There Are No Words
TW: This film contains discussions of suicide and the effects of suicide loss on survivors. If you need support services, please call your local Distress Centre. If you need immediate help, please call or text 9-8-8.
Award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee turns the camera on herself in this intimate and urgent documentary, searching for memories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died when Lee was just 12 years old. Her search leads her to her now 90-year-old father, the last direct connection she has to her mother. Revisiting the people and places of her childhood in Toronto and Hwasun, South Korea, Lee pieces together a family history shaped by silence, displacement and memories that refuse to settle into a single truth. Confrontational and speculative, There Are No Words explores how trauma fractures memory and how larger histories can become embedded in family life. Moving between documented and imagined histories, Lee confronts what can be remembered, what has been forgotten and what remains impossible to say.
Honourable Mention for Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival
Award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee turns the camera on herself in this intimate and urgent documentary, searching for memories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died when Lee was just 12 years old. Her search leads her to her now 90-year-old father, the last direct connection she has to her mother. Revisiting the people and places of her childhood in Toronto and Hwasun, South Korea, Lee pieces together a family history shaped by silence, displacement and memories that refuse to settle into a single truth. Confrontational and speculative, There Are No Words explores how trauma fractures memory and how larger histories can become embedded in family life. Moving between documented and imagined histories, Lee confronts what can be remembered, what has been forgotten and what remains impossible to say.
Honourable Mention for Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival
Awards and distinctions
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Best Cinematography in a Feature Length DocumentaryCanadian Screen Awards, Toronto2026
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Best DirectorAsian Film Festival, Montréal2026
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Best Musical ScoreAsian Film Festival, Montréal2026
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DOC Institute Best Documentary AwardReel Asian International Film Festival, Toronto2025
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Honourable Mention for Best Canadian Feature Film AwardToronto International Film Festival, Toronto2025