Small Talk

Huang Hui-chen filmed her mother for twenty years and finally sat down at the same table to ask the questions she had been avoiding. Her mother, A-nu, is a butch lesbian Taoist priestess who left a forced marriage in which she was abused, took her two small daughters with her, and built a living out of running a funeral performance service. The dining table, which carries the whole measure of what a traditional woman is supposed to be, becomes the place where everything the two of them have never said to each other piles up. The film premiered on 5 October 2016 at the 53rd Golden Horse Film Festival, won the Teddy Award for best documentary at the Berlinale in 2017, and was Taiwan’s submission to the 90th Academy Awards.