Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Yi-Shan returns to the Himalayas after her friend’s death, her grief transforming into a tender cinematic feat of connection. The film reflects on friendship, identity, and the endurance of love after loss.
AFTER THE SNOWMELT
- Yi-Shan Lo
- 2024
- Taiwan, Japan
- s.t. English
- 101 min
Panorama - Essentials
Always paints an honest, tender, and poetic portrait of the modest daily life of Youbin Gong, a young and talented poet, and his family as farmers in the mountains of Hunan.
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
In the form of a digital stroll, this short uses images taken from the web to map Kinmen, the Taiwanese island and childhood home of artist Erica Sheu.
DON'T BE AFRAID LET IT SHOW
- Erica Sheu
- 2021
- Taiwan, United States
- s.t. English
- 7 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Composed of archives of all kinds, this short film articulates a speculative narrative in which embryos hold the collective memory of multiple life forms.
THE EMBRYO'S DREAM, UPON THE MOON
- Tzuan WU
- 2022
- Taiwan
- 11 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
After being forced to return to Taiwan from Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, Johan Chang documents with humour and delicacy the challenges of creating on film.
FLIGHT AND FRAME
- Johan Chang
- 2022
- Taiwan
- s.t. English
- 10 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
The first work in a collaboration between Erica Sheu and Tzuan Wu, this short film attempts to reconcile the emotions evoked by various images shot in Taiwan and the United States.
FUR FILM VOL.1: I DON'T OWN A CAT
- Tzuan WU, Erica Sheu
- 2021
- Taiwan, United States
- s.t. English
- 8 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Weaving lines from the book New English Grammar, the film reconstructs Mr. K’s psyche in captivity as a metaphor for men, boundaries, and a nation under martial law.
K'S ROOM - THE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD
- Wei-Lin Hung
- 2020
- Taiwan
- s.t. English
- 16 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
In Tayal tradition, “Spi,” which means to dream, is how people connect with their ancestors. Sayun Simung traces how one family, torn between modernity and Indigenous memory, strives to carry forward the spirit of their ancestor.
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Taman-Taman (Park) explores the stories of two Indonesian poets who meet in Tainan Park, where they turn everyday experiences and personal narratives into nighttime poems.
TAMAN-TAMAN (PARK)
- Yo Hen So
- 2024
- Taiwan
- s.t. English
- 101 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Kaohsiung, once a Japanese military base, bears the scars of Taiwan’s 228 Incident, where the scars of survivors and descendants endure like the wild tomatoes growing there.
Uxdoc RIDM
Inside the former Green Island Prison, political prisoner A-Kuen recounts stories of imprisonment and persecution that took place in Taiwan in the 1950s.
THE MAN WHO COULDN'T LEAVE
- Singing Chen
- 2022
- Taiwan
- s.t. English
- 35 min
Focus Taiwan: Beyond the Frame
Through Deng Nan-guang’s archives, amateur filmmaking under Japanese colonial rule is reimagined in the present.
THIS IS NOT A FILM BY DENG NAN GUANG
- Pang-Chuan Huang, Chunni Lin
- 2024
- Taiwan
- s.t. English
- 40 min