CCS Film Screenings: Taiwanese Cinema
The winter term screening series supplementing the "China on Screen" course offered by the MA in Chinese Studies programme explored a diverse range of films by Taiwanese filmmakers. The screenings were also open to the broader public and all were welcome to join the discussions.

The series started on September 25 with the 1967 wuxia classic, Dragon Inn (龍門客棧) by King Hu, and continued over the following weeks with Tom Lin's Winds of September (九降風) and two short films by Shen Ko-Shang, A Rolling Stone (築巢人) and End of A Century: Miea's Story (世紀末的華麗). The variety of films afforded an excellent opportunity for students and instructors to think about Taiwanese cinema across dissimilar genres, formats, and periods. Students were thus better equipped to undertake their subsequent field trip in Taiwan.

Apolitical Romance, Followed by a Sharing Session with Huang Lu
On September 26, the Centre screened the 2012 Taiwanese romantic comedy Apolitical Romance (對面的女孩殺過來), directed by Chun-Yi Hsieh and starring Bryan Chang Shu-hao and Huang Lu.  Following the screening, Ms. Huang Lu, the film's female lead, was happy to answer audience questions and a lively discussion ensued. Students raised questions regarding the film's distribution in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially since the plot touches upon the political issue of cross-straits relations. They were also eager to know more about her career and life experiences. Ms. Huang Lu recounted her struggles and breakthroughs as an actress and talked about topics such as her travels with the production crew, the filming of "Blind Mountain" and "Blind Massage," and her future goals.

Public Screening of Raise The Umbrellas, Followed by a Post-Screening Discussion
In one of the highlights for this year's CSS Film Screening Series, the Centre screened on November 13 the documentary Raise The Umbrellas (撐傘) and welcomed Mr. Evans Chan, the film director, and Prof. Chan Kin Man, academic and pro-democracy activist, for a discussion with the audience. The documentary, a detailed account of Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, frames the momentous demonstrations that shook the city in 2014 within the context of successive generations of local advocacy for democracy.

Following the public screening, Mr. Evans Chan, a prominent Hong Kong filmmaker, took the time to talk about the aspirations he had for the film. He expressed his unrelenting enthusiasm about working on projects that have an educational role to play, and his preoccupation with reaching out to more people with this particular film. He described how he confronted the challenges in making a documentary accessible to the wider public by consciously focusing on how to keep the film's running time relatively short. Despite being a work focused on Hong Kong politics, the director stated that he adopted a non-partisan approach in his work and he was disappointed over the film's limited distribution due the perceived political sensitivity of its subject matter.

As the co-initiator of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement and active participant in the events referred to in the documentary, Prof. Chan helped answer the attendees' questions and talked about his own personal experience of the issues touched upon by the film.