Returning for a second year, the Taiwan Minorities Film Festival will show six films in nine days next month highlighting the masterpieces of renowned directors Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao-Hsien, documentaries touching upon current issues in Taiwan.
This year’s selections, curated by Yen-Lin Chen, includes Pushing Hands, the feature film that launched the career of Ang Lee, the Taiwanese director who’s won international fame for films such as Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee’s cross-cultural work circles around a Tai-Chi master finding his place in a totally different world in New York.
Two films are directed by Chinese-born Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, whose works often explore his family and Taiwan’s history. Romantic drama Millennium Mambo is his hypnotic masterpiece that will take cinephiles decades back to delve into Taipei’s nightlife in a young woman’s coming-of-age story. His other film, Dust in the Wind, sheds a wistful and semi-autobiographical light on lost love among Taiwan’s working class.
A timely film just right now, Kevin Lee’s latest documentary Self-Censorship features interviews with Taiwanese and Hong Kong dissidents to explore how mainland China intervenes in free expression in both places.
Transnational marriages are examined in Out/Marriage. Directed by a Vietnamese immigrant to Taiwan, Nguyen Kim Hong, the film chronicles four immigrant women who go to Taiwan in pursuit of happiness.
All films will be screened in their original languages coupled with English subtitles. Each film is THB100, except Dust in the Wind and Pushing Hands, which will show free of charge. The schedule and ticketing details are available online.
The festival runs Oct. 5 to Oct. 13 at Doc Club Theater inside Warehouse 30, the riverside lifestyle venue on Soi Charoen Krung 30, aka Captain Bush Lane. Take a short ride from MRT Hua Lamphong or BTS Saphan Taksin to get there.
FIND IT:
Taiwan Minorities Film Festival
Doc Club Theater, Warehouse 30
Soi Charoen Krung 30 (Captain Bush Lane), Bang Rak, Bangkok
October 5 – October 13
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