The 44th Asian American Film Festival (AAIFF) will take place from August 11 through August 22. Taipei Cultural Center in New York is thrilled to continue its partnership with AAIFF this year to present “Taiwan: Lost and Found,” featuring seven stories of loss, discovery, and re-birth from the urban sprawl of Taipei to the shores of California.
The lineup includes The Terrorizers, one of director Edward Yang’s classics and the winner of Best Feature Film at the 1986 Golden Horse Film Festival; Taipei Suicide Story, an official Cinéfondation selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival and the big winner at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival; Mickey on the Road, an official selection of the 2021 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival; as well as four shorts: Black Kite, Kuroshio Current, Hello From Taiwan, and Piglet Piglet.
In particular, The Terrorizers is listed as one of the special presentations at this year’s festival, in remembrance of the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang (YI YI). As the organizer, Asian CineVision, notes, “renowned director Edward Yang refracts the changing society and culture of Taipei in this classic of New Taiwanese Cinema, which revitalized the nation’s cinematic landscape in the 1980s. An enigmatic puzzle full of Yang’s prescient vision, this is a film to watch again and again.”
Asian CineVision also explains that all of the films in “Taiwan: Lost & Found” are about finding or losing connections with other humans. Mickey on the Road is about finding the protagonist’s family in mainland China; Taipei Suicide Story is about a fleeting relationship between two strangers; even The Terrorizers is about the violent dissolution of a marriage.
“Taiwan: Lost & Found” will be available on AAIFF’s streaming platform from August 11 through August 22 in the U.S. and Canada. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit https://www.aaiff.org/program.
(We are now offering discount codes “Taiwan: Lost & Found”. Please apply the code “AAIFF44_TaiwanCine2021” at checkout. The discount codes are subject to availability and are on a first-come, first served basis.)
About the Asian American International Film Festival
The Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) is known as "The First Home to Asian American Cinema." Organized by Asian CineVision, it's the first and longest-running festival dedicated to showcasing cinematic work by media artists of Asian descent for and about the Asian diaspora. The festival takes place in New York City, the second-largest Asian-American market in the U.S.
About the Taipei Cultural Center in New York
The Taipei Cultural Center in New York (TCC), which was established as the first overseas office of Taiwan's Ministry of Culture in 1991, builds connections through arts and culture in New York and throughout North America. Each year, TCC reaches out to art museums, theaters, performing arts centers, film cinemas, festivals, curators, and presenters in the US and Canada. TCC supports international cultural exchanges, collaborations, and artistic events in order to introduce Taiwan's arts and culture to a broader audience.
THE TERRORIZERS (1986)
Directed by Edward Yang | Taiwan | 109 Mins | Narrative feature
In Taipei, the marital crisis between an emotionally stunted writer and a careerist doctor is mysteriously intertwined with the story of a photographer and a petty criminal. Police cars speed through the streets of the metropolis, helpless witnesses to new and violent social contradictions.
TAIPEI SUICIDE STORY (2020)
Directed by KEFF | Taiwan, U.S. | 45 min | Narrative feature | New York premier
A receptionist at a suicide hotel in Taipei, Taiwan forms a fleeting friendship over the course of one night with a guest who can’t decide if she wants to live or die. TAIPEI SUICIDE STORY is a quiet exploration of not just the urban tendency towards apathy, passivity, and the avoidance of discomfort, but also the hidden feelings of loneliness, despair, and hopelessness that many people, particularly young people, in Taiwan and all over the world are experiencing as part of life in the 21st century.
MICKEY ON THE ROAD (2020)
Directed by Mian Mian Lu | Taiwan | 95 min | Narrative feature | New York premiere
Mickey and Gin Gin are young women scraping by in southern Taiwan. When Gin Gin hatches a plan to rendezvous with her crush Jay in the city of Guangzhou, China, Mickey decides to go along, determined to locate the father who abandoned her and her mother years before. Almost immediately, the two find themselves in over their heads, immersed in lawlessness, betrayal, desires, and pleasures. Through misadventures—some comic, some brutal—Mickey and Gin Gin strengthen their friendship and transform from naive rascals into more mature souls.
BLACK KITE (2021)
Directed by I-hui Lee | Taiwan | 23:30 min | Narrative short | New York premiere
At the end of WWII, the Nationalist Party of the Republic of China, also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), took control of Taiwan and imposed martial law for 38 years. This period is known as the White Terror, when anyone suspected of being a Communist agent was hunted down. Through a 7-year-old girl’s point of view, THE BLACK KITE brings us back to the innocent yet high-handed setting of 1960s Taiwan.
KUROSHIO CURRENT (2021)
Directed by Kun-Yu Lai | Taiwan, U.S. | 25:00 min | Narrative short | New York premiere
Freddy, a 30-year-old Taiwanese man who works in the U.S., lost the amulet that his mom gave him before she died. While he looks for the amulet, he is forced to face his struggles and conflicted feelings regarding his family and hometown. In a place between dream and reality, he sees his hometown and his mother, and he decides to say goodbye to his past.
HELLO FROM TAIWAN(2020)
Directed by Tiffany Frances| Taiwan, U.S. | 16:00 min | Narrative short | New York premiere
When Taiwanese American 5-year-old Christy and her mom reunite with her father and two older sisters at the airport after a year apart, the cracks between the family grow even wider. Through Christy’s eyes, we explore their struggles while attempting to reconnect.
PIGLET PIGLET (2021)
Directed by Tsung-Yen Lin | Taiwan, U.S. | 14:15 min | Narrative short | New York premiere
Leading up to the 2020 Taiwanese presidential election, a pivotal moment for a young democracy, Yu-Ann discovers that she is eight weeks pregnant—news she decides to keep to herself, given her husband’s preoccupation with opening a Ba-Wan (dumpling) store. Before Yu-Ann can find the right moment to tell her husband about the pregnancy, she unexpectedly suffers a miscarriage. Devastated, Yu-Ann is comforted by her partner, leaving both to wrestle with the inherent unpredictability of the future.