''Queen of the Morning Calm'' is a 2019 Canadian drama film written and directed by Gloria Ui Young Kim in her

feature directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

.Angela Morrison
"CFF Review: 'Queen of the Morning Calm' Is a Must-See Debut from a Rising Canadian Director"
'' Exclaim!'', May 29, 2020. The film stars Tina Jung as Deborah, a single mother in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

who is struggling to raise her daughter Mona (Eponine Lee) while the girl's father Sarge ( Jesse LaVercombe) moves in and out of their lives unpredictably and unreliably. The film was in development for several years.Lauren Malyk
"Gloria Ui Young Kim’s push for Queen of the Morning Calm"
'' Playback'', December 6, 2019. Kim won the Telefilm Canada New Voices Award at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference in 2013 for its screenplay, but struggled to secure sufficient funding to make the film until she won the $200,000 Feature Film Award from Women in the Director's Chair in 2016. The film finally went into production in November 2018. ''Queen of the Morning Calm'' premiered at the

Whistler Film Festival The Whistler Film Festival (WFF) is an annual film festival held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 2001, the festival is held the first weekend of December and includes juried competitive sections, the Borsos Awards, and the Pand ...

on December 7, 2019, and was subsequently screened at the Canadian Film Festival on May 29, 2020, where Kim won the awards for William F. White Reel Canadian Indie and Best Director, while Lee won for Best Breakout Performance.

Critical response

For '' Exclaim!'', Angela Morrison praised the film, writing that "The film is technically accomplished and meticulously shot, perfectly capturing the chilly streets, cozy shops and small apartment spaces of Toronto. Scenes of Mona and Debra dragging their belongings through the city streets evoke the alienation and sense of precarity that comes with being a single mother and a sex worker in a big city, experiences that are often excluded within the canon of Toronto-set indie rom-coms (i.e. '' The F Word'', '' Take This Waltz''), a fact that Kim recognizes and begins to rectify in telling this deeply personal, resonant story." Chris Knight of the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

'' rated the film 3.5 stars out of 5, writing that "Queen of the Morning Calm delivers a nuanced portrayal of inner-city Toronto – neither beautiful nor horrifying – and of a young woman trying to make her way in it."Chris Knight
"Mother/daughter drama drives Queen of the Morning Calm"
''

'', September 25, 2020.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 9265018 *
Queen of the Morning Calm
' at Library and Archives Canada 2019 films 2019 drama films Canadian drama films Films about Asian Canadians Films about Korean Canadians Films about mother–daughter relationships Films about striptease Films about poverty English-language Canadian films Films shot in Toronto Films set in Toronto 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films