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NY | 'Taiwan Cinema: Yesterday and Today'

  • Date:2016-05-23
NY | 'Taiwan Cinema: Yesterday and Today'


The release of "An Annotated Bibliography for Taiwan Film Studies,” the most comprehensive and multilingual reference of its kind, was marked with symposiums and film screenings at Columbia University and the Taipei Cultural Center in New York.


The new publication is the first multilingual bibliography edited solely for Taiwan Film Studies, encompassing more than 2,700 entries on monographs, theses, conference proceedings, and screenplays. Moreover, the centennial scope of related studies by Taiwanese film scholars is presented through 11 languages.


With support from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the book was co-authored by Jim Cheng, director of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University; James Wicks, associate professor of literature and film studies at Point Loma Nazarene University; and Sachie Noguchi, also of Columbia University.


Order your copy here.


The authors also selected four films that each paid homage to a different critical era of Taiwanese history: "Banana Paradise (香蕉天堂)” by Wang Tong (王童), "Buddha, Bless America (太平天國)” by Wu Nien-jen (吳念真), "Maverick (菜鳥)” by Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂), and a collective of twenty short films titled "10+10.”


"Banana Paradise” covers post-war Taiwan from a mainland migrant's fearful perspective; "Buddha, Bless America” exploits greed and worship of the American military presence following the first Taiwan Strait missile crisis; and "Maverick” tackles moral and institutional decay in a contemporary cop tale.


"10+10” is an omnibus featuring short films by directors such as Wang Shau-di (王小棣), Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), Sylvia Chang (張艾嘉), Chang Tso-chi (張作驥), Leon Dai (戴立忍), and Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏). It was screened as the closing film of the event to reflect the diversity of Taiwan's film ecosystem.



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