Time: Thursday, 20 October 2022 (18:00 CEST)
Topic: "Taiwan Cinema as Soft Power: Authorship, Transnationality, Historiography"
Speaker: 林松輝 Song Hwee Lim (Dept of Cultural and Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Moderator: Andrea Riemenschnitter (Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, UZH)
On-site: University of Zurich, Room RAA G01 (Lecture Hall), Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich, Schweiz
Online: for online participation, please register here: https://www.aoi.uzh.ch/registration
More info: https://www.aoi.uzh.ch/de/institut/events/series/trccslectures/lim.html
* The speech will be in English
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Why has Taiwanese film been so appealing to film directors, critics, and audiences across the world? This lecture proposes that because Taiwan is a nation without hard political and economic power, cinema becomes a form of soft power tool that Taiwan uses to attract global attention, to gain support, and to build allies. It shows how this goal has been achieved by Taiwanese directors whose films win the hearts and minds of foreign audiences to make Taiwan a major force in world cinema.
The lecture maps Taiwan’s cinematic output in the twenty-first century through the three keywords in its subtitle. By examining case studies that include Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, and Tsai Ming-liang, it argues that authorship is central to Taiwan cinema’s ability to transcend borders to the extent that the historiographical writing of Taiwan cinema has to be reimagined.
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The event is co-sponsored by the National Central Library (Taiwan), Center for Chinese Studies (Taiwan), University of Zurich (UZH), University Library Zurich, and UZH Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies.
