Taiwan’s Lost Commercial Cinema

Did you know regular filmmaking on Taiwan only started in the 1950s? With a Taiwanese-language film industry? 1,000-plus Taiwanese-language features were made up to the 1970s. But the budgets were miniscule, the companies short-lived, and there was no archive. They were quickly forgotten, and only 200-plus survive. Now, Taiwan’s lost commercial cinema is being recovered and restored by the Taiwan Film Institute. Our 2020 edition follows the successful 2017 edition to bring 7 scholars together for a symposium at King’s College London on 8 February 2020, launching a screening tour of 7 newly restored and subtitled dramatic films and 4 contemporary short films, including 6 features by the “taiyupian auteurs” Xin Qi and Lin Tuan-qiu.