These are fifteen films you shouldn’t miss at the Taipei Film Festival which will take place from June 22 – July 8, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan.

As the bell rings, the girls of Jingmu Middle School wander in the mountains. Their blood spreads through the soil, as if they are dying. In the morning after the rain, the police set up a blockade line. With the reporters outside exposing the first death of a girl whose body is in a garbage bag, the other girls are still missing. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Gi-hong, a carpenter, gets caught up in a bizarre incident, in which a stranger damages his car by jumping off a construction site. While investigating the case, he moves into a new house and becomes close to the neighbors, the landlord and his wife. The landlord, who desires to break his comfortable yet boring life, begins to engage in Gi-hong’s investigation. Now as a stranger and a couple are swirling around Gi-hong, the story unfolds unexpectedly. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Yu returns to his hometown on Hainan Island after ten years in prison and tries to rekindle his relationship with his former lover, Hong. Hong’s plan to buy an apartment forces them to face predicaments in sight while tenacious perseverance empowers them to carry on with their lives and make up for each other’s absence. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Nguyen Quoc Phi was a young Vietnamese man who came to Taiwan with dreams of a better life but was accused of car theft and shot dead by the police under questionable circumstances. This investigative documentary features never-before-seen body-cam footage and in-depth interviews, shedding light on the harsh reality of the migrant worker system between Southeast Asia and Taiwan. It exposes the discrimination and inequality faced by migrant workers who are brought to Taiwan to work in low-wage jobs, challenges viewers to question systemic injustices and amplifies the voices of often-silenced migrant workers. The film is a powerful and thought-provoking call for systemic change to ensure the rights and dignity of every human being are respected. (TaipeiIFF 2023)

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Hsin-yu said he wanted to be himself. In order to alter her ID card registration from female to male, Hsin-yu began to go to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation in accordance with the law, and also prepared to undergo gender reassignment surgery. At the same time, he must also ask for the acceptance and recognition from his parents and siblings. It is extremely difficult to confront with his parents’ worries and the doubts of his brother and sisters, however, Hsin-yu still persists in being himself… (TaipeiFF 2023)

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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. Just as Ching begins to see shades of Shih in Tig, 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. 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? (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Grandpa Hayung follows the Atayal tradition, GAGA, all his life that younger generations no longer value. He can only try to teach his grandson Enoch. Hayung’s land has been encroached by Mayor Toli’s family and his powerless family is furious. After the lost cause, Hayung’s oldest son Pasang hopes to improve their status by winning mayorship. Meanwhile, Pasang does not get along with his daughter Ali who recently returned from New Zealand. After Grandpa Hayung’s sudden passing, the tribe has encountered a fog that won’t lift, just like this family’s uncertain future is haunting them. After Hayung’s passing, Pasang decides to run for mayorship. Their mother goes from being strong against it to making a crazy move, all for the sake of the campaign… (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Ba Tong is a cute Chinese pastoral dog. He met his destined owner Chen Jingxiu in the vast crowd and became a member of the Chen family. With the passage of time, the once beautiful home is no longer there, but Ba Tong is still waiting where it is, and his fate is closely tied to the family.

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A young actor decides to give up acting and make a short film. The small crew comprising the actor himself, the cameraman and the female lead arrive on the rocky, windswept Jeju Island.

In search of an idea, the young actor explores the surroundings, waiting for the right light to emerge and watching the horizon from the coast. One day he catches a glimpse of a figure amid the rocks at the bottom of a cliff, and this prompts him to take the plunge and exchange a few words. Thanks to this conversation and a love song written years earlier, he finally has a story to tell. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Model student Xiao Lan goes on a date with a popular boy in her class named Wu Miao and ends up having sex. Unlike Xiao Lan, who believes that they were in love, Wu Miao loses interest in her, and intimate photos of her are leaked online. Her world crumbles, and without anyone to ask for help she looks for comfort from men she meets via dating apps. This film addresses the sexual desires of a girl, living in a world where social media and online chatrooms have become commonplace. Little Blue poses controversial questions while drawing narrow boundaries among sexual desire, shame and violence that lie before a teenage girl who wishes to learn about her own sexuality. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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Hajime is a 30-year-old man who is faster paced than others. He was born in Kyoto and works at a post office there. He is a handsome man, but for some reason, his romantic relationships do not always last. He meets and dates a street musician, Sakurako.　　

On the day Hajime and Sakurako decide to go on a fireworks date, Hajime’s day is gone. Apparently, the person who knows the secret of the missing day is a woman called “Reika”, who comes to the post office every day to buy stamps. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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A story of three women, weaved in the “Tama New Town” suburbs of Tokyo, opened in 1971 as the country’s largest-ever residential housing project. One person’s precious memory resonates through one day in the life of another. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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So-young is a Korean single mother raising her adolescent son Dong-hyun in the suburbs of Canada during the 1990s. Determined to provide a better life for him, she does her best to overcome the racial and cultural challenges that confront them. As Dong-hyun gets older, he becomes curious about his Korean heritage and his deceased father, a topic that So-young refuses to address. Instead, she is set on building her new life, which now includes a relationship with a kind Korean-Canadian man eager to become Dong-hyun’s surrogate father. This only exacerbates the tense relationship between her and Dong-hyun. Then, sudden devastating news prompts the mother and son to return to South Korea for the first time. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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20-year-old Lynn is told that she needs English classes, flight attendant school and a go-getter attitude. She perseveres along this path of upward mobility until she finds out she is pregnant. Indecisive and running out of time, she tells her boyfriend that she has had an abortion and returns to her feuding parents and their failing clinic to try and figure out (if she can) what comes next. Built from interviews with college women happy to invest in themselves, observations of a post-Tik Tok China and their own lived experiences, Stonewalling is perceptive with meticulous attention to detail. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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In the 1994 post-martial law period in Taiwan, the students were in the midst of protest. Chi-wei (19), a female college student joins the strike to fight for their freedom of expression. During the protest, Chi-wei is slowly attracted to Ching (21), whose boyfriend Kuang (22) is the leader of the student strike. As passionate protest enflames personal desires, both the strike and their triangle relationship go wild and vibrant. The power and love struggles are closely intertwined. Eventually, Chi-wei realizes that her desire and emotion are unconstrained as their creative freedom. For her, it’s not only a protest for freedom but also an inner fight for her self-awakening. (TaipeiFF 2023)

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For more information, please visit: https://www.taipeiff.taipei/index.aspx