 Dr. Duffy Fell is the Director of the Center of Taiwan Studies at SOWAS. So Dr. Fell, from what I noticed, this year actually has been a lot of film screening of Taiwan cinema taking place in SOWAS. And one hand actually that was, I think it's great because actually it's a constant presence of Taiwan films. But on the other hand, actually as an audience, sometimes actually we don't know when the film festival begins and when it ends. So this seems to be actually the challenge of a practice of a festival. And I don't know if this actually is your intention to have an alternative way of screening films. But just tell us how you begin this activity and what you aim to achieve and who are your audiences. Okay, well a lot of questions there. I mean we've been interested in film at SOWAS and Taiwan film for a long time. We've had a Taiwan film course now for about six, seven years. For the Taiwan Center we haven't really focused too much on Taiwan film. We've tended to, over the last few years we've started to show one or two films over the year. For example, last year we showed Tui Xin Ling's Gong Liao Ni Hao Ma. How are you? Gong Liao. And then... And that was to the public or just for the students? What we did was to integrate that into the summer school. And we did a Skype Q&A with the director. So that kind of was a kind of a trial to see how this kind of thing would work. The way we tend to, we try and look at films tended to be more as a text for understanding Taiwan rather than looking at film in a kind of film studies way. So we try to kind of understand Taiwan through film and documentaries. I mean something that I've been increasingly interested in my teaching. In other words, I've been finding using documentaries. And sometimes film as well as a kind of a extra learning resource for students. So that's one of the reasons why I think probably we've put so much stress on documentaries in this series. Now one of the elements of your question was what kind of audience? Well I guess we're trying for multiple audiences. Of course the core audience is designed for our students. Students that are here at SOA studying Taiwan Studies courses. So all, yes I would say all the films we've chosen in this 10 film series have tended to be linked to a number of kind of key themes that we address in our courses. Politics in Taiwan, cross-rate relations, nationalism, relations between China, Taiwan, Japan. Taiwan's modern history and how that kind of affects national identity in Taiwan. Social change. So for example the film that you're showing today, Fung Wui Lai Deren, is really a wonderful case of how Taiwan is changing in the 1980s. Internal migration, clashes of values between young and old. So we're looking to, but at SOA it's one of the things we've always tried to do is to reach out beyond just our own students. So of course the whole title is understanding Taiwan through film and documentaries. So of course we'd like to see non-Taiwan Studies people or Taiwan Studies people beyond the academic setting. So we've been trying to kind of advertise it as broadly as possible. But the key thing of course is to come back that we're trying to do this in an academic way and to promote discussion of the key themes that are raised in the film. So the program itself actually understands Taiwan through films and documentaries. In that case actually your intention really is not to formulate a film festival per se. But because the program is aiming at students, staff, scholars but actually also beyond Taiwan Studies and perhaps reach out to general public. So for an activity as such do you have any financial resources or any arrangements that enable you to facilitate such a program? Okay. You mean how do we kind of market the program? How do you firstly able to put a program as such available to the public? Is it really just from the library and then just within the university resources or in fact you have to get a grant for example especially in order to make it a reality and if so what kind of grant is it? How much do you get the resources in order to make this a reality? Okay. So this project is supported by the Ministry of Taiwan, Ministry of Culture under their Spotlight Taiwan series. So that's where we got the money from. I mean I'm so pleased with the way the project has developed. Regardless of future funding I'm going to make sure this project continues maybe on a different scale. We didn't really want to do this in a kind of a film festival manner. I think we really wanted to make sure that the films were distributed quite evenly over the term and particularly trying to kind of tie in film screenings with the way the courses are developing. So for example some historical ones in terms of starting to go into a little bit more depth in the second term. So that was one of the things on our mind. And another thing we wanted to do was to try and keep it on campus rather than going into a cinema because I felt that that would also help us keep the kind of academic mood. I think perhaps students might get a bit intimidated in a cinema setting or when they're in a kind of minority because one of the most important parts of these sessions is the Q&A with directors and film scholars but also the discussion at the reception afterwards where people can quite freely approach the directors and film scholars and we've tried to kind of get a mix between scholars and filmmakers from both the US, Europe and of course Taiwan itself. Without actually telling me how much finance that you get but perhaps you can actually help us to understand how you divide the arrangements. So for example how much for admin, how much for selecting films and how much actually for other needs of putting such a programme up so we can understand how this may be modelled on by other institutions. Well I guess the main funding items are going to be travel, plane fares for directors to come over, accommodation, catering and admin is another significant cost. I mean the cost of actually marketing, putting together posters, websites, Facebook, these are quite significant actually particularly if you want to reach out to a kind of a broader audience. Right and so by working on this project for a year now can you tell us about the challenges and the reward that you experience? One of the big challenges is trying to fit into directors' schedules. Directors have very very tight schedules, changeable. I mean in a way I'm really fortunate that one of our key partners in this project is public television in Taiwan and they've been very helpful in terms of making contact with directors once a famous film director dropped out at the last minute and then Lin Le Chun saved us and came at very very short notice and in terms of, I think for me what I particularly enjoy is the Q&A sessions, particularly when I see my own students asking questions, talking to the directors afterwards and then when I'm in office hours talking to the students, seeing what they've got out of the films, seeing how they may be able to bring some of these elements that they've seen in the films into their written work or presentations. So for me that gives me a real sense of satisfaction. So do you think actually you have reached your original end for this particular project or perhaps even go beyond? I mean one of the things that I've always wanted to do is to try and make sure that the SOAS Taiwan Studies program is comprehensive as possible. I mean I'm a political scientist, the former director is an economist, and that was why we really wanted to broaden things out. So for example, you, Jumbie, you, Nicky, Mike Hoare, Isabel, they bring in a very different kind of perspective, bringing more kind of cultural perspectives or historical perspectives. I think that's really important for an academic program and it's great for me. I mean I'm exposed to such wonderful things. I mean I would never be involved with documentary film, feature films if I wasn't in this kind of field. So again, it's one of the reasons why Mondays, I prefer Mondays to weekends because Taiwan Studies is such a great field. Right, so final questions. Do you see, understand Taiwan through film and documentary as a project, sustainable? And how is your vision for you, how are you going to further develop it next year or even actually in the next five years? Sustainability is always a challenge in academic projects because funding is, for example this project is, we have a one year grant, potentially extended for a couple more years. So that's always going to be a question mark. My own feeling is that I'm going to continue this project no matter what. I mean because for example we have Wan Yin coming and his films really fit into the kind of themes, politics, social change, social movements, national identity, it's the perfect kind of feel for us. It's definitely going to be a challenge but I'm going to try and make sure this continues. Well thank you very much. Okay, thanks Mingyi. And I mean, I was curious as an audience member and of course you're more of a kind of a film studies person. I mean did you have any kind of impressions of the kind of films we'd chosen because I should say that at least in this round I've been a little bit kind of dictatorial in terms of the films that we've chosen. Probably in the next round we may kind of change the themes a little bit but I wonder if you had any impressions. I will actually kind of think in this probably more like informal discussion rather than an interviewed question but I haven't actually seen all the films arranged so I think I don't have, maybe my impression is very sort of erratic. So I think I would just talk about this week individually I think it's all films that I watch, I enjoy and certainly I always enjoy the film screening with Q&A session. Either it's for academic purpose or just for the interaction with audience because you always get a different dimension to stimulate your thinking so I think that format itself always works very well whatever kind of film screening and certainly, you know, but from what you just told me in terms of how you're going to fit into the DEMI programme I suppose because the way you organise it is very much along with your own vision and your remit so there is no real model that actually we can say comparative but when you are talking about integrated into a DEMI programme I did have one model in my mind to somewhat similar but when I was teaching film course in Leeds we do have this core module actually students have to watch a film but that was fitting with our programme. We try to show the film in a local cinema so the student will go to the cinema for free but they will watch with the audience and afterwards obviously when they come back next week then we will discuss about the film actually fitting with whatever theme either or third approach genre or whatever you know, history, national cinema and so the whole semester of the weekly film programme there will be a theme even though from the audience perspective they couldn't see it they don't understand why this week you were seeing a film actually shown from Hollywood next week actually the film in the 1920s and some horror genre and all sorts but there is a kind of internal threat that pulling all through so I kind of in my mind thinking that could be actually one way to go and it does work very well it will broaden but again because what I said is a similarity is not necessarily what you wanted and so that maybe is why I said maybe we can have further discussion should you feel you want to see what other people do out there then other experience what I had obviously is more of a dedicated film festival and for that kind of festival again then you would choose films for a particular reason to show the newest documentary films such as Edinburgh Spotlight or you want to show a particular dimension of a cultural discussion, debate so gender for example but again because if this doesn't fit with your thinking then it's not necessary so I think it's completely fine that you've developed a model that suits your purpose the most I mean one of the things the inspiration to do this was I started teaching a comparative politics of the North East Asia class I was trying to learn more about South Korea and in my kind of web search I discovered there was a course in America called understanding Korean politics through film and I started using those films in my teaching two years ago and then I started thinking to myself this would be wonderful to do this kind of course a pure course like this I'm not sure but maybe it's something for the future once we have a larger program because my sense is that for example the way we study Taiwan film in our film course often the actual content or the social background or political background isn't as prominent as things like lighting and that kind of film studies approach and it can be quite difficult I think for people who are doing Taiwan studies to make that kind of adjustment yes alright thank you