Discoveries from Taiwan World Cinema

This landmark dance film presents *Portrait of the Families*, a defining work by Lin Hwai-min and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, directed for screen by Chang Chao-Tang. *Portrait of the Families* is a mournful elegy for loss. Dancers move amid projections of nearly 200 historical Taiwanese photographs collected by Chang Chao-Tang and the voices of oral histories, evoking the deep scars and pain left by the 228 Incident and the White Terror. This film captures the original staging from the work’s 1997 premiere.

The film replicates one of the 7cm Mountain Gun which were used during Japan's 'Pacification' campaign against Indigenous peoples. During this trip, Kao invites Atayal youth to return to the original mountain location shelled by Japanese police in 1906. They fire towards a distant hotel, now located on the site of a village once occupied by the Japanese. With a tone of playfulness and irony, the film subverts colonial aggression while exploring the possibilities of artistic action.

Takashi, who studies abroad in Taiwan, finds every day is full of fun in friendship and love that he can't find in Japan. However, he feels the difficulty of conveying his feelings frankly while the time goes by.

In 1995 in Malaysia, Lily faced the burden of her husband's funeral and the enormous cost of healing Xiong's heart. In addition to work in the rubber plantations, she had to take care of two children, Xiong and Feng. Under all kinds of burdens, in an arrangement with her boss, Lily decides to sell one of the children.

Chubby always eats, walks, and plays alone—until one day, he meets a masked tree spirit named Little Tree under a giant tree. Their bond sparks laughter, friendship, and the creation of the “Little Tree Defense Squad,” where four children protect their secret green haven. But when humans threaten to destroy the tree, Little Tree must return to the forest. For the first time, Chubby steps forward, determined to find his friend and protect the world they love with his own courage.

Eighty years after World War II, memory clings like frost to glass-blurred, fractured, yet never fully fading. Filmmaker Ming Chun retraces the forgotten journey of Taiwanese soldiers conscripted by Japan, captured by the Soviets, and exiled to Siberia. From departure and defeat to captivity and return, he follows a path of war and displacement-toward a home that no longer felt like home. Across Taiwan, Japan, and Russia, he searches for traces of their lives-abandoned camps, fading photographs, fragments of memory-while opening a dialogue across three generations: elders whose recollections falter, children burdened with unanswered questions, grandchildren confronting fractured identities. When history falls silent, what do we hear? And where do restless souls finally belong?

Growing is such a miserable illusion.

Sun Chung's directorial debut.

“You have read all the stories in the world, but can you tell me your story?” The city library is preparing to shut its doors. Confronted with the prospect of being shut down, Mia, an AI database and librarian, begins to question her existence and develop her first creative consciousness.

A film by Lu Xiao Wei for Boiler Room—a documentary that delves into the story of FINAL, a groundbreaking club in Taipei that has redefined the city’s underground music scene. From dimly lit staircases to the dreamlike glow of neon, FINAL is more than just a venue—it’s a cultural movement. This is where boundaries are pushed, genres are reimagined, and self-expression takes center stage. Through the voices of its founders, DJs, and the wider creative community, the film explores how FINAL became a sanctuary for experimentation, a home for those seeking freedom beyond the mainstream. Shot entirely in Taipei, the film captures the raw energy of the city: its chaotic streets, intimate club spaces, and the relentless spirit of a scene that thrives against the odds. It’s a story of resilience, identity, and the power of music to bring people together, even in the face of challenges like the pandemic.

A spy film about two spies, one male and female (Pai Hung cross-dressed as male), cracking down the villainy gang The Devil Gang.

Since the seventeenth century, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have endured waves of colonisation until they were finally left with almost no land of their own. The 1984 formation of the Association for Taiwanese Indigenous Rights launched the struggle to regain their rights and initiated the ‘Return Our Land’ movement. This film documents the march on 27 September 1989.

In November, 2008, Chen Yun-lin visited Taiwan, a critical moment in history where the first official Chinese envoy to ever step on Taiwan soil in 60 years. Meanwhile, Taiwan people's freedom of speech and personal liberty were severely suppressed by the state apparatus. Student protesters assembled via internet networking all over the place, to voice their anger at the abuse of their common value. In the course of the struggle, suspicion arises among members of the movement due to ideological differences and distrust. They are engrossed in activism, schoolwork, active citizenship, politics, passion and self-reflection. Here in Taipei, in this square, in their twenties.

Suna and Bunny, a lesbian couple, are planning their wedding on the last day of 1999. They want to invite their close friends to join the celebration of their love. However, the wedding is called off after their sudden breakup. When the ex-lovers get together for the documentary shooting, it seems like they still have feelings for each other…

Before leaving, Yi would like to go back to where there are cattle, oyster farms, and Chi.​

He, who is about to serve mandatory military service, chose to wander the streets of Taipei on the last night spent with his girlfriend who is about to leave the country. During his time here, his troubles were not just about getting a haircut, dealing with hemorrhoids, encountering a boy, but also a subtle pain.

In this futuristic world of 204X, everyone has the chance to freely choose their gender when they come of age. Yi An, a young person on the edge of seventeen, likes and prefers girly and feminine aesthetics. He feels that he isn't masculine enough, but he doesn't feel like a woman either. Yi An is in love with his classmate Zhou Yang Kai, but she expects him to become a girl. Yi An questions whether his attraction to Zhou Yang Kai is based on a gender preference or a connection of souls.

experimental short film but not that EXPERIMENTAL?????

This "site-specific" animation works in "Eslite Book Art Studio" and "Fuzhou Art Village" ,made during the creation of in-store,Used 26 days in the bookstore collect 26 clues, randomly selected 13, and accord- ing to in-store shop in the observed period of readers, the occurrence of the phenomenon, reading books and articles, continuous painting images presented in writing to the store Kinks, made into 13 very short mini-drama unit and situations to concatenate dynamic way of painting their records and fantasy, and finally concentrated in store logs written to the image to become one of the units on theater happening here.

A documentary of taiwanese writer Yang Kui.

It's Mom's birthday today. Li Si-yong is completely blind. Taking Wu Wen-ru who is visually impaired and their unborn child, they wander the streets in the dark. They try to piece together the fragmented memories of their daily life and family, waiting to welcome the arrival of a new life.

In this story about friendship, a ragtag fellowship on a journey to the West support and help each other to overcome obstacles and conquer their mission together!

Chattering school boys first learn of the secret of palm reading. They stare at the overly short lifeline, all of a sudden, the fear of death seeps into their youth. The black and white images exude repression and melancholia, mixed with the angst for mortality and the memory of deceased loved ones. Time flies by like the train speeding past town. With the desire to live, the boys run forward, attempting to break free from destiny.

A film correspondence between Yuri Obitani and Ming-Yu Lee, between Tokyo and Taipei, starting from 2019 to 2021. In the era of the pandemic, they communicate and understand each other through letter films.

Lo Tong Conquers the North

This is a story about a father who drifted from New Zealand to Taiwan to look for his missing son. Although his son was never found after many fruitless searches, he gained love and friendship from many Taiwanese. This documentary tries to trace a father’s journey for searching his beloved son as well as to present how he recovered from his initial pain of losing son and turned it into his love for Taiwan at the end.

Made in 2008–2009, Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-Jen’s Empire’s Borders conveys the real-life experiences of women who have attempted to cross Taiwan’s borders: first, Taiwanese women denied tourist visas to visit the United States, and second, women from mainland China who have married Taiwanese men and have been denied permission to enter or remain in Taiwan. Shot on 35mm film in stark black and white, each woman relates her story in her own words. The bureaucratic settings for these short monologues recall the interview centre or airport immigration hall where the encounters originally took place.

Zhi-jie Li brings his boyfriend Jia-yan Lin home to meet the Li family, who are all very nervous about Lin’s arrival.

A-Zhi returns home to Taiwan for the first time in many years just as his younger brother, A-Yong, is leaving with friends for “huan dao,” or a round-the-island scooter trip. An accident with A- Yongʼs scooter causes them to spend time together in a dysfunctional reunion.

Huang Ya-Li debut short film; premiered at the 40th Golden Horse Awards.

My father's attempt to reminisce by his childhood seaside became one of the most inexplicable experiences of his life. The film strips were buried for 28 days in vinegar, mud, cheese, nato beans, beer, and kimchi. The disintegrated imagery produced by the decomposition is reminiscent of the fragmentation of memory.

[The name "Hong Yi" not only represents a local "art" style that has attracted much attention in Taiwan in recent years, but also allows us to witness from a life course that belongs to the "anomalous" features of contemporary society. ]

[Ten Years of Installation Art Series-Taiwan Art Lantern Festival (Technology Empyrean 2004) The Taipei County Bureau of Culture used "Technology Auras-Metropolitan Gaze and Imagination" as the curatorial proposition of the 2004 Taiwan Lantern Festival Art Light District. It reintegrated the meaning of the times, contemporary art, and the cultural image of the traditional Lantern Festival. Its purpose is to focus on dialogue through the works of artists, the contemporary "urban imagination", and a total of 9 domestic artists' lantern festival installation creations.]

In the Atayal mythology, the souls of the deceased arrive in Heaven by way of the rainbow, yet only the ones who have the traditional face tattoo would be welcomed by the Ancestral Spirits. Seeing the decline of this Atayal tradition, the filmmaker interviews tattooed tribal elders, capturing their longing for lost family, friends and homelands, as well as their feelings about their impending return to the rainbow.

On an ordinary morning, she brushes her teeth, but when she looks into her own image in the mirror, she sees totally a stranger. She had required a surgery three years ago to change her jaw. This is a story about a person who dislikes her body and decides to take action.

This work is an argument initiated with Wendy Brown’s article Resisting Left Melancholy. She applied Walter Benjamin’s notion of “Left Melancholia” to see the political thoughts and the norms in the left-wing movement/ theory traditions as the notion of melancholia. There is the thingness of the thoughts that can see as the lost object. Extends this idea, the thingness of thoughts, come from one’s personal or collective memories could become the pathological fixation.

Taiwan wuxia directed by Joseph Kuo

A hand-drawn animation of the Chinese folktale “Houyi Shoots Down the Suns.”

On the sandy shore at Yehliu, a headless human figure is beached and beaten by the waves. As the figure rolls along the sand, it takes on a variety of sculpture-like poses in the endless space where sea and sky seem to join as one. The human-like figure flickers in and out of view between the waves, until her arms stretch out from the vast emptiness and are cleansed.

A daily gif created over 100 days.

A documentary about a professional Taiwanese basketball team's road to championship.

Featuring plenty of high-kicking, fist-flying action, a martial arts classic from the vaults of Hong Kong cinema. Summoning his skills to defeat a troublesome local thug, a martial arts student (Barry Chan) emerges victorious. But when his enemy retaliates by trying to rape a female classmate, it's definitely time for a rematch. Chan Wai Lau and Liu Ping co-star.