The 2025 Taiwanese film Before the Bright Day (南方時光) will play in Pittsburgh on September 18, part of this year's SCREENSHOT: ASIA Film Festival running from September 16 through 23. A synopsis, by SCREENSHOT:
Before the Bright Day, the poignant directorial debut of emerging Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Han Tsao, captures a young man’s turbulent coming-of-age against the backdrop of the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. Chou (Hsuan-Li Chen), labeled a “B-class loser” by his teacher, yearns for more than his uneventful adolescence—especially with Min, the girl he likes, placed in the elite A-class. Disillusioned by his bleak home life and drawn to rebellion, Chou idolizes a small-time gang leader named Button. But as political tensions rise and his family’s financial stability crumbles, Chou’s world begins to fall apart. Button leaves for the military, his high school crush’s family may emigrate from the threat of impending war, and Chou is caught smoking, which is cause for expulsion. Drifting without direction, he must navigate a society on edge, where youthful dreams and harsh realities collide. With raw emotion and historical resonance, Before the Bright Day explores identity, class, and disillusionment during a pivotal moment in Taiwan’s modern history.It plays at 1:30 pm at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium in Oakland (map), and tickets are available online. Tickets are free for CMU students and for University of Pittsburgh students, faculty, and staff.
