Johnny Ma will also be in-person at AFFD to participate in the post-screening Q&A.
