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Throughout April 2025, the BFI will be hosting a season of films exploring Taiwanese New Cinema from new perspectives including a selection of films from lesser known filmmakers alongside those of heavy hitters such as Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien.
Duckweed (aka Floating Weeds)
Edward Yang’s television debut after returning to Taiwan, Duckweed was part of the Eleven Women TV series produced by Sylvia Chang and Chen Chun-tian, and follows a young woman who moves to Taipei from the countryside to become a model.
In Our Time
1982 anthology film featuring instalments directed by Tao Te-chen, Edward Yang, Ko I-chen, Chang Yi.
The Boys from Fengkuei
1983 drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien following a group of young men who leave their fishing village after getting into trouble with gangsters and try to make new lives for themselves in Kaohsiung.
Chen Kun-hou, who was the film’s cinematographer, will introduce the screening on 11th April.
The Sandwich Man
Tripartite anthology film featuring instalments by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tseng Chuang-hsiang, and Wan Jen adapting short stories by Huang Chun-ming.
Out of the Blue
1984 drama from Chen Kun-hou in which teenagers Jielong and Tangmi spend a single night together before she disappears and Jielong must return to university.
Director Chen Kun-hou will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 10th April.
Ah Fei
Drama adapted from a short story by Liao Hui-ying and following a woman over several decades after the Chinese Civil War.
Kuei-mei, a Woman
A woman’s stoical endurance of hardship as she travels towards hard-won prosperity mirrors that of her nation in Chang Yi’s allegorical maternal melodrama. Review.
My Favorite Season
1985 Chen Kun-hou drama starring Sylvia Chang as a woman who conceives a child with her married boss but wants to break up with him and raise the baby on her own.
Director Chen Kun-hou will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 11th April.
Taipei Story
An ambitious young woman is determined to keep pushing forward while her more traditional boyfriend remains trapped in the past in Yang’s melancholy urban drama. Review.
A Time to Live and a Time to Die
Semi-autobiographical drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien following a young man in Fengshan from 1947 to 1965.
This Love of Mine
Psychological drama from Chang Yi adapted from the novel by Hsiao Sa in which a woman must re-evaluate her life after learning of her husband’s affair.
The Terrorisers
Landmark drama from Edward Yang in which a doctor and his novelist wife teetering on the brink of divorce, a voyeuristic photographer, and a rebellious teen are connected by a single event.
Strawman
Satirical comedy set at the end of the war in which two farmers find an unexploded bomb in their field and decide to carry it to the Japanese police in the hope of a reward.
Autumn Tempest
Huang Yu-shan’s 1988 narrative film debut in which a young man retreats to a mountain temple to study but enters an affair with a young woman who subsequently becomes pregnant.
Director Huang Yu-shan will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 12th April.
A City of Sadness
Historical drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien set immediately after the liberation from Japanese colonial rule following a family who become embroiled in the White Terror following the February 28 incident.
Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema runs at the BFI Southbank throughout April.
Windows on Worlds 