A multi-award-winning festival favourite Riceboy Sleeps is a Korean family drama set in Canada in the 90s.
So-young, a Korean single mother raising her adolescent son Dong-hyun, is determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in her native country and she does her best to overcome the constant racial and cultural challenges that confront them. As Dong-hyun gets older, he becomes increasingly curious about his Korean heritage and in particular, about his deceased father – a topic that So-young refuses to address.
Instead, she is set on continuing to build on her new life which now includes a relationship with a kind Korean-Canadian man who is eager to take on the role of Dong-hyun’s surrogate father. This only exacerbates the tense relationship between her and Dong-hyun. Then, sudden devastating news prompts the mother and son to return to South Korea for the first time since their initial departure with hopes of reconnecting to their roots and reconciling their tragic past.