Zinnia Flower

Tom Shu-Yu Lin : 2015
Bai ri gaobie

On the same day, in the same accident, Wei loses his pregnant wife and Ming her fiancé. In Buddhism, one is given 100 days to mourn for the dead. Like two mice lost in a labyrinth, Wei runs around in circles while Ming calmly creeps down a determined path. But the pain and sorrow linger on. With the 100th day approaching, they wonder if they'll ever be able to say goodbye. Tom Shu-Yu Lin's third feature premiered at Taipei Film Festival 2015.

Nian nian

Sylvia Chang : 2015
Murmur of the Hearts

Siblings Yu-mei and Yu-nan were born on Lyudao, a small volcanic island off the east coast of Taiwan. As children they grew up listening to fairy tales about mermaids told by their mother. Yu-nan became a tour guide, whilst his sister Yu-mei left the island for Taipei to become a painter and the two drifted apart. Yu-mei falls for an under-achieving boxer and begins years of soul searching in the city, where the siblings reunite under unexpected circumstances. What was remembered and forgotten are lessons that have profound consequences. An emotional drama about growing up, personal regrets and invoking the buried love that eventually helps them make peace with the past and move on. Sylvia Chang's feature premiered at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2015.

Exit

Chienn Hsiang : 2014

A Kaohsiung garment worker in her mid-forties, Ling juggles redundancy, a hospital-bound mother, a crumbling flat, menopause and a rebellious daughter. Caring for her mother introduces Ling to her ward mate, a man whose distress Ling alleviates – even for just a bit – in return for his silent reminder that she is still a vibrant, living woman. A sharply observed chronicle of an average woman's struggle against despair. Chienn Hsiang's feature directorial debut premiered at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2014.

Gf*Bf

Yang Ya-Che : 2012
Girlfriend Boyfriend

In the 1980s, Taiwan is still under martial law and people are locked in the battle to have it lifted. A social revolution is set to take off. Kaohsiung high school students Mabel, Liam and Aaron are best friends and three sides of a love triangle. Spurned by Liam, Mabel has settled for Aaron, but in Taipei during the reform movement, Mabel catches Aaron with another girl. Later still, at a friend's autumn wedding, the three reunite and Liam and Mabel reconcile their complicated feelings, Liam finally urging Mabel to be happy with Aaron if he cannot. After becoming pregnant with Aaron's child, Mabel realises the tremendous barrier before her, and in summer 2012, Liam and Mabel raise Aaron's child together. Unfolding against the backdrop of Taiwan's democratic movement of the 1980s and 1990s, a powerful and moving coming-of-age story exploring the deep and complicated emotional turmoil of three tragic souls growing up during a period of immense social change. The film focuses on the intersection of friendship, love and the internal struggles of the three characters and their misguided emotions, over the course of twenty years. Yang Ya-Che's award-winning second feature premiered at Taipei Film Festival 2012 and screened at Busan International Film Festival 2012.

How to Describe a Cloud

David Verbeek : 2013

The story of Liling who works as a DJ in Taipei. When her mother goes blind, the young musician is suddenly forced to leave her big-city cocoon and return to the small island where she grew up. There, her scientific approach to blindness, in which she presents the world to her mother through words on the advice of the doctor, clashes with her old mother's spiritual approach. She argues that she can't see the world around her any more, but can still sense it. At the same time, the professionally successful daughter takes up a friendship with a retired biologist who's supplementing his pension by making science-fiction drawings that seem somehow connected to everything else that is happening. As Liling becomes increasingly aware of the value of her imagination, the story reflects on the role of spirituality in modern society. David Verbeek's feature premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2013.

Three Times

Zui hao de shi guang
a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Three stories of women and men, played by the same actors but set in different eras. The central theme is love and emotion, and the film comments on our different expressions of love in different periods of modern history. In the first story, based on the director's own experiences, a young man enlisted for military service falls for a beautiful girl in a 1960s pool hall. The second is set in 1911 when a courtesan falls in love with one of her clients, a political activist on the brink of joining the Chinese revolution. The third story, set in present-day Taipei, dramatises a love-triangle in which hidden passions arise when a beautiful bisexual singer becomes involved in a tangled affair with a photographer.

A Time For Love 1966, Kaohsiung
Chen meets May, who works at his favourite pool hall. They play pool together. Soon after he enlists for national service. On a day-release from the army, Chen comes to visit her, but he finds out that she has quit her job and no-one knows where she has gone. An atmosphere of tension is created as the lovers, perhaps like Taiwan itself at this time, must choose between remaining comfortable in their status quo or taking risks to engender more intriguing possibilities.

A Time For Freedom 1911, Dadaocheng
The owner of a tea plantation discusses buying out a young courtesan's contract when his son gets her pregnant. Mr Chang, despite his disapproval of the keeping of concubines, steps in to hasten negotiations, allowing the young couple to marry. Mr Chang then leaves for Japan to join a Chinese revolutionary who fled to escape persecution during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. However, he does not address the issue that his own courtesan is most concerned about – her personal freedom, and he remains indifferent as she expresses her longings. An historical moment which illustrates the gap between the desires of the man and the desires of the woman. He longs for revolution, and for the recovery of Taiwan from Japanese rule, whereas she longs for emotional security.

A Time For Youth 2005, Taipei
Epileptic and losing sight in her right eye, Jing is a singer in present-day Taipei. She lives with her mother and grandmother and also has a woman lover, Micky. Zhen, a photographer, works in a digital photo lab and lives with his girlfriend, Blue. When Blue finds out that Zhen has fallen for Jing, she hits the roof. When the insecure Micky realises her relationship with Jing is in danger, she threatens suicide. Where can the four of them go from here? None of them will find happiness. In the world of modern technology, cellphones and text messaging foster a lack of communication between today's apathetic and disaffected youth.

Hou Hsiao-hsien on the making of the film: "It seems to me that by contrasting love stories from three different times, we can feel how people's behaviour is circumscribed by the times and places they live in. For me, the film's Chinese title has a very specific resonance. If we speak of 'the best of our times', as invoked in the Chinese title, it's not that we have wonderful memories as such. What makes times 'best' is that they're lost and gone: we'll never have them again."

With beautiful cinematography and deeply moving performances, this trilogy of memory, romance and desire is a testament to the enduring power of love. Three times, three emotions, three affairs. A tender, bittersweet portrait of snatched moments of happiness and transient love.