Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

Colour, 35 mm
Taiwan, 2009, 96 min
EP – European premiere
Section: Another View

Synopsis

A colorblind girl lives surrounded by lovable characters like her simpleminded father who makes a living sweeping streets, her eternally grumbling grandma, and her gay cousin. Nevertheless, although the world once appeared to her child’s eyes as a carefree and, paradoxically (given her eye impairment), picturesque and colorful place, it gradually pales during the girl’s adolescence. Only as a teenager does she begin to realize that she and those close to her are exceptional and yet outsiders. She becomes anxiously fixated on a story about an island for the colorblind that her cousin recounts to her. The film employs children’s movie forms in order to show the contrast between childhood, when we primarily perceive ourselves and our immediate surroundings, and adolescence, during which we recognize our place in society and the world. Starting with oft-used motifs, the filmmakers succeeded in creating an original work which speaks to multiple generations of viewers.

About the director

Fu Tien-Yu (b. 1973, Taiwan) began writing domestically-awarded novellas and screenplays immediately after graduating in film production from New York University. In addition to her writing, Fu started a career directing for the Taiwan Public Television Service Station. Her feature debut Somewhere I Have Never Travelled (2009) was several years in the making, the majority of which time was spent looking for suitable nonactors and subsequently training them before the start of shooting. The director says about her film that she strived to align her vision with the demands of the public, thanks to which she created a balanced mix of viewer-appreciated concepts and originally elaborated motifs on adolescents and outsiders.