Under the theme of the 2025 Osaka Expo “People’s Living Lab: A Laboratory for a Future Society” and in resonance with the Taiwan Pavilion’s vision of “Supporting the Future, Creating the Present, Realizing the Miraculous,” the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute presents a specially curated program of The Glorious Past and Present of Taiwan Cinema.” Featuring ten stylistically diverse films, the program invites global audiences to travel through time via images, opening a dialogue between history, memory, and the future.

This selection of films not only traces the developmental trajectory of Taiwanese cinema, but each work is also interwoven with historical context and cultural symbols. Together, they reflect the diverse facets of Taiwanese film, portraying the social conditions and personal journeys of different generations, and embodying the fusion and transformation of Taiwan’s multiethnic cultures.

This program is a cinematic experiment on time, memory, and the future. Through films that span eras, we illuminate the pluralism and inclusivity of Taiwanese culture, allowing universal values to re-emerge in a contemporary context. In the shifting play of light and shadow, audiences are invited to expand their sense of lived experience and to witness how cinema, as a key to time, can inspire new imaginings of the future.