Heme Liao, Rou-Ming Huang, Winnie Liu
Taiwan
2024
In Mandarin with English subtitles
Incest, domestic violence
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Pierre Ieong
Screenwriter
Deborah Devyn Chuang
Cinematography
Chun Wang
Editor
Deborah Devyn Chuang, Jamie Lansdowne
Production Design
Hikky Chen
Original Music
Zun Long
Deborah Devyn Chuang 莊岱雯
Deborah “Devyn” Chuang is a Taiwanese-American film director and screenwriter. Their debut short film, Mom if I Were a Vampire (2022), premiered at NYC’s NewFest, before screening in 10+ international festivals, including Taipei Film Festival. Devyn’s new project Strawberry Shortcake (2024) was selected as the semi-finalist for the New Voices Filmmaker Grant by NewFest and Netflix. Devyn had worked as an investment banker and a Michelin-starred restaurant cook before beginning their film MFA at Columbia University.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Tokyo Taxi
An overworked taxi driver takes 85-year-old Madame Sumire on a final journey through Tokyo, revisiting the places that shaped her life. Yoji Yamada’s 91st film is a moving, heartwarming love letter to Tokyo, nominated for nine Japanese Academy Awards.
KAKU KAKU SHIKA JIKA fka Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey
Adapted from acclaimed manga artist Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical manga is a funny and sharply observed coming-of-age story about the creative awakening of a master of manga.
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.
Blue Boy Trial
Transgender filmmaker Kasho Iizuka revisits 1960s Japan and the sensational “Blue Boy Trial,” sparked by the arrest of a doctor performing sex reassignment surgeries. With trans actors in central roles, the film powerfully illuminates buried history, identity, dignity, and resilience.
Aruku - I Walk
This meditative documentary, captures the stories of four contemporary pilgrims on the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage as they follow in the footsteps of master Kūkai, the monk who shaped Japanese Buddhism. Each is burdened, in different ways, by exhaustion, solitude, or quiet disillusionment.



