第三十六个故事 | Taipei Exchanges

This second feature by Hsiao Ya-Chuan, with leading Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien as executive producer, is a stylish and enjoyable tale of love, friendship, coffee and cake. When Doris fulfills her dream of opening a café, it quickly becomes overrun with junk offered as gifts. Younger sister Josie thinks up an idea of turning it into a swap shop. As hopes and dreams intersect over espresso and mouth-watering cakes, Doris’ Café becomes a place where people come to exchange their junk and life stories for an object of their desire.

Directed by Ya-chuan Hsiao | Starring : Gwei Lun-Mei, Zaizai Lin, Han Chang, Kôsuke Atari, Jiunn-jye Lee | Presented at Tokyo Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival

停车 | Parking

On Mother’s Day in Taipei, Chen Mo makes a date for dinner with his wife, hoping to bring their estranged relationship back together. While buying a cake on his way home, a car unexpectedly double parks next to his car, preventing his exit. For the entire night, Chen Mo searches the floors of a nearby apartment building for the owner of the illegally parked car, and encounters a succession of strange events and eccentric characters: an old couple living with their precocious granddaughter who have lost their only son, a one-armed barbershop owner cooking fish head soup, a mainland Chinese prostitute trying to escape her pimp’s cruel clutches, and a Hong Kong tailor embroiled in debt and captured by underground loan sharks. After many hardships, Chen Mo finally gets his car out of the parking space, and, with new friends riding beside him, advances toward a new horizon in life.

Directed by Mong-Hong Chung | Starring : Chen Chang, Gwei Lun-Mei, Leon Dai, Chapman To, Jack Kao | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival