Darkness and Light

Intimate Encounter

Two years post heart transplant, Ah Xun remains unable to shake off the gloom cast over his renewed life. First, there is a house fire; then, an unprecedented pandemic breaks out. Retreating to his grandfather’s home, Ah Xun finds himself persistently haunted by a string of unfortunate events. He is faced with an ex lover’s return, an encounter with the mixed-race sibling neighbours, the harrowing news of his mother’s cancer, his sister’s nervous breakdown, a friend’s drug issues, and now, the news of his grandfather testing positive for the new disease.

Midnight Revenge

Taiwanese drama film.

A City of Sadness

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.

Ah-Chung

The story concerns a male youth named Ah Chung (or Diong-ah in the Taiwanese dialect) who graduates from high school and descends into a maelstrom of personal, familial, and communal conflicts. Ah Chung is going through the liminal stage of finding his place and aim in life. He is sent by his mother to a boot camp, training as one of the Eight Generals. This is a job in performing as a god in Taiwanese popular rituals and Ah Chung's mother believes it can bring spiritual and social goodwill to the much-troubled family: Financially strained mother who is a performer of "low-brow" entertainment, a kid brother who is somewhat retarded, a half-sister who is raped by his alcoholic father, and Ah Chung's listlessness which is easily sucked in by the local gang rivalry...

The Best of Times

Although their characters and temperaments couldn't be less alike, 19-year olds Wei and Jie are best friends. They're also neighbours, living with widower fathers and problem siblings in the suburbs of Taipei. When Wei is promoted from the rank of nightclub parking valet to the rank of debt-collector in Brother Gu's gang, he persuades his boss to hire Jie to work alongside him. Things begin to go wrong when they are given a handgun to reward their success in the new job. Always excitable and volatile, Jie becomes reckless and dangerous when he has the gun in his hand. When they try to collect a debt from the boss of a rival gang, a fight erupts and Jie shoots the gang-boss. The boys find themselves on the run. But fate and their youthful dreams still have tricks to play.

When Love Comes

Laichun, her father and two mothers, uncle and grandfather are of different generations; thus they all think differently. Father is the family head, and because he believes he must continue on the family name ends up taking two wives.

A Time in Quchi

Bao stays with his grandfather for the summer and is shocked to see there are no modern appliances.

True Emotion Behind the Wall

Director Tso-chi Chang made this film with his fellow inmates in prison. It tells the stories of eight prisoners, whose sentences together add up to more than a hundred years. What kind of incidents will touch their hearts and help them find direction in life?

Soul of a Demon

Che (Tseng Yi-che) returns to Nanfang’ao fishing port after taking the rap for younger bro Ren’s (Cheng Yu-jen) stabbing of the son of local mobster Shun (Hsu Ling-tsang). Ren is also back from hiding in Japan with their father, Chang (Michio Hayashida), who is due to return to settle a score with Shun.

Thanatos, Drunk

In a crumbling house on the edge of Taipei, two brothers drift through odd jobs, messy love, and quiet yearning for a life that feels like their own.

10 Plus 10

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.

How Are You, Dad?

A father can have many different kinds of faces. Which one does your father have? This is a film of ten short stories, and each shows a different relationship between a father and his son. Each story reveals the complexity between fathers and sons.

Synapses

A wife needs to face not only the gradual deterioration of her husband's condition but also the complicated relationship between the daughter who was released from the prison on parole and the secret which was detonated after the old friend was back.All of the incidents make each other stuck into a family storm.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Since his wife Mei-yun was left comatose after nearly drowning, CHEN You-ming has been raising his three sons alone in their seaside village. And since the mechanical digger he drives broke down, Chen has had more time on his hands than he likes. His life is suddenly disrupted by the appearance of a disturbed young woman who calls herself XIE Hui-zhen (“Zhen” for short) and says that Chen is her father. To uncover the facts behind Zhen’s wild claim, CHEN has to contact his old girlfriend KE Li-jia, last seen twenty years ago. Before the truth about Zhen’s inner turmoil emerges, CHEN has to deal with the death of his wife in hospital and the stresses in his relationships with his sons Wei, Ting and Liang.

Blue Eyes

In a candlelit room, time stands still, faces glow with joy tinged by melancholy. In the blue haze of youth, love and regret entwine. As the fire fades, so does clarity... What remains of us when memory blurs into longing?

Think of You

In Minnan, pineapple rhymes with ‘luck’ and is an auspicious symbol. Carrying a pineapple with him, a young man travels with his mentally handicapped younger brother from their hometown in the provinces to Taipei, where a relative works in a factory. There the brothers witness a scene of labour dispute. Will the pineapple bring them luck after all? After scripting Love Is a Gun (2023), winner of the Lion of the Future award at the Venice International Film Festival 2023, LIN Cheng-hsun presents this new short, a dramatisation of brotherly affection, through a sophisticated command of cinematic and narrative devices.