Cheerful Wind

With an introduction by Richard I. Suchenski. Screening followed by a book signing

Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien. 1981, 90 mins. 35mm. With Feng Fei-fei, Kenny Bee. A photographer travels with her television producer boyfriend and his film crew to shoot a detergent commercial in a seaside village in Penghu. There she strikes up a relationship with a former medic blinded in an ambulance crash. When they reencounter one another back in Taipei, where he is preparing to undergo an operation to restore his sight, their connection intensifies. A little-seen early work, Hou’s second romantic film with Feng and Bee offers a look at the development of his signature style of continuous takes and telephoto compositions, and evinces an early devotion to location shooting. Richard I. Suchenski, Director, Center for Moving Image Arts at Bard College, who organized the internationally touring retrospective, will introduce the screening. Fpllowing the screening, he will sign copies of Hou Hsiao-hsien (Vienna: Österreichisches Filmmuseum and New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), which he edited.

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