TFS Alum Han Liu’s Award-Winning Short Returns to TIFF Lightbox for MDFF Student Film Showcase

For Class of 2024 Film Production graduate Han Liu, having the opportunity to bring his short film Congratulations, It’s a Girl! back to the big screen at the prestigious TIFF Lightbox recently was both an honour and a full-circle moment.

The eight-minute film, which Liu wrote and directed, kicked off its festival circuit at the prestigious theatre last spring at Toronto Film School’s 2024 TFS FEST – where it swept many of the top awards – and ended its run back at the Lightbox on July 31 after being selected for TIFF’s MDFF Selects: Student Film Showcase 2025.

“It was unexpected, because my film just ended the festival circuit, but I was very happy,” Liu said of learning his film had been chosen as one of just 10 student films to be highlighted. “At first it was screened at TIFF, and now it ends at TIFF as well, so it feels like a perfect loop.”

The annual student showcase, presented by Medium Density Fibreboard Films (MDFF), shines a spotlight on the bright future of filmmaking in this country, and is known for having been a crucial launching pad for many Canadian filmmakers – including MDFF co-founders Kazik Radwanski and Daniel Montgomery (Matt and Mara), Antoine Bourges (Concrete Valley), Hugh Gibson (The Stairs), Brandon Cronenberg (Infinity Pool), and Jacquelyn Mills (Geographies of Solitude), among others.

This year’s MDFF Student Showcase lineup featured short films from across the country, with offerings from the University of British Columbia, Humber Polytechnic, Toronto Metropolitan University, Sheridan College, Simon Fraser University, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD), York University and Concordia University.

The July 31 event, which featured films spanning animation, hybrid documentary, dark comedy, and powerful drama, also offered the participating emerging filmmakers a platform to screen their work in competition, meet fellow artists, and connect with industry professionals.

“Honestly, it was great,” said Liu of the experience of screening his short alongside those of his fellow student filmmakers.

“The quality was really, really high… it didn’t feel like a film showcase for students, it felt pretty mature. I’m also just happy to see other Canadian filmmakers who are young. For a lot of them, it was actually their first time showing their films to the public.”

From Beat Sheet to Big Screen

Set in 1990s China, Congratulations, It’s a Girl! tells the story of Hong, a young woman whose mother decides to swap her newborn daughter for a boy. When Hong’s husband refuses to intervene, she takes matters into her own hands as her family attempts to take the baby away by force.

Liu revealed that the idea began not as a final project, but as a simple writing assignment.

“To be like… almost brutally honest, it just started as a class assignment – and not even a final assignment, it was a beat sheet assignment,” he said. “I never feel like I’m a very creative person, so what I did was, I just wrote down the life experience of people around me, or a little bit of myself, as well, and just tried to piece them together almost like a fiction and non-fiction mix.”

Encouraged by his instructors to develop the idea into a film, Liu eventually wrote and directed Congratulations, It’s a Girl!, using a cast and crew consisting of both TFS students and those from outside the school.

One of his most surprising casting choices was the mother character, played by the mother of a former TFS acting student.

“It took a lot of rehearsals to really nail the tone,” he said. “But, in the end, she performed really, really good – so much better, honestly, than all of us could expect.”

Festival Success and Audience Impact

In addition to Congratulations, It’s a Girl!’s TIFF Lightbox screenings at the MDFF Student Showcase and TFS FEST – where it won five awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay – Liu’s film also played at the Montreal Women Film Festival, the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, and the Angkor Film Festival over the course of its festival run.

“I thought it would be the end,” Liu said of the circuit, “but then earlier this year (TFS Instructor) Bruno Lyra emailed me about submitting it to this MDFF Student Showcase, as well. It’s honestly great.”

Liu said that audiences – particularly those in Canada – have responded with surprise to the story’s premise.

“A lot of people asked me, ‘Is it based on real life events?’” Liu said. “They were really surprised that this kind of thing has actually happened before in this world…and I’m pretty happy about that kind of reaction, because it was actually what I wanted my film to do. Some stories need to be told.”

Lessons from TFS and Looking Ahead

Reflecting on his time at TFS, Liu credits both his writing and production classes with helping him prepare to bring his vision for Congratulations, It’s a Girl! to life.

Before TFS, he said, he never saw himself as overly creative, much less a writer.

“All the writing classes, all the practice, it definitely made me feel like, ‘Oh, I actually could do this,’” he said. “And the production classes taught me how a film set works…how to make the set more organized, with clear structure and hierarchy, so it can be efficient.”

Now that Congratulations, It’s a Girl! has ended its circuit run, Liu is turning his focus to his next project – an immigrant story he’s co-writing with his partner.

“Writing this film really made us think about our identities…and the countless events that happen in the world that make people move out from their own countries – political reasons, economic reasons, climate reasons,” he said. “Canada is an immigrant country, and we want to dive into that theme for our next film.”