Taiwan Cinema Yesterday & Today February 26 – 28, 2010 Schedule Friday, February 26 Saturday, February 27 Sunday, February 28 5:00 – 6:00 Thomas Fisher 10:00 – 11:50 Innis Town Hall 2:00 – 4:00 Innis Town Hall

Rare Book Orz Boyz INTRODUCTION Library Directed By Yang Ya-Che » Mr. Colin Geddes Vip Reception 2008 | 110 Min. Toronto International Film By Invitation Only Festival and Ultra 8 Pictures 11:50 – 1:00 Dark Night 6:30 Innis Town Hall Break Directed by Fred Tan Opening Night Welcome 1986 | 115 min. 1:00 – 3:40 Innis Town Hall » Professor Joseph Wong City Of Sadness Director, Asian Institute, 4:00 – 5:00 Directed By Hou Hsio-Hsien University of Toronto Break 1989 | 160 Min. » Senator Vivienne Poy 5:00 – 6:45 Innis Town Hall Senate of Canada; Chancellor 3:40 – 4:30 Innis Town Hall Emerita, University of Toronto INTRODUCTION Lecture » Mr. Kuo-jan Wang » Mr. Peter Kuplowsky Hou Hsiao-hsien and City of Director General, Taipei Toronto After Dark Sadness as Taiwan’s Cultural Economic and Cultural Offi ce Film Festival Ambassadors in Toronto Growing Up » Professor James Udden » Professor Charlie Keil Directed by Chen Kun-Hou Film Studies, Gettysburg Director, Cinema Studies 1983 | 100 min. College in Pennsylvania Institute, University of Toronto 7:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS 4:30 – 5:00 Closing Night Bentu: Taiwan Cinema’s Break Sentiments and Marketplace particpants Dinner » Professor Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh 5:00 – 7:00 Innis Town Hall By Invitation Only

Department of Cinema- Symposium Television and Director, David Contemporary Taiwan Cinema C. Lam Institute for East-West » Professor Lee Carruthers Studies, Hong Kong Baptist Cinema and Media Studies, University University of Calgary INTRODUCTION » Mr. Shelly Kraicer » Mr. Shelly Kraicer Curator, fi lm programmer, Curator, fi lm programmer, and freelance fi lm critic; and freelance fi lm critic; Beijing based Beijing based » Professor Bart Testa

gala screening Cinema Studies Institute, Tears University of Toronto Directed By Cheng Wen-Tang 7:00 – 8:00 2009 | 111 Min. Break 9:00 – 12:00 Innis Café 8:00 – 9:45 Innis Town Hall Gala Party Parking Director Chung Mung-Hong 2008 | 106 Min. I am delighted to welcome you to Taiwan Cinema Yesterday and Today. This is the Asian Institute’s third international fi lm conference, and we anticipate it will be as successful as our earlier renditions. The core concept of the Asian Institute fi lm conference is to combine critical scholarly discussion about world cinema with fi lm screenings. In this way, Taiwan Cinema Yesterday and Today captures both the experiential excitement of traditional fi lm festivals and the intellectual creativity of academic conferences. This formula has worked wonderfully thus far, and we are thrilled this year to highlight one of Asia’s most dynamic hotbeds for fi lm: Taiwan.

Quite unlike Hong Kong fi lm’s popular appeal or the global reach that has been achieved more recently by Chinese cinema, Taiwanese fi lm is noted primarily for its artistic creativity, much more than for its Welcome to commercial returns. Even though several Taiwanese fi lmmakers have gone on to gain great mainstream prominence in the West, Taiwan Taiwan Cinema cinema has by and large been the focus more of art-houses, Cinema- theques, fi lm buff s and university lecture halls. The story of Taiwan Yesterday fi lm thus remains relatively untold, even though its artistic creativity and Today has become critically celebrated around the world through festivals such as Berlin and Venice. Our fi lm conference aims to introduce Taiwanese cinema to a larger audience, and in so doing illuminate Taiwan’s very dynamic, progressive and transforming society.

The University, in my mind, is precisely THE place for this sort of event. And the Asian Institute is at the forefront of bringing what the university does best – academic programming – closer to the community, closer to the many folks whose lives are depicted, contested and dissected in fi lm and by fi lm scholars. Indeed, the community’s support of our fi lm-related initiatives over the past Asian Institute few years has been overwhelming, and it has propelled us to think at the University ever more creatively about, and to even be more connected to, Asia. of Toronto The Asian Institute has played a modest leadership role in putting this Munk Centre conference together. Over the past year, the Asian Institute has collabo- for International Studies rated closely with the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Offi ce in Toronto, 1 Devonshire Place, the Reel Asian International Film Festival, the University of Toronto’s Room 227n Cinema Studies Institute and the Department of East Asian Studies as Toronto, on well as several programmers and scholars from around the world. Many Canada thanks to all of you. In particular I would like to thank Professor Emilie m5s 3k7 Yueh-Yu Yeh, who has come from Asia to be a part of this conference. t 416 946 8996 I would like to extend my appreciation to Colin Geddes, Peter Kuplowsky f 416 946 8838 and especially Bart Testa for their visionary leadership and program- e [email protected] ming expertise. And last, I would like to thank Eileen Lam of the Asian url www.utoronto.ca/ai Institute for her tireless eff orts in coordinating this international event.

Sincerely,

Joseph Wong Director, Asian Institute Canada Research Chair, Political Science

3 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 Co-Presenters Asian Institute at the University of Toronto Taipei Economic and Cultural Offi ce in Toronto

University of Toronto Sponsors Dr. David Chu Community Network in Asia Pacifi c Studies Cinema Studies Institute School of Global Aff airs at the Munk Centre for International Studies Cinema Studies Student Union (CINSSU) University of Toronto Libraries

Community Sponsors

Sponsors Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival Toronto After Dark Film Festival

Corporate Sponsors Holiday Inn Bloor-Yorkville

Graphic Design Donderdag

Printing Welter Studios

Catering Koo & Co In the Kitchen with Dinah Duffl et Pastries

Photographer Leib Kopman

4 Tickets

Prices

All individual tickets $5 except as follows:

Festival pass $25

Opening night fi lm screening and party $10 party only $10

Orz Boyz fi lm Free for Kids when accompanied by adult with valid ticket

Saturday lecture & symposium Free

Tickets for ALL screenings including opening night can be purchased 30 minutes before start time at venue box offi ce.

Advance Ticketing

On-line www.utoronto.ca/ai By Phone (416) 946 - 8996

Venues

avenue rd ➊ innis town hall bloor bloor Innis College at the University of Toronto devonshire pl 2 Sussex Street at St. George (south of Bloor) ➊ charles sussex ave innis café Innis College at the University of Toronto ➋ hoskin ave 2 Sussex Street at St. George (south of Bloor) spadina ave huron st st george st queen’s park cr w queen’s park cr e bay st yonge ➋ thomas fisher rare book library

wellesley University of Toronto Libraries 120 St. George Street

ttc subway stations

college college

5 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 Co-presenters

The Asian Institute Taipei Economic

The Asian Institute is home to about 100 scholarly and Cultural Offi ce affi liates, including 40 or so core faculty members, in Toronto researching and teaching on Asia. Located in the Munk Centre for International Studies at the Established in 1993, Taipei Economic and Cultural University of Toronto, the Asian Institute provides Offi ce in Toronto (TECO-Toronto) represents the an inter-disciplinary home to both faculty and interests of Republic of China (Taiwan) and its students interested in Asia. Dedicated to one of people. TECO-Toronto aims to promote bilateral trade, the most dynamic regions in the world, the Asian investment, cultural exchange and cooperation, Institute facilitates cutting-edge research, public and to advance understanding between Taiwan and forums, conferences, and fi rst-rate teaching. Canada. Through the David Chu Program in Asia-Pacifi c Studies, the Asian Institute runs both an Located in downtown Toronto (151 Yonge Street), undergraduate and M.A. program. Our colleagues TECO-Toronto provides overseas Taiwanese and non- collectively cover the entire Asia region, bridging Taiwanese with services such as travel documents work on South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast and visa issuance and document authentication/ Asia. A recipient of a University Academic Initiative legalization. In addition, the offi ce also delivers Fund grant, the Asian Institute looks to build deeper emergency assistance to overseas Taiwanese in need. linkages among faculty and students, and between The jurisdiction of TECO-Toronto extends to the the university and off -campus communities. following Canadian provinces: Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba.

TECO offi ces in Toronto also include the Information Division, which serves as media liaison, providing up to date information about Taiwan, and the Culture Center (located in Scarborough), which provides services to overseas Taiwanese.

6 In the 1980s, the New Cinema thrust Taiwan’s fi lmmakers into the international limelight alongside Fifth Generation auteurs and Hong Kong’s New Wave directors. The Taiwanese cinema made its impact with a select group, Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-Liang. Yang’s Yi Yi has become a modern classic. Over twenty years, Hou has achieved canonical status as a master of narrative style. Tsai radicalized the rigorous inclinations of the New Cinema. Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon pronounced the era of high-stakes transnational fi lmmaking had arrived.

Despite this recognition, the New Cinema ended ambiguously. It Introduction launched these major fi gures but their success came in the form of foreign fi nancial and critical sustenance. The revival of the Taiwanese From the fi lm industry itself never followed and it lingered in crisis.

Programming This is how things stood ten years ago. Lately, Taiwanese cinema is stirring anew. The box offi ce success of Cape No 7 (2008) may have seemed Committee a fl uke. In fact, there seems to be a growing cycle of well made serious Taiwanese fi lms. One of our purposes in organizing Taiwan Cinema Yesterday and Today is to sample and discuss these fi lms. The China-based critic and programmer Shelly Kraicer helped select these fi lms and we had to choose Tears (2009), Orz Boyz (2008) and Parking (2008) from his enthusiastic suggestions. We also asked very highly regarded experts in Taiwan fi lm to place them in context. We are fortunate in this respect that Professor Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh is participating, and so is Professor James Udden. Film scholarship on Taiwan cinema has constantly deepened through books which Professor Yeh has edited Programming and written. Published on the 20th anniversary of Hou’s The City of Committee Sadness, Udden’s No Man an Island: the Cinema of Hou Hsaio-hsien is a key new addition. There is a retrospective aspect to out event. Peter Kuplowsky, Bart Testa a graduate student joined with Asian fi lm expert (and collector) Colin Shelly Kraicer Geddes to choose two fi lms from the University of Toronto’s Media Colin Geddes Archive, one of which is a fi lm scripted by the young Hou Hsiao-hsien, Peter Kuplosky Growing Up (1983).

Just weeks ago, Toronto’s TIFF Cinematheque ran a critics choice series, “The Best of the Decade: An Alternative View.” It included fi ve Taiwanese fi lms, a telling recognition of the endurance of the island’s cinematic imagination. Now, to understand both how Taiwan emerged a key player in global fi lm culture and to experience new fi lm works in order to see where its cinema is headed – this is our purpose.

7 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 8 9 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 “I feel so lucky to be an Asia-Pacifi c Studies major!” — Arnaud Barry-Camu (far right)

Mentoring Students

www.utoronto.ca/davidchu

10 Photo by Emilie YY Yeh » Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh 葉月瑜 Keynote Professor, School of Communication and Director, Centre for Media Bentu 本土: Taiwan Cinema’s and Communication Research, Hong Kong Baptist University Sentiments and Marketplace

A number of striking changes in recent Taiwan cinema include genre diversity, commodity awareness, attempts at popularization, and continued stylistic innovations. I argue these changes are part of the bentuhua (indigenization) movement, an ideology fundamental to Taiwan’s political reforms and democratization in the past decades.

Bentu (“root land”) is crucial to Taiwanese culture and cinema since the 1990s. Bentu is a collective sentiment inherited from the 1970s’ xiangtu (nativist) movement in literature, dance, photography and social life. The New Cinema of the 1980s is a powerful, though problematic, illustration of the celluloid xiangtu. With DPP’s rise to power and with pluralistic cultural policies in place, bentu emerged as a new sentiment, inclusive of disparate identities and confl icting interests, all under the notion of Taiwan as a permanent domicile. Films like Let it Be (無米樂), Island Etude (練習曲) and Cape No. 7 (海角七號) exemplify the cinema of bentu as compelling local sentiments and keys to commercial success.

friday, feb. 26 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 6:30 pm 11 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 gala screening — Toronto premiere

Opening Night Welcome » Professor Joseph Wong Tears (2009)

Director, Asian Institute Director: Cheng Wen-Tang Cast: Chen Chang, Lunmei Kwai, Leon Dai, at the University of Toronto Chapman To, Jack Kao, Peggy Tseng, Kai-jung Lin

» Senator Vivienne Poy 111 minutes

Senate Of Canada; “Tears is a quietly shattering character study of a bad cop with Chancellor Emerita, a good conscience, whose punishment becomes redemption for University of Toronto his past crimes. It calmly traces how negative actions, like small

» Mr. Kuo-jan Wang tremors imperceptibly building up to a quake, can have devastating Director General, Taipei Economic consequences on self and others” (review, Hollywood Reporter)

and Cultural Offi ce in Toronto Veteran Taiwanese director Cheng Wen-tang’s sets his story in a

» Professor Charles Keil restrictive social setting in order to off er some comprehension of Director, Cinema Studies Institute, his protagonist’s behavior. Guo (Tsai Chen-Nan) is a middle-aged University of Toronto police detective, lonely and given to a simple routine spending time with his dog, doing volunteer work at a hospital. He likes to veer off Keynote Address his beat to chat up two teenage girls who sell betelnuts in skimpy » Professor Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh clothes. Guo would seem to be a subdued and simple man but he Department of Cinema-Television and has hidden peculiarities. He has not shed a tear in a decade and he Director, David C. Lam Institute for uses brutality to extract confessions from suspects. He then becomes East-West Studies, Hong Kong Baptist embroiled in a brutal murder case. A couple, Mr. And Mrs. Lai Lai, University found dead, have been victims of arson. Their son, Carson committed

Introduction to Tears the crime and his young sister Wen was the witness of the murder. » Mr. Shelly Kraicer Six months later, Carson escapes from prison. An ambiguous rapport Curator, Film Programmer, develops between Guo and Wen keeping the viewer unsure whether and Freelance Film Critic; his feelings for her are paternal or sordid.

Beijing Based The fi lm reopens a dark period in Taiwan’s past and police abuse of power. Wang keeps his camera at a distance, the style of the fi lm is restrained and observant. > Gala Party to follow screening at Innis Café Cheng Wen Tang has been directing fi lms since 1999, when he debuted with Postcard, which won numerous prizes and quickly established his reputation as one the leading Taiwan fi lmmakers of the new millennium. Tears is his fi fth feature fi lm.

friday, feb. 26 Innis Town Hall 2 Sussex Street 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm 12 Taiwan Film Conference OPENING NIGHT PARTY

After Tears, continue the evening and celebration at The Innis Café – Innis College at the University of Toronto, 2 Sussex Street at St. George (south of Bloor).

• Chat over drinks • Sample Taiwanese night market food • Meet and mingle with fellow cinema lovers 9:00 pm Friday, February 26 $10 ga or free with Tears ticket stub

Catering by Koo & Co, In the Kitchen with Dinah and Duffl et Pastries

Orz Boyz (2008)

Director: Yang Ya-Che Cast: Chi-wen Hsu, Kuan-yi Lee, Chih-Hsiang Ma, Fang Mei, Chin-Yu Pang Awards: 2008 Golden Horse Award, Best Supporting Actress (Mei Fong) 110 minutes

Orz denotes an East Asian emoticon suggesting amazement. And it’s quite likely that the two young boy protagonists of Orz Boys will amaze and delight. They are dubbed Liar No.1 and Liar No.2 by their teachers after they’re caught scamming their classmates with a story of a ghostly Martian lurking under the school building. No.1 seems to have a mute, mentally disturbed, homeless father who lives at the end of a pier, while No.2 is brought up by his alternately threatening and indulgent though always wildly superstitious Grandmother.

The fi lm divides into three parts: the fi rst depicts the boys’ fl ights of fancy at school (there’s a bronze statue in the courtyard which may or may not come to life), and a schoolboy crush on classmate Lin, who responds with unexpected grace to their immature taunting. Part two is a tale involving an audience of animated characters, loosely based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The third section unfolds the boys’ myth of a hyperspace portal located at a water park, whose high price of admission forces them to struggle to earn extra money on the streets.

Hyperspace may in fact be adulthood, and it is director Yang Ya-che’s considerable achievement in this, his fi rst fi lm, to evoke the emotionally freighted pathways between childhood and growing up in ways that are both Rabelaisianly playful and hauntingly real.

(Shelly Kraicer)

saturday, feb. 27 Innis Town Hall 2 Sussex Street 10:00 am – 11:50 am 14 > preceeded by lecture City of Sadness (1989) Hou Hsiao-hsien and City of Sadness as Taiwan’s Cultural Ambassadors Director: Hou Hsio-Hsien Cast: Sung Young Chen, Wou Yi Fang, Nakamura Ikuyo, Jack Kao, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Tianlu Li, Ikuyo Nakamura, » Professor James Udden Chen-Nan Tsai, Shufen Xin Awards: 1989 Golden Horse Award, Best Actor Gettysburg College (Sung Young Chen), 1989 Golden Horse Award, Best Director (Hsiao-hsien Hou Hsiao-hsien’s City of Hou), 1989 Golden Horse Awards, Best Editing, Best Film, 1989 Venice Film Sadness (1989) is a rarity in world Festival, Golden Lion Award, 1989 Venice Film Festival, UNESCO Award, cinema. Not only does this 1990 Political Film Society, USA, Special Award, 1991 Kinema Junpo Award, fi lm best represent Taiwanese Best Foreign Language Film 1991 Mainichi Film Concours, Best Foreign cinema past and present, it also Language Film best represents the question of 160 minutes Taiwan itself. This single fi lm “I didn’t make A City of Sadness because I purposely wanted to open up serves as a cultural ambassador, old wounds … but because I know that we have to face ourselves and not only to the world, but within our history if we are ever to understand who we are and where we’re Taiwan itself. going.” — Hou Hsiao-Hsien 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm “A family epic as expansive as The Godfather” (Godfrey Cheshire, Film Comment), the magnifi cent A City of Sadness is perhaps the fi nest fi lm of Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-Hsien and a breakthrough both politically and popularly for the New Cinema when it was released. Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 1989, the fi lm also gave Taiwanese fi lms international currency it had never had before. Hou’s spans the four tumultuous years from 1945 and the Japanese surrender and 1949, when Chiang Kai Shek set up the Nationalist government on the island after fall of the mainland to the Communists. Hou narrates this violent and complex period through the perspective of one family: aging widower Lin, his four sons and their wives. The fi lm treated a subject long excluded from any representation: the brutal repression of the Taiwanese by the Nationalist Chinese. It was only with the international prestige A City of Sadness achieved that it was shown in Taiwan.

saturday, feb. 27 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 1:00 pm – 3:40 pm 15 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 symposium Contemporary Taiwan Cinema

panelists: » Professor Lee Caruthers Cinema and Media Studies, University of Calgary

» Mr. Shelly Kraicer Curator, fi lm programmer, and freelance fi lm critic; Beijing based

» Professor Bart Testa Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto

saturday, february 27 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm 16 Parking (2008)

Director: Chung Mung-Hong Cast: Chen Chang, Lunmei Kwai, Leon Dai, Chapman To, Jack Kao, Peggy Tseng, Kai-jung Lin Awards: 2008 Golden Horse Award, Best Art Direction and FIPRESCI Critics Award; 2008 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, Best New Talent and Audience Favourite Film; and 2009 !f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival, Most Inspired Film Director 106 minutes

“The movie seeks not to discuss the parking issue of Taipei, but rather to talk about human predicament in a modern urban environment, using the parking space as a metaphor.” — Chung Mung-hong

It is Mother’s Day in Taipei. Chen Mo (Chen Cheng) has a dinner date with his wife and hopes to heal their strained relationship with a romantic evening. Stopping to buy a cake on his way home, he fi nds a car double parked blocking him in. Chen Mo begins searching the fl oors of the neighbouring apartment building for the driver and encounters a succession of strange characters: an old couple living with their precocious granddaughter; a one-armed barbershop owner cooking fi sh head soup, a prostitute trying to fl ee her cruel pimp, and a Hong Kong tailor embroiled in debt and terrorized by underground loan sharks. After all his adventures – which include being berated, beaten and kidnapped, Mo fi nally extricates his car and, with some new friends riding with him, drives toward a new dawn. Using the plot device of network narrative, Chung weaves a thoroughly urban night tale that combines family drama, rough comedy and tenderness.

Chung Mung-Hong previously directed the documentary Doctor (2006). Parking is his fi rst feature fi lm.

saturday, feb. 27 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 8:00 pm – 9:45 pm 17 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010

from the University of Toronto Film Archives

Introduction » Mr. Colin Geddes Dark Night (1986)

Toronto International Film Festival Director: Fred Tan Screenwriter: Fred Tan Producer: Lo Wei and Ultra 8 Pictures Editor: Chen Bo-Wen Cast: So Ming-Ming, Hsu Ming, Chang Kuo-Chu 115 minutes

Based on noted feminist writer Li Ang’s novel, Dark Night weaves a dramatic and occasionally surreal depiction of an unravelling marriage. Li Lin is happily married to Wong Shing-tak, a successful businessman, but when handsome reporter Yip Yuen enters her life, friendship spirals into a passionate aff air that leaves Lin pregnant and then abandoned by Yip. Shamed in the eyes of her husband, Lin spirals into a depression. In the fi lm’s most bizarre episode, Li Lin’s anxieties give way to nightmarish abortion fantasies involving sword-swinging Taoist priests and fetus-carrying watermelons.

Like others who would become prominent Taiwanese fi lmmakers like Ang Lee and Edward Yang, Fred Tan did not come to his directing debut with Dark Night along a straight path. He moved to the United States in 1975 and to work as a Hollywood editor and fi lm critic for The China Times. Four years later, back in Taiwan he worked as Assistant Director for King Hu on Raining in the Mountain (1979) and Legend of the Mountain (1979). Following his directorial debut with Dark Night, he adapted and directed Eileen Chang’s Rouge of the North (1988). Both fi lms drew attention for their thematic preoccupation with adultery, sexual repression and the role of women in modern Taiwanese society. He then directed the ghost story Split of the Spirit in 1989, a fi lm which revisited the supernatural imagery in portions of Tan’s debut feature. That year, Tan travelled to Beijing to join in the student uprising in Tiananmen Square. Soon his return to Taiwan, he contracted acute hepatitis and died. Tan was 35.

The fi lm was produced by the prolifi c Lo Wei (director of Bruce Lee’s Fists of Fury) and edited by Edward Yang collaborator Chen Bo-Wen (A Bright Summer Day, Yi-Yi).

sunday, february 28 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm 18 from the University of Toronto Film Archives

Introduction » Mr. Peter Kuplowsky Growing Up (1983)

Toronto After Dark Film Festival Director: Chen Kun-Hou Screenwriters: Chu T’ien-wen, Hou Hsio-Hsien, Yah Ming Ding, Shu-Chen Hsu Cast: Doze Niu, Chun-Fang Zhang Awards: 1983 Golden Horse Awards, Best Drama, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay 100 minutes

Among the fi rst fi lms to incite critical and commercial interest in the New Cinema movement, Chen Kun-Ho’s Growing Up nostalgically chronicles the trials of adolescence as experienced by young Xiao Bin (Nose Giu), a child of 1950s Taiwan. Living with his mother, newly married to an immigrant from Mainland China, Xiao Bin’s life is narrated by a classmate and neighbor, observing him from a distance. Youthful romance and juvenile delinquency abound in this charming family drama. But nuanced mediations on social issues are also rehearsed, including the growing Americanization of Taiwan and the tense relations between Mainland communities and native Taiwanese.

Growing Up established one of the New Cinema’s prolifi c fi lmmaking teams. Based on her novel, the fi lm not only marked renowned author Chu T’ien-wen’s fi rst foray into fi lm, but also introduced her to Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who collaborated with her on the screenplay. The two of them would subsequently become an inseparable writing team.

The fi lm was director and cinematographer Chen Kun-Ho’s most successful fi lm. A seminal fi gure in the revival of Taiwanese cinema, his sophisticated treatment of space and time proved infl uential to the development of the New Cinema’s celebrated visual palette. A mentor to Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Chen Kun-Ho was the cinematographer of Hou’s early commercial fi lms including Cute Girl (1980) and then rejoined him to shoot Hou’s New Cinema classic Summer at Grandpas (1984).

sunday, february 28 innis town hall, 2 sussex avenue 5:00 pm – 6:45 pm 19 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 Audience, Institutions, Practices (California, 2004), and Participants with Ben Singer, of American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers, 2009). He has published widely LEE CARRUTHERS completed her doctoral degree on documentary fi lms, contemporary cinema fi lm, at the University of Chicago in 2008 and is now and fi lm and theatre. Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Calgary (AB, Canada). Her teaching focuses on SHELLY KRAICER is a Beijing-based writer, critic, fi lm theory, American cinema and European art and fi lm curator. Born in Toronto, Canada, and cinema; she has published and presented work on educated at Yale University, he has written fi lm fi lm theory, fi lm noir, and contemporary directors criticism in Cinema Scope, Positions, Cineaste, the Village such as François Ozon, Steven Soderbergh and Tsai Voice, and Screen International. Since 2007, he has been Ming-liang. Carruthers’ current book project is called a programmer of East Asian fi lms for the Vancouver Doing Time: Timeliness and Temporal Rhetorics in Contemporary International Film Festival, and has consulted for the Cinema. Her research pursues questions related to time Venice, Udine, Dubai, and Rotterdam International Film and ambiguity in the writings of André Bazin as well Festivals.

as constructions of space in the cinema of Mike Leigh. PETER KUPLOWSKY is currently an MA student in

COLIN GEDDES has been an international the Cinema Studies Institute ( University of Toronto). programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival® He programs fi lms for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival since 1997. He has premiered the fi lms of Miike and programmed the 2008 Sabu retrospective for Takashi, Johnnie To, Eli Roth, Alex Aja, Pratchya the Asian Institute’s CinemAsia. In 2006 Kuplowsky Pinkaew and others for fi rst exposure to North co-directed a short documentary on the history of American audiences. He has programmed Asian the Bloor Cinema with Robin Sharp.

theatre Golden Classics Cinema, Images Festival of SENATOR VIVIENNE POY is an author, Independent Film & Video, Cinematheque Ontario, and entrepreneur, historian, fashion designer, and FantAsia Toronto and serves on the advisory committee community volunteer. Senator Vivienne Poy is the of the Reel Asian Film Festival. A specialist in Asian fi rst Canadian of Asian descent to be appointed to cinema, Geddes has written for The Globe & Mail the Senate of Canada, and is Chancellor Emerita and published Asian Eye magazine, one of the fi rst of the University of Toronto. In the Senate, Senator publications dedicated to Hong Kong fi lm. He Poy serves on the Senate’s Standing Committee on directed supplementary content for DVDs including Human Rights and the Senate’s Standing Committee Master Hwang Inn Shik and Jackie Chan’s Dragon Lord on Fisheries and Oceans. Among her current and Young Master. In 2004 he founded Ultra 8 Pictures, commitments, she is a member of the Board of an independent theatrical distribution and booking ORBIS Canada, an Honourary Board member of the consulting company. Kidney Foundation (Ontario Region), and Honourary

CHARLIE KEIL is Director of the Cinema Studies Co-Chair, the Campaign for Diversity, Canadian Institute and Associate Professor of History at the Centre for Diversity. She has been actively involved University of Toronto. He is the author of Early for many years with numerous health, educational, American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking, and cultural organizations. As a result of her 1907 — 1913 (Wisconsin, 2001) and co-editor, with leadership in politics, the community, and Shelley Stamp, of American Cinema’s Transitional Era: education, she has been designated as one of

20 Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the 1995-1996) and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Consul, Women’s Executive Network, in the ‘Trailblazer’ Consulate General of ROC, 1985 – 1990). Mr. Wang category, and has won an International Women’s received his B.A. (diplomacy) from National Chengchi Day Award. Besides having a Ph.D. in History from University in Taiwan (1978). He also undertook the University of Toronto, Senator Poy has received research and study at the Monterey Institute of several honourary degrees from universities in International Studies (2007 – 2008) and the Asia Canada and around the world. Pacifi c Center for Security Studies in the United States (2003). BART TESTA is senior lecturer at the Cinema Studies Institute, Innis College, University of Toronto. JOSEPH WONG is Associate Professor of political His teaching includes courses on Chinese cinemas, science at the University of Toronto, where he is also European art fi lms, urbanism and fi lm, avant-garde the Director of the Asian Institute. Professor Wong cinema, science fi ction movies and other popular also holds a Canada Research Chair. He received his fi lm genres. He has authored two books on Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in experimental fi lms, Back and Forth: Early Cinema and 2001, and prior to joining the Toronto faculty, Wong the Avant-Garde (1993) and Spirit in the Landscape (1989) was an associate in research at Harvard University. and edited an anthology on Pier Paolo Pasolini, as Wong is the author of many academic articles well as journal articles and anthologized essays. and book chapters. Wong’s books include Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea JAMES UDDEN is Associate Professor of fi lm studies (Cornell University Press, 2004) and Political Transitions at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose (Routledge, and researched in Taiwan resulting in his book, No 2008). Wong’s latest book on biotechnology Man an Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien (Hong Kong development in Asia is currently under review. University Press, 2009), the fi rst English-language book on the fi lmmaker. He has also published EMILIE YUEH-YU YEH is Professor of Film widely on Asian cinema in various journals and Studies, Director of the Centre for Media and anthologies, including two in separate upcoming Communication Research and Associate Director for volumes on Chinese cinema to be published by David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at Hong BFI and Blackwell press. His current book project Kong Baptist University. Her publications include: concerns how Iranian cinema managed to penetrate Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island (with Darrell Davis, the international fi lm festival circuit. Columbia University Press, 2005), Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (with Sheldon Lu, KUO-JAN WANG has been the Director General University of Hawaii Press, 2005, Choice’s 2005 of the Taipei Economic & Cultural Offi ce (TECO) outstanding academic title), East Asian Screen Industries in Toronto since December 2008. Before coming to (with Darrell Davis, British Film Institute, 2008) and Toronto, Mr. Wang was the Deputy Director General, Phantom of the Music: Song Narration and Chinese-Language Bureau of Consular Aff airs, Ministry of Foreign Cinema (Taipei: Yuan-liou, 2000). She has written Aff airs (MOFA), Taiwan (Sep.2002 – Dec. 2008). In more than 30 journal articles and book chapters. addition to Toronto, Mr. Wang’s foreign assignments Her current research projects include China’s fi lm also include Canberra, Australia (Chief of Public marketization and Chinese wenyi pictures. Aff airs Division, TECO, 1996 – 2001), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Chief of Consular Aff airs Division, TECO,

21 taiwan cinema: yesterday & today | 2010 The University Of Toronto

Cinema Studies Student Union (CINSSU)

Cinema Studies Institute

Colin Geddes Collection at the University of Toronto

Dr. David Chu Community Network in Asia Pacifi c Studies

Faculty of Arts and Science

School of Global Aff airs at the Munk Centre for International Studies

Media Commons

University of Toronto Libraries

Thank you Aga Baranowska Faith Pang

Gabriela Bravo Abby Paredes

Lee Carruthers Raymond

Eric Cazdyn Phathanavirangoon

Edward Chan Tony Pi

Chris Chin Vivienne Poy

Ken Chiu Carol Reichert

Josie Chou Bernardo Rondeau

Shegalla Choy Sonia Sakamoto-Jog

Colin Geddes Rachel Silvey

Clayton Hillis Taipei Economic and Cultural Offi ce in Toronto Jo Hsu Bart Testa Remi Kanji Stephanie Trepanier Charlie Keil James Udden Monica Kim Sonia Waite Dinah Koo Kuo-jan Wang Shelly Kraicer Joseph Wong Peggy Ku Jeff Wright Peter Kuplowsky Leonard Wyma Émilie Lacourt Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh Harvey Lalonde

Eileen Lam We were unable to include

Jessica Lam everyone who has helped and contributed to the fi lm Eyan Logan conference when this went Katherine Mitchell to press. A special thank Carole Moore you to those of you whose

Andrea Ng names were regretfully omitted.

22 Evokative Films

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