Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF), a biennial festival founded in 1998, is one of the major professional platforms for documentaries in Asia.

Over 130 films are screened in well-curated programs and four competition sections (Asian Vision, International, Taiwan, and TIDF Visionary Award).

Following the 15th edition held in May 2026, TIDF is bringing a selection of films from the festival to audiences around the world in collaboration with Taiwan Docs. 12 Asian titles were handpicked from the latest festival edition, featuring works from both the competition and non-competition sections.

Until the Orchid Blooms, filmed in an Indigenous village in northern Cambodia facing land dispossession, won the Grand Prize of the Asian Vision Competition for its wistful evocation of time and place. The Jury Prize winner CycleMahesh moves between documentary, fiction, and myth, turning a 2,000-kilometre cycling journey across India into a reflection on migrant labour and the ethics of looking. Isan Odyssey is a hybrid documentary that weaves stories from Thailand’s largest yet poorest region, Isan, through the popular folk music Mor Lam. In Noise: Unwanted Sound, the director living with constant tinnitus explores the thin line between sound and noise, gradually revealing voices that have long been dismissed.

Some films in the Taiwan Competition draw on personal and family histories, opening up reflections on contemporary issues. Shot over ten years, SPI follows the director’s Atayal family as they navigate contemporary life while striving to reconnect with their cultural roots. XiXi offers an intimate exploration of East Asian womanhood, celebrating the freedom of young women while honestly confronting the cost of challenging traditions. Where the Sea Breeze Blows delicately portrays a journey toward understanding each other and learning to say goodbye, through a ferry ride to the director’s grandparents’ home.

Other films tackle social issues through diverse narrative approaches. Where Clouds Once Formed centers on the landscape, probing the environmental costs and resource pressures underlying Taiwan’s high-tech industries. The Tales of the Tale revisits ghost stories told by retired miners, uncovering the harsh labor conditions of Taiwan’s coal-mining past. LA PALOMA, winner of the Audience Award, is a powerful biopic of a singer who persevered under state surveillance during Taiwan’s martial law period.

Hong Kong film In a Minute, shortlisted for TIDF Visionary Award, expands personal narratives into collective memory, deconstructing and reassembling time into overlapping rhythms of presence and change. Inle Echoes, selected from non-competition section “Contemporary Scenes,” follows lakeside communities grappling with loss and displacement after a devastating earthquake in Myanmar. The lake becomes both witness and archive, reflecting the resilience and grief after sudden rupture.

The featured works will be available to stream online from Aug 26 to Sept 16, free for all DAFilms users during the first week (Aug 26 - Sept 1) and exclusively for paid subscribers during Weeks 2–3 (Sept 2-16).