Tag Archives: Cinema

Cinema taught me how to become the person I wanted to be…

Mickey Chen, center, poses with the two leading actors from the director’s 2007 short film Fragile in Love.

Author, gay activist and documentary filmmaker Mickey Chen is a friend of a friend of this site. Thanks to Guo-Juin Hong of Duke University for this one! Chen’s best-selling book Taipei Father New York Mother is coming out as a film. Both are semi-autobiographical and based on Chen’s difficult family background. Chen recently talked to the Taipei Times. He has described cinema as his “mother” and explains: “Children from dysfunctional families have different ways of licking their wounds. My brother is addicted to gambling, my older sister died of an overdose, and my younger sister spends her life in the frantic pursuit of love. I choose to hide in the abstract world of literature and the arts. I became parentless at the age of 10. Cinema taught me how to become the person I wanted to be.” Good stuff. For the rest of the interview, click here.

Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Film – from Duke U’s Hong in 2011

Friend of this site Guo-Juin Hong is looking forward to the March 2011 release of his book Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Film. Hong lives with his partner in Durham NC, teaches at Duke University, and drops digital gems such as this into the social ‘net. Taiwan Cinema is available for pre-order at Amazon.com Congratulations, Guo-Juin!