Taiwanese director Shen Ko-shang (沈可尚) was contemplating another documentary — to follow his acclaimed “A Rolling Stone” (2012) and “Baseball Boys” (2008) — when he happened upon a novel and quickly changed his mind.

Author Lin Hsiu-ho’s (林秀赫) “Deep Quiet Room” follows a widower who is left to share the same roof with his father-in-law after his wife’s suicide, and recalls their past as he tries to find a reason for her act.

For Shen, the story had potential and the scope needed for a feature film. So he put plans for a documentary about people who have escaped trauma within the family home on hold.

Shen then turned his attention toward what would become “Deep Quiet Room,” his first feature film, one that brought him a Best New Director nomination at the 2025 Golden Horse Awards — and one that last week made its European debut in competition at the 28th edition of the Far East Film Festival in Udine, northern Italy.

“About seven or eight years ago, I had researched these themes and applied for funding for a documentary project,” Shen revealed on the sidelines of FEFF. “After receiving funding, I realised that there were too many sensitive aspects to present it as a documentary. Revealing secrets of those people on screen felt unbearable and, in a way, not humane.”

A producer friend then passed Shen the novel in question. “I read it, I became interested in the relationships between the characters — the husband, the wife, and the wife’s father,” he says. “Although the story in the novel is quite different from the film, it gave me a perspective: how a woman’s life is influenced by her relationship with her father. Fiction allowed me to explore these themes in a more ethical and expressive way.”

Shen admits he found it hard, at first, to cast off his documentary leanings entirely, something that caused him trouble at the beginning.

“On the first day of shooting, on the first shoot, I was feeling a little bit unsettled because I was watching the actors’ performances through the monitor, I was not used to it,” he says. “When I was doing documentary films, I was always right there when everything was happening for real. I did not watch the subject or what was going on through a monitor, but I was actually there with the camera.

“So, I changed my approach. I treated the actors’ performances as something that was happening in real time. In documentary films, when something is too dramatic, for example too much bloodshed or people dying, we would not shoot these scenes. So, I applied the same principle here. We tried to avoid over-dramatisation and instead focused on authenticity, capturing genuine emotions from the actors.”

Any worries that the Italian-Taiwanese co-production — and its story — would not resonate overseas were soon dissipated at FEFF.

“This film deals with universal human experiences — it’s not limited to Taiwan. Film itself is a universal language, and the themes resonate globally,” said Shen. “After screenings, we often see strong emotional reactions. For example, someone might come forward, shaking and crying, deeply affected by the film. This has happened repeatedly in Taiwan as well.

“It shows that viewers are connecting the story to their own life experiences. Even though the film may evoke painful memories, it also helps people feel less alone. That, I believe, is very important. While the film may be difficult to watch, it can also provide comfort in knowing that others share similar experiences.”

For those unfamiliar with the film’s background, the publicity campaign might be considered a little misleading, as it presents the production as a dramatic mystery with a hidden secret for the audience to resolve, when it is more of a quiet and heavy anthropological study of multigenerational trauma and the consequences of inherited silence in the family.

The director said this process was a completely new experience for him.

“In the past, when making documentaries, the trailer and synopsis would closely reflect the actual film — they matched in tone and content. But this time, working on a feature film, things were different,” he says. “I understand that this film is quite psychological and not very conventional, so I was also concerned about its future in the market. To some extent, I respect the distributor’s decisions. Their goal was not only to attract audiences who enjoy art-house or psychological films, but also to spark curiosity among viewers who might not watch such films.

“In Taiwan, fewer and fewer people go to the cinema. Most of them prefer watching films on OTT platforms or mobile devices. This makes attracting audiences to theaters very challenging. Whether this is the best strategy is something I am still observing.”

But there are still films worth going to see, the director believes.

“Taiwanese cinema has been continuously searching for its audience in recent years,” says Shen. “Filmmakers explore many genres — historical, action, romance, horror, and more — in an effort to bring people back to theaters. At the same time, there remains a core group of filmmakers who believe cinema is not just a commercial product, but an artistic expression. Influenced by directors like Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Tsai Ming-liang, they see film as something deeply personal — something that comes from the creator, not just market demand.”

Vedrana Bogdanovic attended the 2026 FEFF Campus initiative for emerging film industry talent.