A Nikkei Canadian Story

Alice Il Shin is a Korean filmmaker who studied film at Nihon University in Japan and has since worked as a director, producer, and editor in Japan, Korea, and Canada. Her films often explore Asian-Canadian experiences, including her award-winning short Haru’s New Year (2018), which follows a Japanese high school girl newly transferred to Toronto.

She went on to create Signal Fire (2019), a lyrical short that tells the story of an immigrant family through classical Chinese poetry, and History in Paper (2020), a CBC Arts documentary highlighting the printmaking practice of a fourth-generation Nikkei Japanese Canadian artist inspired by her grandmother’s internment camp experiences.

Her feature documentary Landscapes of Home (2024) continues her exploration of Japanese-Canadian internment, and from this work she also created the short documentary A Nikkei Canadian Story (2024), which stands as a condensed companion piece.

Most recently, she completed her animated short Pearl (2025), an adaptation of a medieval English poem reimagined in a Joseon-era Korean setting.

Eiko Kawabe Brown is a filmmaker, podcaster, and student/researcher based in Toronto, Canada, and Tokorozawa, Japan. As a producer for Alice Il Shin, her credits include the short films Haru's New Year (2018), Signal Fire (2019), and CBC Arts' History in Paper (2019), as well as the recently completed documentary films Landscapes of Home and A Nikkei Canadian Story (2024).

Beyond her production work, Eiko works as a Japanese translator and transcriber for film and TV broadcasting. Credits include Dark Side of the Ring (2021, Vice TV Series), A.rtificial I.mmortality (2021, Feature Documentary), and Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan (2020, docudrama, Netflix).

As a podcaster, she produces and writes Kyokorin and "Anego's Iyeyan," a podcast running since 2022 with four seasons. Eiko has also dedicated over 20 years as a volunteer at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto, Canada.