About

Just as the LGBTQ+ community in the US was celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage, the struggle for the same rights was unfolding across the globe in Taiwan. Director Sophia Yen combines the political with the personal as she documents the clash between marriage equality activists and their opponents through a deeply affecting portrait of three couples.

Taiwan Equals Love exposes the emotional fallout a lack of basic rights provokes. For Jovi and Mindy, marriage means that Mindy can finally become a full-fledged mother to daughter Aliy. For Hsiang and Tien-Ming, the legal recognition will relieve anxieties about Hsiang’s declining health and potential dispossession due to Taiwan’s inheritance laws. And for young couple Gu and Shinchi, it means the right to stay together; being from Macau, Gu’s immigration status keeps him from finding a job.

These moving stories at the center of Taiwan Equals Love are both extraordinary and familiar, echoing the battle for marriage equality in the US while playing out against the rich, unique culture of Taiwan, as it became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.