Documentary screening and Director Q&A: SPI (2025)
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
- Venue
- Brunei Gallery SOAS
- Room
- SWLT
- Event type
- Film screening & Event highlights
About this event
The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to screen SPI (2025), followed by a director Q&A, exploring family relationships, intergenerational tensions, and the preservation of Indigenous Tayal cultural traditions in contemporary Taiwan.
After the passing of the grandfather, emotional and cultural rifts between the older and younger generations begin to surface. The grandmother, consumed by grief, clings to the traditional Tayal belief system of Gaga, while the younger members of the family struggle to find their footing in a modern world. Within dreams, ancestral rituals, and the warmth of the firehouse, the family searches for ways to reconnect with their roots and to carry forward the spiritual essence of Gaga in contemporary life.
Filmed over the course of 10 years, the director documents her own family’s journey with honesty and care – bearing witness to the loss of culture, language, and ceremony. This is more than a record of personal memory; it is a question for our time: in an era of fading collective memory, can we still live in accordance with our own Gaga?
Image credit: Director Sayun Simung with Native Spirit Festival
Director statement
I have worked on this documentary for ten years. It has been a long and challenging journey. Besides filming my own family, I needed to step into the world of Gaga, the traditional Tayal cultural value system that is slowly disappearing.
Gaga is something you cannot easily explain with words.
It is invisible, yet it shapes the way our community lives. I originally hoped to learn more from my grandpa while filming him, but he passed away before I had the chance to record the knowledge he carried. That loss became the starting point of my search. Over the years, I learned from my family, from the elders in the tribe, and also through my own reflection – trying to understand what Gaga truly means.
During this process of exploring identity, I doubted myself many times. Many traditional values were unfamiliar to me, and I wasn’t sure how to navigate the old rituals and discipline of tribal life. But as time passed, I grew together with this film, Spi. It became more than a project – it became my path back to the heart of Tayal culture.
For me, this documentary is not only a film; it is a record for my people. It preserves stories and memories that might otherwise be forgotten. It also shaped how I imagine, understand, and pursue Tayal traditions. Although I once thought about giving up, these years taught me the meaning of Gaga, and helped me move closer to becoming a true Tayal. I am grateful I didn’t stop.
As my team and I worked through the final stages of post-production in 2025, we moved step by step toward completing the film. Even though we faced many challenges, the film finally allowed my family and community to speak in their own voices – sharing the story of a Tayal family living in Taiwan.
This is the purpose behind my work:
to let the voices of my people be heard,
and to let the world see us.
