Deckert Acquires Visions du Reel Competition Title ‘A Holy Family’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comLise Pedersen Germany’s Deckert Distribution has picked up international rights for Taiwanese filmmaker Elvis A-Liang Lu’s sophomore feature “A Holy Family,” which world premiered in Visions du Réel’s international competition section.The film is a home-coming story about the director who returns to his village in Taiwan after a 24-year absence.
His elder brother is a psychic who offers career advice to the villagers, but fails in his own entrepreneurial ventures as a farmer, and his father is a gambling addict in poor health.
The one who holds the family together is his mother, a stubborn woman who worries about the future and finds consolation in a stream of religious rituals at the Taoist altar in their home.
The previously estranged family, where love and grudges intertwine and surface, slowly comes closer through A-Liang’s lens in an intimate portrait of rekindled family bonding and a tale of self-discovery through filmmaking. “The main theme of the film is our attempt to understand one another better, grow closer, and mend the family relationship,” said A-Liang, who explained how he was prompted to return home from Taipei after receiving a phone call from his mother asking him to arrange a photo for her funeral.
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