Taiwanese Filmmaker Huang Hsin-yao
The 47th annual New Directors/New Films festival, organized jointly by Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), has announced this year’s lineup includes the Taiwanese fresh talent Huang Hsin-yao’s feature debut, THE GREAT BUDDHA+, the latest Taiwanese title to be presented since 1998, when Lin Cheng-sheng’s MURMUR OF YOUTH was invited at the festival. Director Huang Hsin-Yao held a press interview on April 2nd at NYU to answer media’s questions such as the process of making the film and how he selected the actors as well as why he decided to use black/white documentary style to present the film. When media asking what he would like to do during his short stay in New York, Director Huang Hsin-Yao said “I would like to visit Statue of Liberty since I mentioned about it in my film.”
Taiwanese Filmmaker Huang Hsin-yao
This black comedy from the documentary filmmaker Huang Hsin-yao is a festival hit that has earned awards attention including the NETPAC Award at TIFF, the best new director at Taiwan Golden Horse Awards as well as the grand prize at Taipei Film Awards. It follows a pair on the lower rungs of society as they stumble upon a murder in a corrupted rural town. Huang Hsin-yao conveys the world between the haves and have-nots by switching between black-and-white and colors with his own voice-over, in a stylish way. In a film review, Variety said this elegantly teasing debut is “arguably the best film to emerge from a year of exciting resurgence in Taiwan”.
THE GREAT BUDDHA+ will make its NY premiere with the director Huang Hsin-yao in attendance on April 3 and April 4 at this year’s New Directors/New Films festival, which introduces the work of emerging filmmakers from around the world and celebrates filmmakers who represent and anticipate the future of cinema. For the complete lineup and schedule, visit newdirectors.org/
FILM AND DESCRIPTIONS
The Great Buddha+
Huang Hsin-yao / Taiwan / 2017 / 104 min. / In Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles / New York Premiere
Provincial friends Pickle and Belly Button idle away their nights in the security booth of a Buddha statue factory, where Pickle works as a guard. One evening, when the TV is on the fritz, they put on video from the boss’s dash cam—only to discover illicit trysts and a mysterious act of violence. Expanded from a short, Huang Hsin-yao’s fiction feature debut The Great Buddha + (the plus sign cheekily nodding to the smartphone model) is a stylish, rip-roaring satire on class and corruption in contemporary Taiwanese society.
[MoMA]
Showtime: Tuesday, April 3, 8:45pm
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, Titus 2 (11 West 53rd Street)
[FSLC]
Showtime: Wednesday, April 4, 6:30pm
Location: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, New York)
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