You must be logged in to watch films on Festival Scope

White Ant (Bai yi)

Taiwan 2016; 95 min
Original version: Mandarin
Genre: Drama
- FIPRESCI Award - Busan IFF
Busan IFF

Synopsis

Seemingly an ordinary young person from the outside, White Ant is in fact an underwear fetishist who cannot hold back from sneaking out and stealing female lingerie. One day, he receives a DVD containing footage of him stealing female underwear, shattering both his life and sense. While his fear of exposure eventually leads him to inevitable doom, it turns out that people around him also suffer from their dark side, which is like a gnawing “White Ant” within, and the turning point of their intertwined fate has secretly approached…

Director's Statement

While we face changes of interpersonal relationships and our desire evolves within, fear gradually accumulates, gnawing our mind away like a white ant. Sometimes, it eventually transforms our desire; at other times, it releases itself as anger toward others. But in the end, most of us still choose to leave countless lies behind, struggling to live on under the norm of collective consciousness silently.