A Holy Family

screening with the director in attendance

The hidden gem of the programme and one of the most charming Taiwanese films of recent years. The director receives a call from his elderly mother. She is a stubborn woman who worries about the future of the rest of the family. His father is addicted to gambling and in poor health; his brother is penniless but confident in his gift—as a medium, he is able to communicate with the spiritual world.

Director Elvis Lu has crafted a brilliant portrait of a family that places its hopes in fate with the blind devotion of a gambler and justifies any misfortune in a spiritual way—that is, through faith in gods who, however, do not pay the family much attention.