Women Cinemakers meets
Hsing-Ying Tseng Lives and works in Taiwan, Taipei
A man in his mid-forties opened a humble bookstore on an old street. A day at the bookstore would be, brewing tea and reading, but the man doesn't just sell books, he also plays films for people. At dawn, the audience - the old street’s residents would gather, and that is the moment when films are being played at the bookstore, and there, is another day of the old street. In the beginning of the film, the owner of the bookstore pulls down the screen, as if the owner is playing the movie for us (the one we’re watching.) What the film shows us are the lives of the people living on the old street. The traditional Taiwanese farms, the streets, houses, crafts from a particular period, along with just a few people. The scenes, which still exist in real life in the year of 2016, looks like an old film consist of lives from earlier Taiwan. The expressions on the resident’s faces while watching the film not only express indulgence of the projected film, in addition, how their lives are being perceived by themselves. They watch the film as if they are looking at themselves, we watch films as if we are looking at ourselves.
An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com Hello Hsing-Ying and welcome to WomenCinemakers: when walking our readers through your usual process and set up would you tell us if you think that there is a central idea that connect all your works? Thank you for the question. To be honest, the question troubled me for awhile, and only did I find that I have never given it much thought before, which makes me guilty of
selling my works and viewers short. And so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this chance of repentance. I revisited the focal points and directing techniques I stressed and used in my past works, the vocabulary, writing process, Mise-en-scène, editing strategies and screen performance etc. I have to say that I have no idea if future experiences will affect my central idea now, but to conclude my thirteen years (2004~2017) of as a filmmaker, I’d say, my central idea is “to let the audience see the essential purposes of , through the means of film”. In other words, the films made by director Hsin- Ying Tseng wish “to