Will You Still Be My Friend

Official Selection, 2026 San Sebastian Film Festival
Official Selection, 2026 Busan International Film Festival

In a rural fishing village in southern Taiwan, 13-year-old Jun befriends Jasper, also 13, who has recently moved from Singapore, amid a growing conflict between locals and Jasper’s outsider parents who bought a stake in the land. As tensions escalate, Jun struggles to understand the nature of his relationship with Jasper and to protect them both from attacks from the outside world.

The pain of growing up comes with the price of revelation. Filmmaker Lu Po-shun captures this process with care and subtlety, externalizing the hidden dynamics of adolescent life. The boys’ friendship refracts the conflicts of the adult world, from class and gender to politics, through a complex web of desire. Refreshing performances by Jaden Wang and Aloysius Looi capture regret, home, and uncertainties of adolescence. The film also draws attention to the confrontation between urbanism and an imagined pastoral, as well as to the use of science as a justification for economic intrusion. WILL YOU STILL BE MY FRIEND is a contemporary fable that traces the shifting contours of an adolescent mind and resonates well beyond the final frames.

– Wentao Ma

Preceded By

You are not Part of the Cake

Directed by Ting-Jui Chen

Ping faces conflict with her girlfriend Lala’s homophobic and aggressive father, The Man.