Tseng Jing-Hua

At Home of Happiness, a devoted social worker struggles to reform troubled youth while the institution falls into crisis. A bullied boy clings to his late mother’s teddy bear as his world collapses. A former resident, lured into a telecom scam, faces a moral dilemma that threatens his life. Across different paths, each must confront the scars of the past and decide whether to fall into darkness or fight for a way forward.

A young Japanese woman (Yukino Kishii), who is reeling from the death of her much loved mother, decides to take a trip to Taiwanese capital Taipei to try to alleviate her loss. While there, an encounter with a young man (Jing-Hua Tseng) sees the pair strike up a tentative friendship that could help her come to terms with the death. Yukinori Makabe builds his sensitive drama around the delicate and nuanced central performances from Kishii and Tseng, elegantly weaving together the present and memory to show the lingering impact of grief on everyday life, while offering a gently hopeful sweep.

In 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han and Birdy fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma.