In our final podcast on the Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh 2021, we praise its programming, its accessibility, and its decision to also include live events alongside the digital. We also delve into other types of films in the programme not covered by this podcast so far, Pai Jing-jui’s Morning in Taipei (1964) with its similarities to Humphrey Jennings cinema and the ‘city symphony’ films of the 1920s and with its superb new score by Lim Giong; Den Nan-guang’s 8mm Home Movies; and we delve with considerable depth into Chen Kuo-fu’s The Personals (1998) , a film anyone interested in issues of gender and sexuality will be interested in seeing (it has a fantastic queer moment very relevant to current discussions, see bottom of post). The podcast can be listened to below:

The podcast my also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

A queer moment from The Personals:

Power relations in looking:

Listeners might be interested in following up on these reviews of The Personals:

This one by Shelly Kraicer

This trailer for Morning in Taipei gives well evokes the film:

José Arroyo