The Inspired Island: Home In Two Cities

The Inspired Island: The Man behind the Book

Wang Wen-xin, a revered novelist, is known for his deep appreciation of words and slow, deliberate writing style. He co-founded the literary magazine Modern Literature with classmates from National Taiwan University. His notable work, “Family Catastrophe,” published in 1973, was praised for its innovative language and realistic portrayal of interpersonal relationships. Another significant work, “Backed against the Sea,” took 25 years to complete and is celebrated for its modernist beauty. Wang is currently working on a new book, though its release date is unconfirmed.

The Inspired Island: Towards the Completion of a Poem

The Inspired Island: The Untrammeled Traveler

The Inspired Island: Port of Mists

The Inspired Island: The Coming of Tulku

The Ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou’s dream of becoming a butterfly blurs reality and fantasy, reflecting a poet’s desire for freedom and eternity. The coming of Tulku draws from Buddhist classics, using Chou Meng-tieh’s life as a metaphor. His experiences at WuChang Street and his bookstand, started in 1959, led to enlightenment and loyalty to Buddha and loved ones. Influenced by Buddhism, his poems blend Zen with grace, affection, and prudence, capturing life’s essence with strength and delicacy. He closed his bookstand in 1980 due to illness.

The Inspired Island: River Without Banks

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.

The Inspired Island: Boundary

The Inspired Island: A Life That Sings

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.

The Inspired Island: Multiflorate Splendour

The writer Bai Xianyong 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.

The Inspired Island: My City

Poet and author Xi Xi is one of Hong Kong's most treasured writers. Though also acclaimed in Taiwan and mainland 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.

The Inspired Island: 1918

A documentary about writer and novelist Liu Yichang.

The Inspired Island: A Lifetime In Chinese Literature

The Inspired Island: Unfulfilled Dreams

Chu Tien-Wen, frequent screenwriter for Hou Hsiao-Hsien, makes her directorial debut with this entry in The Inspired Island documentary series. With Hou as producer, cinematographer Yao Hung-I and editor Liao ChingSung, Chu takes a deep dive into the story of her parents, famed authors Chu Hsi-Ning and Liu Mu-Sha. Through family albums, old letters and interviews with fellow writers, Chu crafts a deeply personal portrait of her parents’ romance, literary careers, family roots and the unfinished opus her father left behind.

The Inspired Island: A Lean Soul

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.

The Inspired Island: I Remember

A series of documentaries that aim to introduce important Chinese writers to the next generation and to preserve and promote the works of literary masters. The episode "I Remember" is directed by novelist Lin Junying, who has had a deep friendship with the Zhu family for over 40 years. The film focuses the second generation of daughters Zhu Tianwen, Zhu Tianxin, Zhu Tianyi and son-in-law Tang Nuo, who together co-founded the "Sansan Bookstore".

The Inspired Island: Still Young

A documentary about a Taiwanese poet Wu Sheng.

The Inspired Island: The New Formosa Mambo

The Long Goodbye

This is a touching documentary film about some elderly people who suffer from dementia, and their families.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Having spent over a year in the town of Jiasian in Kaohsiung to shoot this documentary, Golden Horse award-winning director Yang Li Chou (The Long Goodbye, Young at Heart) puts together an inspirational post-catastrophe documentary with Bridge Over Troubled Water. Capturing the emotional journey of children through a national tug-of-war tournament and the hard lives of foreign brides in the region, the documentary tells of the determination and bravery shown by the survivors of a calamitous typhoon that struck Taiwan in 2009. A group of young children volunteer to take part in a nationwide competition in order to restore hope in their town, while a large number of foreign mothers in the area hope to revive the land that they love through exotic cuisine.

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Love Without Clutching Leave Without Guilt

Lingtan Street is home to several shops, where the owners keep their secrets. A woman who has lost her family, a lesbian running a bookshop, a vegetable stall owner controlled by her husband, a piano teacher relying on a cleaning job, a young mother separated from her son and a music store owner about to have a home birth. Their lives become entwined as they go through the highs and lows together.

Showtime Taiwan: The Sapphire Show

In the 1970s, Taiwan's first grand cabaret, The Sapphire, opened in Kaohsiung, igniting a golden decade of live entertainment. Beneath its dazzling lights, the nation's tensions and censorship faded in nights of glitz and song.Stars like Teresa Teng, Fei Yu-ching and Fong Fei-fei graced. its stage, where glamour met gambling, drugs, and danger.Half a century later, The Sapphire is resurrected—through AI and music—to relive its untamed brilliance.

Father

Puppeteer Chen Hsi-huang establishes his own troupe and moves out from under the shadow of his father, the legendary Li Tien-lu.

Beyond the Arctic

A team of an entrepreneur, an athlete and a student from Taiwan arrived in the Arctic Circle. Through their participation in the 2008 Polar Challenge – a 600 km race to the Magnetic North Pole, they’ve realized their dreams. They experienced hypothermia and attack from polar bears en route.

My Football Summer

The Moment: Fifty Years of Golden Horse

In 2013, the Golden Horse Film Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary. The ministry of Culture commissioned director Yang Li-chou to make a documentary about the history of Golden Horse. What is unique to this film is that it's not an ode to celebrities but about the role cinema plays in ordinary people's lives. It's a love letter to cinema, filmmakers and audiences.

Beyond the Mirage

This is a behind-the-scenes documentary of "Double Vision", a Hollywood film shot in Taiwan. In 2001, Taiwan was struck by as many as nine typhoons, bringing with them an extraordinary amount of rainfall. That same year marked the first time the Hollywood film industry arrived in Taiwan with substantial funding and manpower. Although this documentary follows a production boasting an impressive international cast, it also captures a more complex reality: when the powerful machinery of Hollywood enters a country whose own film industry has all but disappeared, what should we be questioning or reflecting upon in this model of transnational collaboration? Like the typhoons that repeatedly swept across Taiwan during filming, what else did they bring besides torrential rain?

1819

KULO

A documentary short about a B&B owner with right hand cut off.

Mimi’s Utopia

A documentary short about a founder of a sanctuary for southeast Asian immagrant workers' babies.

Nature of Mother

A team of five go on an expedition to the South Pole. As they have experienced the blizzard and the excruciating pains, this journey proves to be a challenge to their not only physical but mental strength. While marching towards the end of the world, they explore the unknown darkness in their minds. During the process, director Yang reflects upon his life, turning this film into a loving monologue dedicated to his mother.

bitters WEED

Legit Moms, Illegitimate Kid

If you are a woman who wants to have children, you are not allowed to have any assisted reproductive treatments in Taiwan unless you are married to a man. In 2019, Mota and City “were allowed” to become each other’s wives but they are still “not allowed” to have children. Despite the fact, they refuse to bow down to the law and have found a route not regulated by any laws just to fulfill their longing to become mothers.