Taipei: A retrospective film festival featuring all but one of the films in the catalogue of award-winning Taiwanese director Edward Yang will open in Brussels on Aug. 13 and run for three weeks until Sept. 3.
According to Focus Taiwan, the festival will be held at Cinema Galeries, located in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels, and feature seven of Yang's eight movies. Festival curator Levon Kirakosian noted that while most cinephiles are familiar with Yang's "Taipei Story" and "Yi Yi," the retrospective aims to guide audiences on a journey of discovery to appreciate his lesser-known works, exploring different cultures through cinema.
Yang gained fame as part of the Taiwanese New Wave of the 1980s and is regarded as one of Taiwan's greatest filmmakers. "Yi Yi," released in 2000, was his final film and earned him a best director award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. He passed away from colon cancer seven years later at the age of 59 in the United States.
The only film not being screened in Brussels is the 1983 movie "That Day, on the Beach," Yang's first feature film, due to issues in securing screening rights, Kirakosian explained. Although "In Our Time" was released in 1982, "That Day, on the Beach" is technically considered Yang's first feature film, as the former was an anthology co-created with other Taiwanese filmmakers like Ko I-chen and Chang Yi.
To promote the retrospective, the poster of "Taipei Story" was selected as the main visual material, modified to include text about the event. Kirakosian emphasized that the original's composition was too beautiful not to be used in promoting the festival.
This retrospective follows the 15th edition of the annual "L'Heure d'‚¬°t©" summer film festival, which concluded on Aug. 11 at the same venue. Taipei was chosen as the thematic destination for this year's "L'Heure d'‚¬°t©," with Taiwan-based Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang's "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" opening the festival.
Kirakosian, who also co-curates "L'Heure d'‚¬°t©," described the festival as "unprecedented" due to the high demand, with almost all screenings sold out. Special outdoor screenings of Taiwan's "Left-Handed Girl," "The Assassin," and "Nina Wu" attracted more than 2,000 viewers each, underscoring the festival's success.