The New Taiwan Cinema, or Taiwanese "new wave," refers to the film movement that arose in the early 1980s that challenged the aesthetic and sociopolitical orthodoxies of postwar Taiwanese filmmaking. Its precise beginning is usually pinpointed to the portmanteau IN OUR TIME (1982), directed by four then-unknowns including Edward Yang. Since then, despite the New Taiwan Cinema's successes overseas (as measured by major film festival awards, critical plaudits and commercial exhibition), it has met with a cooler reception at home. Even as leading Taiwanese directors like Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang have joined the ranks of internationally celebrated film auteurs, domestic distribution of their work and of Taiwanese cinema generally has been moribund. First-run theaters remain dominated by Hollywood films while Taiwanese movies, bereft of mainstream distribution, are increasingly shown only in specialized settings like festivals and universities. Meanwhile government subsidies that long sustained Taiwan's art cinema are being changed to favor projects with perceived commercial value. The picture is bleak indeed, making the mournful valentine to an earlier era of Taiwanese filmdom of Tsai's GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003) a fitting metaphor for the present.

All that said, there are hopeful signs of resuscitation afoot. In the past few years, young directors, dubbed the "seventh graders," have emerged who profess a love for popular cinema along with the avant-gardist experimentation of their elders. ("Seventh graders" refers to Taiwanese born in the 1980s, the seventh decade after the founding of the Chinese republic in 1911.) Their most prominent success—and the highest-grossing Taiwanese fiction film in 2004—has been the delightfully frothy, queer-in-Taipei romantic comedy, FORMULA 17.

Documentaries are another bright spot in Taiwanese cinema, and are represented here by OUR TIME, OUR STORY's retrospective look at the New Taiwan Cinema, and two captivating explorations of Taiwanese popular music from epochs 70 years apart, VIVA TONAL—THE DANCE AGE and OCEAN FEVER.

One of only a handful of animated features originated in Taiwan, the charmingly earthy GRANDMA AND HER GHOSTS was a two-year labor of love for animation novice but film-and-television veteran Wang Shaudi. Wang's former student is Tsai Ming-liang, who in turn has mentored actor Lee Kang-sheng, who recently made a widely acclaimed debut as a director with THE MISSING.

Inter-generational ties also extend to the best-known Taiwanese director featured in In Our Time, Hou Hsiao-hsien. With a cinephilic gaze backwards, Hou's CAFÉ LUMIERE is a tribute to the legendary Japanese filmmaker Ozu Yasujiro and is appropriately set the film is set in Ozu's hometown of Tokyo. Looking forward, Hou has become a vocal supporter of new Taiwanese filmmakers. SPOT—Taiwan Film House, a cinema-cum-bookstore and café founded by Hou, has become a favorite haunt for Taipei's cinephiles. It remains to be seen whether SPOT will yield an IN OUR TIME for our time.

This series has been made possible with support from:

The James Irvine Foundation

Chinatrust Bank

Far East National Bank.

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office

China Airlines

UCLA Asia Institute

Special thanks to:—Carie Cable; Marcus Hu—Strand Releasing; Mei-Juin Chen; Stanley Rosen; David James; Marie Chao.

Friday April 29 2005, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

West Coast Premiere
CAFÉ LUMIÈRE
(Kafei Shiguang)
(2004, Japan/Taiwan) Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

In this luminous film about time, memory and the transitory nature of life, Taiwan's "new wave" master Hou Hsiao-hsien pays centennial homage to the visionary cinema of Ozu, specifically the latter's postwar masterpieces LATE SPRING and TOKYO STORY. Hou inflects such quintessentially Ozu motifs as trains coming and going, daughters reluctantly contemplating marriage and fracturing middle-class families, with his own brand of postmodern anomie. Using his signature long takes and narrative ellipses, Hou, like Ozu before him, transmutes the mundane details of everyday life into ineffable poetry. Japanese pop star Hitoto Yo makes her acting debut as a freelance writer, pregnant and somewhat estranged from her parents, who prefers the platonic companionship of bookstore owner Asano Tadanobu (ZATOICHI, ICHI THE KILLER). From fleeting encounters to quiet camaraderie, Hou distills a Tokyo of intimacy and communion amid the urban crush.

Producer: Miyajima Hideshi, Liao Ching-sung, Yamamoto Ichiro, Osaka Fumiko. Screenwriter: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chu T'ien-wen. Cinematographer: Lee Ping-bin. Editor: Liao C.S.. Cast: Hitoto Yo, Asano Tadanobu, Hagiwara Masato, Yo Kimiko. Presented in Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 104 min.

Saturday April 30 2005, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

Sneak Preview
FORMULA 17
(Shiqisui De Tian Kong)
(2004) Directed by DJ Chen

A surprise hit in Taiwan last year, FORMULA 17 heralds the emergence of the insouciant twentysomethings in Taiwan cinema. This exuberant romantic comedy, starring an all-boy cast led by up-and-coming heartthrobs Duncan Chow and Tony Yang, is remarkably the first feature by femme director DJ Chen (real name: Chen Yin-jung). Cutting a breezy swath through gay Taipei, FORMULA 17 follows a virginal rube (Yang) who comes to the big city and promptly falls in love with a heartbreaker playboy (Chow). The plot is pure formula: boy gets, loses, then gets boy again. But the film's freewheeling verve (fantasy sequences, flashbacks, direct address to the camera, bright colors, broad humor and liberal blasts of bubblegum Sino-pop) and refreshingly confident attitude—it offers neither explanation nor apologetics for the queer centered-ness on view—is anything but.

Producer: Aileen Li, Michelle Yeh. Screenwriter: Rady Fu. Cinematographer: Chen Huei-sheng. Editor: Chen Hsiao-dong. Cast: Tony Yang, Duncan Chow, King Chin, Dada Jl. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 93 min.

Sunday May 1 2005, 2:00PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

US Premiere
SUN AND MOON
(Ri Yue)
(2002) Directed by Lin Chiao-fang

Cut-outs and cel photocopies evoke the passing seasons and an elderly woman's treasured memories.

DV, 9 min.

Los Angeles Premiere • Kids' Flicks
GRANDMA AND HER GHOSTS
(Mofa Ama)
(1998) Directed by Wang Shaudi

When he is shunted off to grandma's house in the country, five-year-old Doudou makes an amazing discovery—his grandmother is a Daoist shaman, keeper of the village ghosts. Prowling around the urns in grandma's forbidden shed, Doudou accidentally releases a terrible demon, which takes possession of grandma's cat and then tries to trick the boy into selling the old woman's soul. At once a crash course in Daoist folklore, a meditation on dying, and a gripping tale of spirit haunting, GRANDMA AND HER GHOSTS also paints a heartwarming picture of two hard-headed relatives learning to trust each other. As a rare example of Taiwanese feature animation (some of the drawing was also done in South Korea), it has the humor and smarts to engage all ages.

Producer: Huang Liming. Screenwriter: Huang Liming. Cinematographer: Cho Bock-dong. Editor: Li Hongzhou. Animation: Park Jun-nam. Cast: Wen Ying, Zhuang Baowen, Xu Jiehui. Presented in Mandarin and Taiwanese dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 80 min.

Wednesday May 4 2005, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

Friday May 6 2005, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

US Premiere
VIVA TONAL—THE DANCE AGE
(Tiaowu Shidai)
(2003) Directed by Chien Wei-ssu and Kuo Chen-ti

I'm a cultured woman, traveling about footloose and fancy-free. So begins a lilting tune from Taiwan's "Dance Age" of the 1920s and '30s, a paradoxical time when the island's occupation by Japan also brought youth culture and a measure of artistic freedom. Women smoked cigarettes, love scandals were rife and risqué Taiwanese pop was born. VIVA TONAL explores this time through the conduit of Li Keun-cheng, a Taipei oldies deejay with an obsessive passion for '30s music. Li takes the viewer on a voyage of discovery to meet surviving singers, composers and record aficionados of the era. This lively historical documentary mixes engaging interviews with catchy songs, hauntingly deteriorated period footage, and reenactments of the great unrequited romance between the lovely chanteuse Sun Sun and her composer. Most poignant are moments when past and present intersect: elderly musicians revisiting the coffee shops of their youth and a techno deejay practicing '30s dance moves following the choreography chart from a record sleeve.

Producer: Chien Wei-ssu, Kuo Chen-ti. Writer: Kuo Chen-ti, Chien Wei-ssu, Li Kuen-cheng. Cinematographer: Chou Yi-wen. Editor: Chen Po-wen. Cast: Chen Li-kuei, Wu Peng-feng. Presented in Mandarin and Taiwanese dialogue with English subtitles. Beta-SP, 104 min.

US Premiere
OCEAN FEVER
(Haiyang Re)
(2004) Directed by Chen Lung-nan

This vérité portrait of young rock 'n' rollers was an audience favorite at the 2004 Taipei Film Festival. Aboriginal Taiwanese director Chen Lung-nan takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to chronicling the experience of five fledgling bands—including a raucous rap-metal combo called Stone and the punkish girl trio Hotpink—in the heady days before they perform at the Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival, a massive beachside talent contest for aspiring pop acts. In classic "rockumentary" fashion, the film captures the hopes and dreams (not to mention the personal doubts and unexpected setbacks) of the competing bands while offering an affectionate look at contemporary youth culture in Taiwan.

Producer: Liao Chih-chien. Writer: Chen Lung-nan. Cinematographer: Col Boom-fong. Editor: Chen Lung-nan. Cast: Mango Runs, Totem , Hotpink , Stone , Sunshine Boy. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. DVcam, 109 min.

Sunday May 8 2005, 7:00PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

Los Angeles Premiere
THE MISSING
(Bu Jian)
(2003) Directed by Lee Kang-sheng

Actor Lee Kang-sheng, longtime alter ego of director Tsai Ming-liang, makes his own directorial debut with this spare and contemplative study of loneliness and alienation in modern-day Taipei. Parallel plotlines alternate between a woman frantically searching for her toddler grandson and a teenager's desultory pursuit of his missing grandfather. The stripped-down story and austere visual style echo Tsai's recent minimalism, perhaps because THE MISSING was originally meant to be one-half of a diptych film, the other half of which became Tsai's GOODBYE, DRAGON INN. But Lee has put his own stamp on THE MISSING. "[I]ts flavor is subtly different: less absurdist, less droll, more emotive." (Tony Rayns) The roundelay of disconnected characters adrift in an undistinguished cityscape is summed up in a final coda that is as strangely evocative as it is precisely the right note.

Producer: Liang Hung-chih. Screenwriter: Lee Kang-sheng. Cinematographer: Liao Pen-jung. Editor: Chen Sheng-chang. Cast: Lu Yi-ching, Miao Tien, Chang Chea. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 82 min.