Girl (2025) / Festival Opening

Shu Qi | Taiwan | 2025 | 125 min | M18 (Sexual Violence) Caught between inherited sorrow and a longing for freedom, a young girl must navigate the shadows of a life she never chose. Growing up in 1980s Taipei, ten-year-old Hsiao-lee endures her dreary daily routine of returning home to the contempt of her exhausted mother and hiding in a zip-up closet at night to avoid her deadbeat father’s drunken rages. When exuberant and precocious transfer student Li-li, newly returned from the US after her parents’ divorce, joins Hsiao-lee’s class, she rapidly breaks through Hsiao-lee’s reserve and they become firm friends. One day, Li-li urges Hsiao-lee to skip class and explore the city, causing a rupture within her family that changes Hsiao-lee’s life. A regular in Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films, Shu Qi embarked on filmmaking at his suggestion. His influence can be seen in Girl’s lush colour palette and poetic lingering shots. Her attention to the vibrant details of the spaces the characters inhabit brings an unsettling beauty to this bleak semi-autobiographical tale of coming of age amidst domestic dysfunction.