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1-17 of 17
- Poet and author Xi Xi is one of Hong Kong's most treasured writers. Though also acclaimed in Taiwan and China for seminal works like the essay Shops, her writings are firmly rooted in the spirit of Hong Kong. Leave it to Fruit Chan, another staunchly grassroots auteur, to make a documentary on Xi Xi's career. Chan sought out renowned critics and writers to discuss Xi Xi's works, starting with 1979's My City. He also juxtaposes photos of a changing Hong Kong with readings of her writings, and even playfully inserts characters from her stories into the film.
- Born in Shanghai, Yi-chang Liu witnessed the burgeoning and development of modern Chinese literature. In the late 1940s the war broke out. LIU stopped his editing job and publishing business, moving to Hong Kong in 1948 and later Singapore and Malaysia. In the new city, LIU experienced rises and falls in his career as an Editor in Chief of newspaper supplements. In 1957, he returned to Hong Kong and began his most productive era as a writer. It was during this time, in 1963, that the highly acclaimed novel Drinker was published. It was China's first, and one of the most important, stream of consciousness novels. The book, together with the life of its author, later inspired the making of the movie In the Mood for Love (2000). According to the Hong Kong-based director Kar-Wai Wong, it was his homage to the generation of war era writers to which LIU belongs.
- Home in Two Cities tells the story from the perspective of Lin Hai-yin's special background of having "two homelands". With the heartfelt narration from her daughter Julie Chang, we enter her life and see her desk, the editor's office, and how she fearlessly handled the challenges in that era of censorship and suppression; we set our feet in her garden of literature. Due to the inclusiveness and amiability of her personality and works, Lin Hai-yin's novels stand the test of time, becoming a common memory for cross-strait readers. She is not only a friend to writers, but also a selfless and audacious mother, safeguarding the post-war Taiwanese literature from infancy to adulthood. Lin Hai-yin (1918-2001) stood firmly against the political oppression when she was the editor of the literary page of the United Daily News, discovering promising writers, such as Lin Hwai-min, Qi Deng-Sheng, Huang Chun-ming, Zheng Qing-wen, and Zhong Li-ho. She also founded the Belles-Lettres Publishing House. Her living room was described as "half a literary circle", and she is always remembered respectably as "Ms. Lin Hai-yin". Her novel Memories of Peking: South Side Stories about her childhood when she lived in the south side of Beijing was published in 1960, and earned her a legendary status in the literary world.
- The Ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou turned into a butterfly in his dream, reality and fantasy were blurred. The poet dreams to live free of secularity and capture eternity in a fragment of time. The coming of Tulku cites the anecdotes of Buddhist classics, referring to a whole life time by the allusion of one day in the life of Chou Meng-tieh. His thoughts, meditations, and writings are reflected in his everyday life. By reproducing the atmosphere of the old WuChang Street, and the loneliness he faced at his bookstand, he can ponder over the changes and inspirations brought by the suffering of various ailments. Several migrations and contemplations in life eventually lead to the realization of enlightenment and affection that he should be both loyal to Buddha and his loved ones. Chou Meng-tieh started his bookstand in front of the Astoria Café in 1959, becoming an important cultural icon in the 1960s and 1970s. It was only in 1980 that he closed the bookstand due to a stomach ailment. He is knowledgeable in Chinese studies, and favors the citation of classics in his poems. Deeply influenced by Buddhism, his poems are rich in Zen, and the style flows with grace. The poems are tinged with affection and prudence whenever talking about people, scenery, or objects. His works are as strong as "making fire in the snow, and casting fire to the snow", but also seem like a fallen leaf on a street corner, "sheltering you from rain with my current and coming lives".
- Every night the novelist is fighting with himself in a confined space, taking out soil from his heart like he is excavating a ditch. By keeping track of a young novelist, The Man behind the Book is connecting the various pieces of Wang Wen-xin's literary career. From the dense rows of book shelves in the library to the unevenly lined-up trees and forked roads, his sharp sensitiveness to art and personal opinions, just like sculpting the core of spirituality, translates thoughts into signals precisely, and eventually turns them into words. Wang Wen-xin is a figure in the literary circle who worships words like religion, treats writing valuably, and exchanges deepness with slowness. Wang Wen-xin founded the literary magazine Modern Literature with his classmates from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University, including Bai Xien-yung, Ouyang Zhu, and Chen Ruo-xi. His iconic piece Family Catastrophe was published in 1973, and was considered a "revolutionary and subversive" work. The famous scholar Yen Yuan-Shu felt the book was "one of the few masterpieces in modern Chinese novels for its innovation of language, strength of experiential style, reality of interpersonal description, meticulousness of selection of details, and delicacy and euphemism of the tone". Backed against the Sea, that took him 25 years to complete, once again caught the attention of the literary circle after the first and final episodes were published. It is widely agreed that this work pushes the beauty of modernism to its limit. Wang Wen-xin is writing a new book at the moment, but the publishing date has yet to be confirmed.
- The poet Wu Sheng, featured in this documentary, grew up in a farming family in Changhua on the west coast of Taiwan. His work is rooted in his native soil, where for decades now he has forged his poetic lines while tilling the land.
- The writer Hsien-Yung Pai from the youthful vigor of founding "Modern Literature" at the age of 22, to the sincerity of the people who wrote "Father and the Republic of China" and "Pain Relief and Healing" in recent years. The film borrows the form of the stream of consciousness (dream of a garden tour)-the taste of Guilin rice noodles separated more than 40 years ago, the 10-year re-visit of Suzhou gardens, the dark kingdom on the stage, and the journey of lectures and lectures. With special encounters and literary history, one person has led the trend of several generations. He is uniquely strong and courageous, exquisite and affectionate. He echoes the symphony in the film and leads the audience to gradually touch the hot novelist's mind.
- A Lifetime in Chinese Literature (2015) documents notable Taiwan writer, scholar and translator Wen-yue Lin. Born in Shanghai in 1933, she grew up in the city's Japanese-controlled International Settlement zone until 1946 when she moved to Taiwan at the age of 12. The granddaughter of Taiwan historian Lian Heng, Lin would explore the effects of history in her own prose recalling a childhood swept up by the turbulent changes of the era. As a translator, she took on the great undertaking of translating the Japanese classical literary masterpiece The Tale of Genji.
- Hong Kong writer Ye Si (Ping-Kwan Leung)'s cultural insights are evident in his works, which reflect an era of Hong Kong's history. His oeuvre spans the genres of poetry, prose, fiction and critique, with each genre exhibiting a facet of his literary excellence. When the documentary, Boundary, was initiated in 2009, Ye Si suggested to the film crew, "If you want to understand me, you should get acquainted with my friends. You will find parts of me in each of them". Following Ye Si's suggestion, the production team embarked on an exploratory journey into his life from 1950 through the 21st century, over the course of a series of interviews. The interviewees include scholars, writers, artists, fashion designers, and food connoisseurs, as well as Ye Si's family. This documentary has captured rare footage of Ye Si's last years of life. Beautiful and poetic, the film also epitomizes the vibrant culture of Hong Kong, a mecca for interdisciplinary collaborations and the exchange of ideas.
- River Without Banks (2014) takes poetry and war as its main theme. As homage to Death of a Stone Cell, the film is structured into ten segments; each led by the first lines of the first ten stanza of the poem. Correspondences between the poet and his friends are incorporated throughout, taking the audience back and forth between Lofu's youth and middle age, only to eventually depict a full picture of the protagonist. The camera follows Lofu on his trips back to the bomb shelter and tunnel in Kinmen and his hometown Hengyang in Hunan Province of China, while also capturing his daily life in his adopted country of Canada. Acclaimed as the "Wizard of Poetry", Lofu shares through the film of the most insightful reflections.
- This is a record of and reflection on the Taiwanese poet, Chou-yu Cheng's life and works. This film tries to tell the legend of his journeys through the sea of poetry. In the footsteps of the poet, we trace back to his family tree and his interest in the folk belief in the goddess, Mazu. Starting from a landscape painting and back to the sea, the poet might predict another departure and a new beginning for writing.
- How have one poet and his single book of poetry from the last century continued to inspire people today? A Life That Sings follows the legendary poet Ya Hsien from Vancouver to Nanyan, to the mobile library from his childhood and to the basement of his current home. Through his collection of books and love letters, the film unearths the treasure trove abound with stories of Ya Hsien's life.
- Seen from a daughter's point of view, Chu Tien-wen turns her parents' stories into a film after having found her father's diary that documents his journey from Nanking in China all the way to Tainan in Taiwan in 1949. Chu comes across her mother's notes on her experience of growing up in a doctor's family in Miaoli as well as the 120 love letters exchanged between her parents.
- What is immortal like loneliness? From Chi Lai Mountain to Berkeley, what is rising in the confusing mind - poems. Towards the Completion of a Poem rides along with the recitation of Yang Mu, unfolding the exploration towards a vast literary career. From the hesitant young man at National Hualien Senior High School, the college student debating and learning by the Dadu Mountain in Taichung, the researcher dedicated to the studies of ancient English out of persistence and curiosity at the University of Iowa, the writer comfortably absorbing western, Chinese and Taiwanese cultural resources trying to create his literary works, to the poet who is determined to work on rhyme and imagination meticulously; these moments amaze us more deeply when we read Yang Mu's works once again. Yang Mu (1940-2020) was born in Hualien County, Taiwan. He received the PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Since high school, he published using the pen-name Yeh San. He then changed his name to Yang Mu in 1972 and transformed his writing style. After moving to the United States, he tried to create narrative poems with classic and graceful phrasings, and with in-depth and timeless essence. It was pointed out in Collections of Top Ten Modern Chinese Poets that Yang Mu's poems were the presentation of a "fulfillment of beauty", an "amazement of the classical", and the "rhythm of nature". The recognition of locality and the consideration of reality can also be found in his poems. His style is abundant in change and profoundness, exploring the balance between tradition and modern.
- A Lean Soul examines the life and works of Taiwanese novelist Qi Deng Sheng. The filmmakers were able to have in-depth interviews with not only the writer's closest friends and relatives but also the notoriously camera-shy protagonist himself. The film vividly dramatizes many passages from his intensely autobiographical works of fiction. The result is an intimate and candid portrait of one of the most important and controversial Taiwanese writers.