Asog

Feature Narrative • Canada • 01h 39m

ASOG is a tragicomic road film that follows a non-binary Filipino comedian pursuing their dream of becoming a pageant Queen. By day REY teaches high school students and by night they perform at bars as a proudly gay comedian named JAYA. En route to a pageant on a neighboring island Jaya encounters a series of people living on the frontlines of the climate crisis. 100% of the cast members are Filipinos who survived Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall. That deadly superstorm was labeled “a warning to the world” and for nearly a decade Filipino-Canadian auteur Seán Devlin 叶世民 has been creating deeply collaborative narrative cinema with disaster survivors on his Mother’s native island of Leyte. Devlin has been working with the film’s co-stars for 9 years. ASOG is a shared reflection on their respective experiences of losing their Mothers. The result is a daringly comedic, yet reverent examination of grief in the era of climate chaos. ASOG was selected for the Cannes’ Docs-in-progress program in May 2023. The film was shot by Canadian cinematographer Anna MacDonald, her short GOOD THANKS, YOU? was an official selection at Cannes’ Critics Week 2020.

Director’s Profile

Seán‌ Devlin 叶世民

Seán‌ ‌Devlin‌ ‌叶‌ ‌世‌民‌ ‌is a first generation Filipino-Chinese-Irish Canadian comedian and filmmaker. He worked as a Consulting Producer on the Oscar nominated Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm; winner of the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Comedy or Musical. Devlin is an alum of the Rotterdam Lab (IFFR 2023). He wrote and directed When The Storm Fades (2018) which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime via 1091 Pictures. For that film The Director’s Guild of Canada presented Sean the Emerging Canadian Director prize at the 37th VIFF, he also earned two international jury prizes for Best Director at festivals in Liverpool and Mumbai. The film won Best Canadian Film at the 19th Gimli Film Festival and two Vancouver Film Critics’ Awards for actors in supporting roles. His debut stand-up album AIRPORTS, ANIMALS. was released by Arts & Crafts Records in July 2021. Devlin is the first comedian ever added to the artist roster at the beloved indie label which introduced the world to the work of Canadian musicians such as Feist and Broken Social Scene. The album was nominated for the 2022 JUNO award for “Best Comedy Album” Toronto’s Now Magazine named it one of the five best Canadian comedy albums of 2021. Paste Magazine (USA) called it “One of the best comedy albums of the year” and raved: “Devlin breaks apart Western society’s racist, capitalist structure with the elegant precision of a Michelin star chef cracking open an egg… His debut ranks among the most thought-provoking and thoroughly funny comedy releases of the year.”