These are the films selected for the International New Directors Competition of the 24th Taipei Film Festival which will be held from June 23 until July 9, 2022.

During the SARS outbreak of 2003, 13-year-old Fen returns to Taiwan. Depicts the director’s experiences: her mother’s illness, a feud with classmates. Karena Lam plays Fen’s mother (TokyoIFF 2021).

Trailer:

Colombia, 1990’s. A single mother attempts to keep her family together after her son is drafted by the army and assigned to the front in the country’s most dangerous war zone. To do this, she embarks on a journey against time in a society ruled by men, corruption and violence. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

A teenage boy raised by a clairvoyant mother, who adopts a bullied kid into his group of violent misfits. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

Eight women, Arab and Jewish, take part in a video workshop hosted by Rona, young filmmaker. With each camera take, the group dynamic forces the women to challenge their beliefs as they get to know one other. (Mubi)

Trailer:

A supermarket in a Moscow suburb is the heart of darkness for the Uzbek ’employees’ who work there around the clock and are threatened, abused and imprisoned. Mukhabbat escapes and reveals the vicious circle of modern slavery. (FilmAffinity)

A couple decide to leave the toxic pollution of their home city of Beirut, hoping to build a utopian existence in a pristine home in the mountains. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

Josefina depicts Middle Age Juan’s love angle, Juan was a prison guard and the lady he loved’s son Sergio was a prisoner in prison, and he loses his job because of his love. (IMDb)

Trailer:

Poland, 1983. Despite the suspension, the martial law imposed by the communist authorities, aimed at suppressing the Solidarity opposition, is still in force in the country. On May 12, Grzegorz Przemyk, son of the opposition poet Barbara Sadowska, is arrested and badly beaten by a police patrol. Przemyk dies after two days of agony. The only witness to the fatal beating is one of Grzegorz’s colleagues, Jurek Popiel, who decides to fight for justice and to testify against the police. Initially, the state apparatus, including the Ministry of the Interior, downplays the case. However, when over 20 thousand. People will march through the streets of Warsaw behind Przemyk’s coffin, the authorities decides to use any tools against the witness and the deceased’s mother to discredit them and prevent Jurek from testifying in court. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

Little Blue is an obedient and naïve girl. On the beach, she loses her virginity to a boy, who not only plays on the school football team but is extremely popular with girls. At first, she thought she could win his love with her body, but to her embarrassment and astonishment, she finds out that the boy casually shows her intimate photos to his buddies. Her youth is destroyed when she realizes that the intimate relationship she cherishes means nothing more than a game to the boy. Keeping her mother in the dark, Little Blue begins exploring her body with strangers, figuring out the boundaries between intimacy and pleasure. Accidently, she discovers a secret she really doesn’t want to know… (TFF 2022)

Trailer:

Rural Ireland, 1981. A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

Follows ten year-old Johnny who stands out in different aspects way beyond his age. Things change when his new teacher sees his potential, believes in him and wants to open a new world to him. (FilmAffinity)

Trailer:

En el altiplano boliviano, una pareja de ancianos quechuas lleva años viviendo la misma vida cotidiana. Durante una sequía inusualmente larga, Virginio y su esposa Sisa se enfrentan a un dilema: resistir o ser derrotados por el entorno y el propio tiempo. (FilmAffinity)

Clip: