Tiger Stripes Producer Backs Taiwan's 'Uncle' at Busan — SkimNews
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- 'Uncle' is Taiwanese director Yen Hao-hsuan's first feature, set in rural Taiwan from 1997–2000 and following 10-year-old Wen and his uncle A-Tsik, a man with an intellectual disability, against the country's first democratic power handover and post-earthquake rebuilding.
- The project is autobiographical — Yen lived with his uncle for 18 years and waited to make it until he could see his uncle 'as a person' rather than 'material for a film,' saying 'making those short films and the time that has passed since have given me enough distance.'
- Patrick Mao Huang, whose Flash Forward Entertainment produced Cannes Critics' Week Grand Prize winner 'Tiger Stripes' (2023), is producing alongside Sung Chin-hsuan, whose immersive work 'The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up' won Venice Immersive's 2025 Grand Prize.
- Yen frames the film as a refusal to label his uncle 'abnormal' — 'I just hope this film could make the gap between those two words a little smaller' — and to portray A-Tsik with sexual desires and autonomy the on-screen family tries to police.
- The project holds a TAICCA development grant, was developed at the Taipei Film Festival's New Director Workshop earlier this year, and has also been picked for the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market.
- At Busan, producers are courting co-production partners from Korea, Japan, elsewhere in Asia and Europe, along with financiers, post-production collaborators, sales agents and distributors, with Huang seeking a setup that 'safeguards Yen's voice and the film's Taiwanese character.'
Why it matters: The project stakes out an unusual disability-story position by refusing to normalize its subject — Yen wants audiences to see A-Tsik's sexuality, mistakes and autonomy rather than his diagnosis. Producer Patrick Mao Huang's 'Tiger Stripes' Cannes win gives the film a credible festival pathway, and the Busan meetings will determine whether the TAICCA-funded development secures the international co-financing and sales architecture needed to enter production.
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