Taiwanese-American director wins top award at San Diego Asian Film Fest

Los Angeles, Nov. 10 (CNA) Taiwanese-American director Vicky Du (杜爾淇) won the top prize at a major exhibition of Asian cinema in the United States for her work that centers on her family's intergenerational trauma.

Du received the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 San Diego Asian Film Festival on Saturday for her "Light of the Setting Sun" (迴光返照), a 73-minute documentary that delves into her family's silence around cycles of violence persisting across three generations since the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949.

At the award ceremony in California, Du said she was motivated to piece together her family's history, given that the difficult period they once endured is still little discussed.

To accomplish this, she gathered archival materials and reached out to family members she had never met, leading to her visiting Taipei, Dongguan City in China, Toronto, Los Angeles and New Jersey.

She said she wanted to seize the opportunity while her family's elders are still healthy to record their challenging memories and reflect on the past, according to a press statement issued by the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles.

"[Du] reaches into her family's history to grasp trauma at its root and finds that there is no singular truth to be found, only more stories to weave into her own," the program note stated.

Rather than "a simple story of forgiveness, reconciliation, or even understanding," the note described the documentary as "a commitment to seeing and struggling with suffering that seems unspeakable."

Du holds an undergraduate degree in Biology of the Human Species from Columbia University's Department of Evolutionary Biology and is now based in Berlin.

"Light of the Setting Sun" is Du's first feature-length documentary. She has previously produced short films for media outlets including National Geographic and The New York Times.

The film is set to air in the U.S. on PBS in 2025.

The documentary is one of 14 films screened at the "Taiwan Film Showcase." Other works presented include John Hsu's (徐漢強) box office hit "Dead Talents Society" (鬼才之道), "Pierce" (刺心切骨), a film co-produced by companies in Taiwan, Singapore, and Poland, and "Mahjong" (麻將), a classic by the late Edward Yang (楊德昌).

This is the 13th consecutive year the Taiwan Academy has collaborated with the annual film festival to present this program. The selected Taiwanese films will be screened at Edwards Mira Mesa Theater and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, according to the Taiwan Academy's press statement.

Founded in 2000, the San Diego Asian Film Festival is currently the largest exhibition of Asian cinema in Western America, according to its website.

The program runs from Nov. 7 to 16 and showcases more than 170 films from over 35 countries in more than 35 languages.