Lin Yi-chi

Along with the trans-island family migration, all the closely- linked images, memories, and family letters/photos were intertwined with multiple languages. As far as my family is concerned, the idea of bloodline has served as a trans- geographical connection beyond boundaries in Southeast Asia, becoming like a gaze at my family history, gentle but steady.

Two mixed-race children of the US military in Taiwan, one speaking Hakka, the other Taiwanese. In the ruins of a former military dormitory, they speak slowly, uncovering a history their faces and languages could never fully inhabit, their memories moving like ghosts along the edges of history.

Through the lives of four generations of women on Matsu Island, this film traces how decades of militarised rule transformed the notion of impending war into a defining identity for an entire archipelago. Moving from an era of simple fishing livelihoods to the lived experiences at the height of the Cold War and into a contemporary mother-child relationship, the film weaves together intimate interviews that speculate on reconciling with a traumatic past and on uncertainties about the future. In one thread, a mother attempts to explain the meaning of war to her young daughter, a dialogue that encapsulates central questions of the film: how do personal stories bear witness to official history, and how does a new generation move forward from a loaded identity?