Taipei

" Adapting Tao Lin’s thrilling, complex novel of the lives of modern youth to the big screen was an exhilarating challenge. A strange, almost alien novel, Taipei paints a startling picture of alienation in the digital age. But at its core is a story about love, family, and the ways we cope today in a society at once more technologically connected and emotionally disconnected than ever before.

Erin and Paul’s desperate romance, with its obsessive documentation, extreme self-medication, and spiritual yearning ensnared me. This was it. Tao Lin had captured intimately the contemporary condition, and I knew this was a generational portrait I had to make. The ricochets between dark ennui and propulsive movement, the visual potential of the drug binges and psychedelic wanderings, the neon hum of New York City and Taipei, Taiwan - these were the foundations on which I went about translating Taipei to film.

In Ellie Bamber and Justin Chon I found willing accomplices who understood intuitively and innately the story we were trying to tell. In director of photography Daniel Katz I discovered a wonderful creator of images both beautiful and desolate. Ultimately, this is a story about how we can exist and connect amidst the cultural detritus of the Internet age, and I hope we’ve made something with meaning for my generation."

Jason Lester