Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang swaps the virtual-reality splendour of The Deserted (MIFF 2018) for a contemplative work of close-up portraiture, as paired with a brooding score by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

One of slow cinema’s greatest talents, Tsai (Stray Dogs and Journey to the West, both MIFF 2014) crafts what just might be his most reflective, meticulous, stripped-back film yet: a compilation of 13 expressive faces all training their gazes at the camera.

Across a series of unbroken shots, Your Face roves over a revealing gallery of people, including ordinary Taipei residents and his regular collaborator Lee Kang-sheng. Combined with Sakamoto’s score – the acclaimed director’s first use of music in more than two decades – the film peers intimately at twinkling eyes, crinkled noses and awkward smiles to examine the world of stories, thoughts and feelings contained in each and every face.

“Tsai asks us to consider how we see, record and remember, how these processes in art and cinema shape our beliefs about inner lives, past and present.” – The Playlist