Feature Film
Day Off
Taiwan | 2023 | Malaysian Premiere | Mandarin | 106 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Wu Nien-Jen, Dennis Wu
Screenplay: Fu Tien-Yu
Cinematographer: Zhang Zhi-Teng
Film Company: Mandarin Vision Co., Ltd.
Cast: Fu Meng Bo, Lu Hsiao Fen, Annie Chen, Shi Ming Shuai
For 40 years A-Rui has been running a barbershop. One day, she receives a phone call from the family of an old client who moved away, asking if she would be willing to travel to give the bedridden old man a haircut.
Director:
Fu Tien-Yu
A Silent Gaze
Taiwan | 2022 | Malaysian Premiere | Mandarin | 181 min | Documentary | DCP
Producer: Tsai Chih-Chin
Screenplay: Huang Hsin-Yao
Cinematographer: Huang Hsin-Yao
Film Company: A-Yao Film
Cast: NA
“Bei-Jiang-Qi” is short for the three townships of Beimen, Jiangjun, and Qigu off the coast of Tainan County. Director HUANG has stayed here since 2005 after having moved more than 20 times. In 2009, he began to document the area. It took him 12 years to accumulate footage of the ever-changing times, yet it seems nothing has changed. The film presents an immense record of open landscapes and the footprints of human activities. The two are independent yet codependent of each other. In the film, HUANG tries to portray a way of life. When the camera is still, every movement condenses into one. In between different takes, moments sometimes suspend as if captured by a still photo. Although it took 12 years to film A Silent Gaze, this is not a work about time. Instead, it is about timelessness. The moment presented on the screen may be a present moment, may be a moment of the past, or perhaps a moment in the future. And at every moment, one wonders whose moment it is. As a part of a discussion on memory and temporality, this work comes in another 3-channel video installation as further dialogue with this single-channel video.
Director:
Huang Hsin-Yao
Heavy Craving
Taiwan | 2019 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 90 min | Historical, Drama | DCP
Producer: E.N. Lee, Wang Jing
Screenplay: Hsieh Pei-Ju
Cinematographer: Wang Yu-Wen
Film Company: Rediance Films
Cast: Samantha Ko Shu-Chin, Lene Lai, Tsai Jia-Yin, Chang Yao-Jen
30 years old. Weighs 105 kilograms. Lunch lady Ying-Juan was dealt a bad hand. She works at her mother’s childcare center and has a harder time fitting in than a T-Rex in a petting zoo. On her birthday, Ying-Juan’s mother signs her up for a weight loss program. To earn her mom’s approval, Ying-Juan reluctantly joins the class.
But things change when Ying-Juan meets Wu, a deliveryman who bears a checkered past underneath his radiant smile. Encouraged by Wu, Ying-Juan becomes more determined to lose weight. Meanwhile, Ying-Juan discovers Xiao-Yu, a straight-A student at the childcare center, is a secret cross-dresser, and special bond begins to form between them. Just when things are getting on the right track, Ying-Juan’s passion for cooking and life seem to be fading away due to her over-aggressive diet. Bitterly, Ying-Juan finds herself standing on the brink of a meltdown, both physically and psychologically…
Director:
Hsieh Pei-Ju
I WeirDo
Taiwan | 2020 | NA | Mandarin | 100 min | Drama, Comedy, Romance | DCP
Producer: Ivy Chen
Screenplay: Liao Ming-Yi
Cinematographer: Liao Ming-Yi
Film Company: Activator Marketing Company
Cast: Lin Po-Hung, Nikki Hsieh, Chang Shao-Huai, Aviis Zhong
Asia’s first iPhone shot film – a fantasy romance about two lovers suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Po-Ching is an OCD patient, with serious symptoms of mysophobia. He has been conditioned to the endless cleaning habits in his daily life. Po-Ching goes out for daily shopping and meets another weirdo, Chen Ching. They finally find another who is in the same boat. Their relationship is spotless and perfect. But everything becomes different when Po-Ching’s OCD disappears suddenly.
Director:
Liao Ming-Yi
GAGA
Taiwan | 2022 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 112 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Chu Yu-Ning, Liang Hong-Zhi
Screenplay: Hsieh Hui-Ching, Laha Mebow
Cinematographer: Garvin Chan, Aymerick Benjamin Pilarski
Film Company: Swallow Wings Films CO.LTD.
Cast: Kagaw Piling, Wilang Lalin, Lin Ting-Li, Gaki Baunky
A widely-revered elder of an indigenous community in Northeastern Taiwan, Hayung passes away in his sleep, leaving behind a family troubled with a land dispute and financial problems. His widow, two sons, and their loved ones must stick together to overcome whatever challenges lying ahead. Unplanned, one of Hayung’s granddaughters gets pregnant with a baby boy, who Hayung’s widow decides to name after her late husband. What will become of Hayung’s family through their struggles to finance a risky mayoral campaign, the stake of which is so high that Hayung’s sons would resort to anything to win? What are the consequences of violating GaGa, the forgotten traditional tribal norms?
Director:
Laha Mebow
Coo-Coo 043
Taiwan | 2022 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 135 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Iling Lin
Screenplay: Chan Ching-Lin
Cinematographer: Chen Chi Wen
Film Company: Distribution Workshop
Cast: Yu An-Shun, Yang Li-Yin, Rimong Ihwar, Hu Jhih-Ciang
In the murky half-light, race pigeon 043 has finally returned after seven years. 043 wasn’t the only one that went missing seven years ago; the other was their son, Shih, whose disappearance remains the irreparable wound in Pigeon Master Ching’s heart. The family’s barely-maintained peace is shattered by 043’s return, as Ching’s daughter, Lulu, brings a beaten-up boy named Tig back home.
At first reluctant, Ching begins to see shades of Shih in Tig. After all, breeding pigeons with his son was his biggest wish. But wild pigeons can’t change their ways. Lulu leaves abruptly and never comes back. Ching’s wife, Ming, is also tempted to leave. She stealthily begins legal proceedings to declare Shih deceased. Thunder booms vaguely afar; a typhoon emerges on the horizon. Grandpa’s death is the last straw that breaks this family’s back.
In the aftershock of the storm, what course should the wounded follow?
Director:
Chan Ching-Lin
American Girl
Taiwan | 2021 | Malaysian Festival Premiere |English, Mandarin | 102 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Shirley Lau
Screenplay: Bing Li, Fiona Roan
Cinematographer: Giorgos Valsamis
Film Company: Media Asia Films
Cast: Karena Kar-Yan Lam, Kaiser Chuang, Caitlin Fang
Uprooted from Los Angeles after her mother is stricken with breast cancer, thirteen-year-old Fen struggles to adjust to life in Taipei. As Fen navigates her way through school and reconnects with her long- separated father, her turbulent bond with her mother worsens. Fen drifts further away from her mother through a series of rebellious acts before her younger sister is misdiagnosed with SARS, pushing Fen and her mother towards a heated, long-gestating confrontation.
Director:
Fiona Roan
Short Film
The 2014 Consensus
Taiwan | 2019 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 34 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Cheng Hsin-Mei
Screenplay: Su Yi-Hsuan
Cinematographer: Tsai Wei-Lung
Film Company: PTS Taiwan
Cast: Yu An-Shun, Lan Wei-Hua, Gail Lin, Yang Ming
Hsin-Hua goes back to her parent’s house for the grandma’s death anniversary. Her family will gather in a few days. But the day is also the first day of the Sunflower Movement, her friends protest the trade agreement for China in the Legislative Yuan. Hsin-Hua wants to be there, but she has to stay with her family. She is worried about the protest and the country’s future. At the same time, the family is not peaceful at all. Hsin-Hua has a big generational gap with her parents and relatives in the political issue. And everyone has a different idea of grandma’s heritage. When they receive a bad sign of grandma from the religious master priest, they are suspicious of each other. Along with the protest going on, a storm will arrive in this family…
Director:
Su Yi-Hsuan
Ten Years Taiwan: Way Home
Taiwan | 2018 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 28 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Tsai Hsin-Yun
Screenplay: Chen Chia-Ping, Hsieh Pei-Ju, Lau Kek Huat, Lu Po-shun, Rina B. Tsou
Cinematographer: Feng Yi-Wei
Film Company: Ten Years Studio
Cast: Lu Dong-Yang, Li Wen-He, Liao Bo-Yan, Wang Tsung-Wei
Dong Yang’s parents who work in the city bring his little brother to the hometown for worshipping ancestors. They hope Dong Yang will come live with them and find a job in the city, but he does not want to. He goes out with friends looking for jobs, so that he can stay. Will he choose the city or the hometown?
Director:
Lu Po-Shun
Last Year When the Train Passed by
Taiwan | 2018 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 18 min | Documentary | DCP
Producer: Huang Pang-Chuan
Screenplay: Huang Pang-Chuan
Cinematographer: Huang Pang-Chuan
Film Company: Le Fresnoy – Studio national
Cast: NA
“What were you doing while I took this photo when the train passed through your house last year?” Carrying a picture taken in the train a year ago, the director comes to the same spot, asking those who appeared in it the question. Usually, the answer is negative. In a year, things have changed, but time was captured on film and the memories were sealed in it.
Director:
Huang Pang-Chuan
Babes’ Not Alone
Taiwan | 2016 | Malaysian Premiere |Mandarin | 30 min | Drama | DCP
Producer: Benson Chang
Screenplay: Jovi Lee Yi-Shan
Cinematographer: Zhang Zhi-Teng
Film Company: Lee Yi-shan
Cast: Angel Lee
Little Pen is the baby that Liang’s brother has with his ex-girlfriend. Since he can’t look after it, he leaves it to their mother. But it’s the 18-year-old Liang that takes care of the baby, and she’s not happy about it.
