Days Before the Millennium

Sometimes wandering is to move forward.

Selected at the 2021 Taipei Film Festival, 2021 26th Busan International Film Festival, 2021 San Diego Asian Film Festival, 2022 Hamburg Film Festival, and the 2022 Osaka Asian Film Festival. Winners of the Excellent Screenplay Award and the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion – MAN-JIA Memorial Award.

Van Tue was one of many Vietnamese girls married off to Taiwan in the 1990s. She lives in the countryside with her construction worker husband and mother-in-law. With each holding a different view of “home”, restlessness permeates while disasters besiege their lives, forcing Van Tue to flee as she awaits the arrival of the new millennium…
As Taiwan enters the modern era, a mysterious Vietnamese woman appears in the city — she’s a private detective embarking on an exploration of Van Tue’s experiences. During this journey of discovery, however, she keeps encountering people and things that seem to have appeared in the “past”…

An epic on life formed by a two-part story reveals the survival of immigrant women in a changing foreign land. Through the entangled fates of “outsiders and locals”, this unique film radiates predicaments on conflicting values, self-identity, social stratum, history, and Taiwan’s globalization.

Drama | Teng-Yuan Chang | 2022 | 148 min
Language: Mandarin, Taiwanese and Vietnamese
Subtitles: English and Traditional Chinese
Screening Time: Saturday, Sep. 9th, 10:00AM

Director Biography

Teng-Yuan Chang

CHANG Teng-Yuan 張騰元 (born in 1987) is a Taiwanese director and screenwriter. He graduated from Shih Hsin University, majoring in Film, and is an alumnus of the Golden Horse Film Academy. His short film,“Crossing The sentiMENtal Desert” 焉知水粉 (2010) , won a Golden Harvest Award and was nominated at the Taipei Film Awards. Moreover, it screened at Golden Horse Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival,
Asolo Art Film Festival (Italy) and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei. In recent years, through curating independent art events and making video art, Chang reflects on his observation, focusing on the relationships between the immigrants and society. His 2021 feature debut, “Days Before the Millennium” 徘徊年代 , won the Excellent Screenplay Award in Taiwan in 2016 and the MAN-JIA Memorial Award at Golden Horse Film Project Promotion 2019. Most recently, it screened at 2021 Busan International Film Festival and San Diego
Asian Film Festival, and has been nominated in the International New Talent Competition at Taipei Film Festival 2021 and in competition at Osaka Asian Film Festival 2022.