The Long Goodbye

A disturbing close portrait of a young man who, like all other men in Taiwan, must enlist in the army. Dreaming of saving enough money to enter an Australian art college after having been discharged, he is gradually crushed by the corruption, the verbal violence, and the hypocrisy that festers in the military hierarchy.

Having spent over a year in the town of Jiasian in Kaohsiung to shoot this documentary, Golden Horse award-winning director Yang Li Chou (The Long Goodbye, Young at Heart) puts together an inspirational post-catastrophe documentary with Bridge Over Troubled Water. Capturing the emotional journey of children through a national tug-of-war tournament and the hard lives of foreign brides in the region, the documentary tells of the determination and bravery shown by the survivors of a calamitous typhoon that struck Taiwan in 2009. A group of young children volunteer to take part in a nationwide competition in order to restore hope in their town, while a large number of foreign mothers in the area hope to revive the land that they love through exotic cuisine.

Lingtan Street is home to several shops, where the owners keep their secrets. A woman who has lost her family, a lesbian running a bookshop, a vegetable stall owner controlled by her husband, a piano teacher relying on a cleaning job, a young mother separated from her son and a music store owner about to have a home birth. Their lives become entwined as they go through the highs and lows together.

A documentary short about a B&B owner with right hand cut off.

A team of five go on an expedition to the South Pole. As they have experienced the blizzard and the excruciating pains, this journey proves to be a challenge to their not only physical but mental strength. While marching towards the end of the world, they explore the unknown darkness in their minds. During the process, director Yang reflects upon his life, turning this film into a loving monologue dedicated to his mother.

In 2013, the Golden Horse Film Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary. The ministry of Culture commissioned director Yang Li-chou to make a documentary about the history of Golden Horse. What is unique to this film is that it's not an ode to celebrities but about the role cinema plays in ordinary people's lives. It's a love letter to cinema, filmmakers and audiences.

In the 1970s, Taiwan's first grand cabaret, The Sapphire, opened in Kaohsiung, igniting a golden decade of live entertainment. Beneath its dazzling lights, the nation's tensions and censorship faded in nights of glitz and song.Stars like Teresa Teng, Fei Yu-ching and Fong Fei-fei graced. its stage, where glamour met gambling, drugs, and danger.Half a century later, The Sapphire is resurrected—through AI and music—to relive its untamed brilliance.

A team of an entrepreneur, an athlete and a student from Taiwan arrived in the Arctic Circle. Through their participation in the 2008 Polar Challenge – a 600 km race to the Magnetic North Pole, they’ve realized their dreams. They experienced hypothermia and attack from polar bears en route.

A documentary short about a founder of a sanctuary for southeast Asian immagrant workers' babies.

Who says the elderly could only wait for death? A group of them, averagely aged 70, broke the stereotype. They formed a team of cheerleaders and performed at the opening ceremony of the World Game in Kaohsiung in July 2009. Their 9-month preparation left not only them but their families the most memorable memories of their lives.

This is a behind-the-scenes documentary of "Double Vision", a Hollywood film shot in Taiwan. In 2001, Taiwan was struck by as many as nine typhoons, bringing with them an extraordinary amount of rainfall. That same year marked the first time the Hollywood film industry arrived in Taiwan with substantial funding and manpower. Although this documentary follows a production boasting an impressive international cast, it also captures a more complex reality: when the powerful machinery of Hollywood enters a country whose own film industry has all but disappeared, what should we be questioning or reflecting upon in this model of transnational collaboration? Like the typhoons that repeatedly swept across Taiwan during filming, what else did they bring besides torrential rain?

A documentary short about a man attending WorldSkills.