This May, celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with FILM at LACMA by watching this virtual film series that completely shatters any preconceptions you may have about the Taiwanese New Wave and Second New Wave periods. Despite their very low budgets and tremendous hardship behind the scenes, the titles in this limited run of restored films from the Golden Age of Taiwanese-language black and white cinema explode with themes of longing, lust, adventure, and fantasy. These films thrived despite being created during a time when the Kuomintang government ruled the island under martial law and promoted a “healthy realism” genre of film that only focused on positive themes and traditional moral values. Curated by Hanna Huang and Joshua Martin.
This program will screen 6 restored black and white “taiyupian” from Taiwan’s lost commercial film period of the 1950s-1960s. During this period, over 1200 films were made in black and white film and primarily in the Taiwanese language. Of these 1200 or so, only 200+ have been identified and logged. A small selection of the films are being restored by the Taiwanese Film and Audio Visual Institute into 2K and suitable for theatrical viewing.
Co-presented by the Taiwan Film & Audio Visual Institute, the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles (TECO-LA), and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
