Finding Sayun

For her debut feature Finding Sayun (不一樣的月光), Atayal director Chen Chieh-yao (陳潔瑤) returns to her home village to unearth the legend of Sayun (sometimes spelled Sayion), an Atayal girl who fell to her death in a turbulent stream while carrying a Japanese teacher’s belongings at the end of World War II. The movie begins when the tale of Sayun draws a television crew to the Atayal hamlet of Tyohemg (金岳) in Nanao Township (南澳), Yilan County. Yukan (Tsao Shih-hui, 曹世輝), a high-school boy and a young hunter, does not understand the crew members’ interest in the story. But his grandfather’s (Chang Chin-chen, 張金振) memories of Sayun, whom he went to school with, revives his interest in the old tribal village, which the villagers had been forced to desert 50 years prior.