European Premiere | In Competition | Online
Taiwan, 2026, 108’, Mandarin
Directed by: Shen Ko-shang
Screenplay: Lu Hsin-chih, Shen Ko-shang
Cinematography (color): Chen Da-pu
Editing: Przemyslaw Chruscielewski, Shen Ko-shang, Chen Hsiao-dong
Production Designer: Penny Tsai
Music: Hanan Townshend
Producers: Sylvia Y.C. Shih, Brendan Huang, Carlos S. Hintermann, Gerardo Panichi
Cast: Joseph Chang (Yu-ming), Ariel Lin (Yi-ting), King Shih-chieh (Professor Ko), Umin Boya (Zhi-cheng), Ding Ning (Yu-ming’s mom), Bella Chen (Yi-ting’s mom), Tai Jo-mei (Yi-ting’s older sister)
Date of First Release in Territory: March 20th, 2026
When we experience trauma, the first thing we look for is an explanation. But what happens when that answer keeps eluding you? And what if the answer turns out to be more than you can bear? For his feature directorial debut
Deep Quiet Room, seasoned documentary filmmaker Shen Ko-shang delves deep into the psychology of trauma, and the result is one of the most harrowing cinematic depictions of it in recent memory.
Deep Quiet Room takes its title from a short story by Lin Hsiu-ho, about a widower who recalls his time with his late wife while trying to deal with having to share the same roof with her father. However, Shen also drew material from research he had done for a planned documentary project about people who experienced such terrible trauma at the hands of their family members that they chose to escape home for good.
Rather than from the victim, the film is told from the perspective of the widower, Yu-ming (Joseph Chang). After his wife Yi-ting (Ariel Lin) commits suicide during her pregnancy, he tries to keep it emotionally together while caring for Yi-ting’s father (King Shih-chieh), who is gradually showing signs of dementia. As Yu-ming recalls his desperate attempts to get an emotionally distant Yi-ting to reveal the reason for her mental breakdown and her contentious relationship with her father, he realises there were red flags he missed along the way.
No stranger to heavy topics in his documentaries, Shen handles the dark subject matter of
Deep Quiet Room with delicacy, avoiding details that might betray his documentary interviewees without shying away from emotional truths about the tolls of trauma. Flashbacks of Yi-ting’s mental breakdowns are difficult to watch, but they are necessary to show Yi-ting’s slow mental deterioration leading up to her devastating decision. If Yi-ting’s story is any indication, one can understand why Shen said that the material he gathered for the documentary project contained secrets so traumatic that he had to scrap the project to protect the privacy of his subjects.
Mirroring something that a grieving family member would undoubtedly do in the wake of a loved one’s suicide, Yu-ming spends much of the film demanding explanations for Yi-ting’s mental state, only to be stonewalled at every turn. Shen sympathises with the families of those suffering from trauma or other mental illnesses and their natural inclination to believe that there are rational responses to everything, but he also questions whether such demand for answers is always the right thing to do. Does finding answers truly help with getting closure, especially when justice is too late? What if the answer to Yi-ting’s suicide is so terrible that Yu-ming would never be able to move on? Shen’s way of hinting at answers to the hardest questions in the story may frustrate those looking for catharsis, but there is no denying that his emotionally raw and heartrending portrait of trauma and grief will be seared in the mind for a long time.
Shen Ko-shang
Shen Ko-shang has been directing critically acclaimed feature-length documentaries and short films since 1995. His 2013 documentary A Rolling Stone, about a father and his adult autistic son, won the Grand Prize at the Taipei Film Awards. In addition to filmmaking, Shen was the director of the Taipei Film Festival from 2016 to 2018 and currently teaches at local universities. Deep Quiet Room is his first dramatic feature film.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2003 – Silent Cello (co-director)
2009 – Baseball Boys (co-director)
2011 – My Name is Choy Jie
2011 – Children from the Distant Planet
2013 – A Rolling Stone
2018 – Love Talk
2025 – Seven Ages of a Man
2026 – Deep Quiet Room