Summer Lei

This is a story of reminiscence, remembering my long-deceased Grandpa. To remember is to transcend, therefore it’s a story of time and space, overlapped and intertwined. It’s also a quest of love and work, a spiritual and emotional journey; and through which values are re-examined and life reaffirmed.

10+10 is a project initiated by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival to demonstrate the solidarity between Taiwanese film-makers. 20 directors are invited to make a 5-minute short film each on the theme of the “Uniqueness of Taiwan,” but allowed total freedom in all other aspects.

Doris simply wanted to open a refined, stylish coffee shop in a bohemian Taipei neighborhood, but when she's stuck with a load of useless gifts from the opening celebration, her younger sister Josie turns the café into a burgeoning bartering business. There, even a soulful song (by Japanese singer Atari Kosuke in a cameo) is a tradable commodity. One day, a traveler brings in 35 soaps from around the world with a story for each of them, awakening Doris' imagination about the outside world that she has never seen.

On his 60th birthday, Van is told that he is seriously ill. But instead of going to Taipei for treatment, his illness leads him to Japan. Together with his son, he goes in search of the father who abandoned him 50 years ago. At the same time, a young man with a mysterious connection to Van's past is travelling from Hong Kong to Taiwan.

Early collaboration between Chang Chan-tang and Christopher Doyle documenting the friendship of their inner circle in Taiwan during the early 80s.

A late summer typhoon looms as Ting's wedding approaches. Urged on by her mother, Ting sets out from Guangzhou to Hong Kong to look for her father who has been absent for 20 years. On her trip, Ting's vague memories from the past come back to her. An unexpected encounter leads Ting to find out the truth of her family. She gets in touch with an old friend, Yuseng. They spend a night together at Yuseng's place, both feeling as if they were in a dream, searching for the lost time.

After losing her job as a garment worker, Ling sees her prospects dim dramatically: in her mid forties, she lives in a small, dilapidated apartment in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung and spends much of her time locked in arguments with her testy daughter. Her elderly mother is ailing in hospital. On one of her many visits to the ward she notices an injured man and tentatively starts to care for him.

The quake stole a mother's memory, but her child never forgot. Buried deep underground, how will he find a way to restore the memories she has lost? A segment of the Taiwanese animated anthology Isle Navigator, the film had its world premiere as a standalone short at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival, where it was selected for the Satoshi Kon Award competition.