A variety of film festivals and awards have been established to encourage the production of documentaries.

Japanese-produced newsreels, shorts, educational, and feature films were widely circulated throughout Taiwan from the mid-1920s through 1945 and even after decolonization. The film centersround a family affected by the clash between the local Taiwanese and the newly arrived Chinese Nationalist government after World War II. Films such as Japanese Police Supervise a Taiwanese Village (1935) illustrated how "proper" imperial subjects should dress and act as well as promoting their superior farming skills thanks to the Japanese overlords. 7, the Taiwanese movie industry began to recover from a slump that had lasted for about 10 years. Films such as Japanese Police Supervise a Taiwanese Village (1935) illustrated how "proper" imperial subjects should dress and act as well as promoting their superior farming skills thanks to the Japanese overlords. The emphasis on realism led to the comparison between these films and films of the Italian Neorealism movement. He said that, ‘In some ways I probably know that nineteenth century world better than English people today, because I grew up with one foot still in that feudal society.

[8] Taiwanese directors would vividly revisit the legacy of this process of cultural annexation in such films as Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness (1989) and The Puppetmaster (1993), as well as Wu Nien-jen's A Borrowed Life (1994).[9]. This film-within-the-film confronts Liang Qing with her nation’s traumas, while mysterious fax messages in the present dispatch pages from her diary to her apartment, forcing her to relive a tragedy from her own, more recent, past. The most original narrative conceit of the film is Vicky’s voiceover from 10 years into the future, speaking about herself in detached third person as if to imply her future self had settled into being somebody completely different. In contrast to the melodrama or kung-fu action films of the earlier decades, New Taiwanese Cinema films are known for their realistic, down-to-earth, and sympathetic portrayals of Taiwanese life. The 1960s marked the beginning of Taiwan's rapid modernization. For example, the conventional narrative structure which builds the drama to a climax was abandoned and the story progressed at the pace as it would in real life. The New Taiwanese Cinema gradually gave way to what could be informally called the Second New Wave, which are slightly less serious and more amenable to the populace, although just as committed to portraying the Taiwanese perspective. The first silent film produced in Taiwan was An Introduction to the Actual Condition of Taiwan, a propaganda documentary that Takamatsu directed in 1907. His first film made outside Asia, Flight consolidated his approach of conjuring the sense of real lives through isolated moments and an atmospherically shot poetic naturalism. Additionally, the popular 2009 TV series Black & White resulted in two feature films entitled: Black & White Episode I: The Dawn of Assault (2012) (a prequel to the TV series) and Black & White: The Dawn of Justice (2014) (another prequel to the TV series but a sequel to the 2012 film).

Other films catered to Japanese audiences exotic desires for Taiwan as a place of adventure and danger such as Conquering Taiwan's Native Rebels (1910) and Heroes of the Taiwan Extermination Squad (1910). This, his last film to date, enjoyed a wider international distribution than most of his previous films while also picking up a prize at Cannes, and can thus be regarded as a remarkable swansong of a career uncompromisingly dedicated to a singular artistic vision.

The first film was introduced into Taiwan by Toyojirō Takamatsu (高松豊次郎; see 高松豐次郎) in 1901.

003. A down-to-earth artist who masterfully and yet unpretentiously depicts quotidian life — as the young Li in the film says, “Puppets are also like life” — he represents Hou’s personal philosophy of life and cinema. While carrying out research for a never-made film about Zheng Chenggong, the 17th century ruler who defeated Dutch colonialists and settled on Taiwan, Hou came across a novel about the lives and intrigues of the residents of a late Qing-dynasty high-class Shanghai brothel. Waiting. Other famous Taiwanese benshi masters were Lu Su-Shang and Zhan Tian-Ma. It then took Hou another eight years before his next feature film, The Assassin, a wuxia picture which had long been in the works. ‘Even today, I feel I belong neither to Taiwan nor to Malaysia. Even then, the majority of films were still made in Taiwanese Hokkien and this continued for many years. Ang Lee is the most recognized director from the Second Wave. From 1910, films started to be distributed with a script, but the benshi often preferred to continue with their own interpretations. During this time, traditional kung fu films as well as romantic melodramas were also quite popular. Audiences wanting a tight narrative were left frustrated, as this was a director continuing to adhere to his philosophy of filming life as a series of moments in the process of happening. [21] This is even the case in The Wonderful Wedding, which relies on comedic misunderstandings between the families of a mainland Chinese groom and Taiwanese bride, but attributes them to cultural differences on the regional level not the national level, something that has been described as a 'political whitewash'. Juliette Binoche starred as a mother juggling, with a hectic energy, the various facets of her life: her duties as a single parent to her young son, as a landlord whose tenant is increasingly making her life difficult, and as a voice actor for a puppet theatre. With this series, Calgary Cinematheque presents five key films from one of film history’s most influential movements. Los Angeles: Visual Communications.

From 1910, films started to be distributed with a script, but the benshi often preferred to continue with their own interpretations. [22] Despite this, the film was more successful in Taiwan due to the variety of Taiwanese dialect comedic puns on Mandarin Chinese words. For instance, Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness portrays the tensions and the conflicts between the local Taiwanese and the newly arrived Chinese Nationalist government after the end of the Japanese occupation. The 1960s marked the beginning of Taiwan's rapid modernization.

In Goodbye South, Goodbye, elements from Boys From Fengkuei (the aimless lives of a group of friends unsure where to go or what to do next) and Dust in the Wind (the travelling-shots through the landscapes of Taiwan, the mood of a wistful lamentation of time’s passing) were updated to the contemporary Taiwanese generation. 7 was so popular in Taiwan that on 1 November 2008 it became its highest grossing domestic film, second in the country's cinematic history to Titanic (1997). It raked in 530 million TWD (17.9 million USD) domestically, setting an all-time box office record for a Taiwanese film, and is currently the highest grossing Taiwanese domestic film of all time.

It then took Hou another eight years before his next feature film. Previous profiles:

Cape No. Narratively too, Hou coaxed vigilance out of the viewer: rather than a simplistic chronicle of oppression and liberation, we find an intricate patchwork of episodes across Li Tien-lu’s life and puppet shows, an age-old local artform appropriated by the Japanese for war propaganda.

In a sense, I can go anywhere I want and fit in, but I never feel that sense of belonging.’.

Other key names in the first Taiwanese New Wave are directors Chen Kunhou, Te-Chen Tao, I-Chen Ko, and Yi Chang. [10] The New Taiwanese Cinema films therefore create a fascinating chronicle of Taiwan's socio-economic and political transformation in modern times.

Globe Cinema617 8th Ave SWCalgary, AB  T2P 1H1, Calgary Central Library: Lecture Hall802 3rd St SECalgary, AB  T2P 1H1, Plaza Theatre1133 Kensington Rd NWCalgary, AB  T2N 3P4, Kevin DongProgramming Coordinatorprogramming@calgarycinema.org, Zach GreenCommunications Coordinatorcommunication@calgarycinema.org, Calgary Cinematheque Society#212 - 223 12th Ave SWCalgary, AB  T2R 0G9, Bringing people together to experience significant cinema. Love (2014), the 11th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time. In 2014, Umin Boya directed a baseball film entitled Kano (2014), which ended up grossing over NT$330 million, making it the 6th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time. Of course, the dry sense of humor, the sense of decorum, the social code is different. Using the sights, sounds, and surfaces of a modernizing Taipei as his material, Edward Yang fashioned his first masterpiece Taipei Story, a piercingly insightful, multifaceted portrait of a relationship unraveling.

While City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster and Flowers of Shanghai are the most essential films of this latter part of his career, it is ideal to work through his filmography in chronological order so as to detect the ways his style incrementally shifts from film to film. This emphasis on realism was further enhanced by innovative narrative techniques. 7 as an example to discuss how profit is shared in Taiwan. Following the humanist stance of his biographical trilogy of coming-of-age films and the decline of the Taiwan New Cinema (.

[20] Such films include Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin (2015),[20] Yu Shan Chen's Our Times (2015), Gidden Ko's You Are the Apple of My Eye (2012), and The Wonderful Wedding (2015). [13] The head of the Government Information Office stated that "2011 will be a brand new year and a new start for Taiwanese films". For example, the use of a benshi (narrator of silent films), which was a very important component of the film-going experience in Japan, was adopted and renamed piān-sū[5] by the Taiwanese. Documentaries also receive support from other government agencies and private corporations. For all their refined aesthetic qualities, all have the potential to evoke entrancing atmosphere and strike a visceral gut-punch, becoming, in the words of Robin Wood, films to live the rest of your life with. [21] This is even the case in The Wonderful Wedding, which relies on comedic misunderstandings between the families of a mainland Chinese groom and Taiwanese bride, but attributes them to cultural differences on the regional level not the national level, something that has been described as a 'political whitewash'. The Japanese strove to transform the locals into Japanese citizens, giving them Japanese names, a Japanese education, encouraging them to wear Japanese clothes and the men to cut their long hair. As a producer and mentor, Hou has continued to help bring through a new generation of Asian filmmakers, such as Anthony Chen or Hung Chih-yu.