The Way Home

The struggles of an indigenous leader and single mother in Taiwan.

Dremedrema is the heir to the chief of her tribe. As the eldest of the family, she must therefore accept the inheritance of her position and status according to tradition. Her mother and children hope she disavows the obligation, and even Dremedrema herself had run away from her tribe once. Many other families’ members have their eyes on the position, but her ancestral spirits would not give up on her. She is a tribal chief who does not speak the native tongue. At the same time, she is a devoted single mother of three. She is a chief without her traditional tribal family house, unable to live within the tribe. She misses home. But despite a decade of effort, it is a home that she cannot easily return to. This is a female tribal chief’s arduous journey to heed the call of her ancestral roots.