Yi Yi

Edward Yang's Cannes-winning masterpiece follows three generations of a Taipei family through a year of weddings, births and loss.

Over a single year, three events mark the lives of three generations of one Taipei family: a wedding, a christening and a funeral. N.J. the middle-aged father, reunites with an old flame and grapples with what could have been. His daughter Ting-Ting experiences the highs and heartache of first love. While the youngest of the family, Yang-Yang, tries to capture the everyday lives of his family with his camera.

Meanwhile, the family's beloved matriarch lies in a coma. Her bedside becomes a confessional, each family member confides the secrets, fears and desires they keep from one another.

Curator’s note
Edward Yang’s final film is a sprawling, intimate epic and is also the culmination of a remarkable filmography but a summation of the themes threading through the Taiwan New Wave movement. It’s multilayered city symphony, reflecting on ramped-up consumerism, urban alienation and the newfound freedoms of Taiwan after martial law.

At its centre is a profound meditation on the power of cinema, as one character remarks “we live three times as long because movies give us twice what we get from daily life.”

In 2022, Yi Yi was included in Sight & Sound’s poll of the greatest films of all time.