Reel Asian’s So You Think You Can Pitch? 2022 competition made a triumphant return at this year’s annual festival! As in previous years, there was a live showdown between finalists as they pitched their short-film projects to a jury for a chance to win a fabulous prize package to kickstart or finish their film.

This year’s pitch winner was Carol Nguyen. She is a Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker, born and raised in Toronto, now based in Montreal. Her pitch project’s title is Beyond Borders.

Carol’s films often explore themes of cultural identity, silence and memory. Her latest film Nanitic premiered at the TIFF 2022 and was awarded the IMDBPro Share Her Journey Award. Herprior film, No Crying at the Dinner Table, also premiered at TIFF in 2019 and had its international premiere at IDFA 2019, where she was additionally invited as the Opening Night speaker. She is also a 2018 Sundance Ignite fellow and a IDFA Space Project 2022 lab participant for her project The Visitors.

Just recently, I was able to connect with Carol to talk about her career, the importance of pitch competitions for up-and-coming filmmakers, and her latest projects, including two feature films as well as an animated short.