Still Night, Burning House - Carol Nguyen [TIFF '26 Review]

Carol Nguyen is a Canadian-Vietnamese filmmaker who has steadily climbed the ladder of the national industry since her prolific run of breakout short projects, in which she explored a diverse directorial vision during her years in high school and throughout her undergraduate studies. Capping off that stint of both familial documentaries and existential dramas/experimental projects, she directed and produced No Crying at the Dinner Table — a short that went on to vie for an Academy Award nomination and win a slew of awards and critical accolades, alongside establishing what has been an irrefutable path for East Asian-Canadian filmmakers, their confrontations with familial secrecy and traumas now so consistently referring back to that short for inspiration and technique. Carol, after a review of her CV, has had as robust a career in documentary cinema as an emerging filmmaker can have, working closely with major distributors and A-tier festival labs, and becoming a face others might aspire to. Her debut feature, Still Night, Burning House , in title and idea, creates a very pointed throughline across her filmography. No Crying at the Dinner Table is an obvious predecessor to this pro...