Under the Same Roof: The Taiwanese New Wave

A program organized in collaboration with the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan, and Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Prague (TECO).

Films of the Taiwanese New Wave often revolve around complex family dynamics that reflect broader social changes. The fragile web of family ties—strained relationships between parents and children, the lingering weight of tradition, disrupted communication, and the growing silent emotional distance between household members under the pressure of a rapidly modernizing society—is represented in the films of acclaimed directors Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang. The curated selection is further complemented by a rare, newly restored film, Teenage Fugitive (Pei-Cheng Chang), for which Tsai Ming-liang wrote the screenplay early in his career, as well as The Holy Family, a quirky family portrait by Elvis Lu, a representative of the emerging younger generation of Taiwanese filmmakers.

"Family in my films is not just about people. It is about time. Time inevitably passes and separates us from one another. What we call family is actually just a collection of memories of what we once meant to each other." – Hou Hsiao-hsien

"My parents were busy, so they let me grow up with my grandparents. When I returned to my family later, I experienced several strange encounters with loneliness. When I started at the new school and reached the sixth grade, I don't know why, but some classmates didn't like me. They forced everyone else not to speak to me for a year. I didn't feel particularly sad about it. I felt I had my own world. From a young age, I naturally liked to read and watch films. And dream. My imaginings may have been related to a desire to direct. One of the themes was escape—running away to my grandfather. Every day, I imagined the details in such depth that tears would stream from my eyes. When I returned to my parents, I also had to face my three brothers. When I argued with one of them, all three would stop talking to me. They were a pack. I was alone. It didn't bother me; that’s just how it was. Whenever viewers see loneliness in my films, they think I am lonely too, but I quite enjoy that feeling. When a person is lonely, they become real—real by being themselves." – Tsai Ming-liang

program curated by David Havas