independent taiwanese film

Thanks to Wenchi Lin we had a speed tour through some interesting local film:

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Dust in the Wind– about a group of friends from a small rural town who move to the big city (Taipei) in the 1970s

The Last Rice Farmers aka, No Rice, But Be Happy– like Canada, Taiwan is good at documentary. This one is about rice farming in the countryside, carried out mostly by old people, since all the young have moved away. Very interesting to those of us (prairie children) who are interested in farming practices from the small and local to the mass factory farm, traditional farming techniques vs biotechnologically enhanced ones.

recommended: Life (a doc about the recent earthquake), Jump Boys (about a Taiwanese gymnastics team), Best of Times (about Hakka people in a small suburb of Taipei)

Somewhere Over the Dreamland– we just saw a small, small snippet, but this one looks really interesting– about an aboriginal truck driver who gets laid off and goes back to his home town.

Had a little listen to Wu Bai’s Long Bird on a Branch. Wu Bai is a Taiwanese rock dude who sings about things others wouldn’t dare– like the American bombings of Taiwan during the war.