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Official Selection, 2025 Venice Film Festival
Official Selection, 2025 New York Film Festival

At the center of a swing carousel, a stray dog is stuck, trying to calculate the perfect moment to slip past the constant incoming blow of children’s legs. This is the most active scene in Tsai Ming-liang’s latest BACK HOME— the background awash in neon pinks, his camera remains focused on the poor animal for the duration of the ride. Time is a central feature of Tsai’s films. His camera trains itself on a subject and remains there longer than what most viewers would find comfortable, sometimes to amusing effect.

Filmed on a “small Canon camcorder and a Leica camera” the film documents a trip that Tsai took with actor Anong Houngheuangsy (Days, SDAFF ‘20) to his home village in the Lao countryside. At its core, it is a landscape film, a collection of footage documenting the exteriors of various homes in Anong’s village, many of which are in the middle of construction or unfinished with scaffolding still visible, objects strewn about, process laid bare. Dialogue is sparse and unsubtitled, but sound is everywhere–wind in the trees, the rumble of an engine, idle conversation while preparing food. Tsai’s recent works have seen the director exploring the line between cinema and visual arts, stripping down to the essentials to reveal spiritual and observational potency.

– Justin Nguyen

All films in the Taiwan Film Showcase (excluding screenings at Ultrastar Cinemas) are FREE for UCSD students, faculty, and staff with a valid ID.