Five Taiwanese teenagers, faced with sweeping and untested educational reforms in 1996, revealed their dreams in the CommonWealth Magazine documentary “A Generation Freed.” Their lives were then revisited in 2006 in the film “A Generation Freed – 10 Years Later” to see how the more liberal education system had affected them. Now, another decade later, we find out in “A Journey of 35” if indeed they were able to chase their dreams and if their horizons have grown brighter with adulthood or become more cynical. When they first faced the camera, the five 15-year-olds expressed their dreams to be a reporter, doctor, painter, entertainer and baseball player. Though somewhat vague and undefined, those dreams served as intangible sparks that gave their lives meaning.

Over the 20 years their lives are documented, the five stories slowly unfurl before our eyes like precious scrolls. Much like watching ourselves grow, one discovers when going back suddenly to the age of fifteen that life was full of choices, and every step taken was a form of energy. Five true stories. Together again, giving us the chance to see ourselves through them.