 I welcome Minier to SOAS. So I'm delighted to welcome Minier Ronsley to kind of talk about her life in studying and promoting Taiwanese film. Minier is a research associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies. She's the Secretary General of the European Association of Taiwan and she's also the editor of this brand new international journal of Taiwan Studies. And as she's come to London for Wales for a couple of Taiwan film sessions, I thought it'd be a nice opportunity to just discuss with her about her her experiences with Taiwan film. So what I wanted to start off with Minier was I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you first started researching Taiwan film, because for your PhD you were looking at television. So how did it first start? Right, okay. I should say cinema has always been my passion, more of an interest. Taiwan cinema, including as part of all the kind of films I watched. My PhD is very much in media, so I'm also very interested in sort of generally audiovisual culture and also relations between media and society. So yeah, when my husband and I were sent by University of Multinam to the Nimble campus to build it up, that actually was the crucial moment that I decided to do a different topic. Mainly because when I was in China, I failed to research Taiwan, especially about Taiwan media and politics, was a bit more difficult and I wasn't very technical savvy at all. That's why I find to navigate through firewalls and things like that is a bit hard. So I just thought I would try a softer topic and obviously later on I realized this is also in some way misunderstanding, right? There's no real soft topic in a sense, really depends on how you want to tackle any topic. But anyway, so that was the real moment. Actually I thought I would start to look at films instead of media and politics or democratization, my kind of dimension. So the first project I did is with Johnny Moe's hero. So that really gave me into sort of global Chinese cinema. But within that kind of discourse, obviously Taiwan cinema is very much in the background, very much in it and that also made me start to look at Taiwan cinema a lot more. So when I came back to UK, after two years in China, my husband got a job in Leeds, so we moved to Leeds and went into communication studies. So I was approached by a colleague from World Cinema to write a book chapter for them and that's actually very much about Taiwan cinema. So I started from there and then get deeper and deeper into Taiwan cinema. I started with Taiwan New Cinema but then actually obviously anything that after a Taiwan New Cinema period too. Okay, so you're interested in Taiwan film already started before you came to study in the UK then? Yes. Okay and how has your research on Taiwan cinema changed over time? Okay, so that's also very much to do with issues that you start to be interested in. So when I start to, you know, my first chapter or first research paper about how a new cinema is very much look at text analysis. So look at certain films and what kind of a theme they come out and then you try to address that and that's obviously very satisfying but also at the same time I start to find there are a lot more to Taiwan cinema in addition to just Taiwan New Cinema even though this was very important cinema movement. So reflect on my own life experience. I've actually went through that period of Taiwan's democratization and for the scholars who look at democratization always look at from politics or social change and so when I start to think about cinema I just thought that could be a another tool to help understand the effect of democratization especially about the cultural effect you know. So how did democratization affect culture but also maybe actually the culture has its own input into democratization itself and I thought cinema was going to be a very good area for me to look at and that's when I start to actually find various materials. So a project I was planning to write is about cultural democratization. I'm looking at Taiwan cinema as a kind of hall from the starting point of what we can consider as Taiwan cinema right up to today because I thought in my conception is actually you have to know what happened before democratization and what afterwards then you can really measure that impact or the effect I was going to talk about. So with that kind of design then I start to really dig out things in the past and gradually and also what happened today. So I think a lot of the new research materials also questions coming up from this and that's when I realized this project itself was too big to be completed within a short time and so I'm still you can say in a mist of this particular project but certainly in terms of the prior to democratization so when I start to search about the starting point of Taiwan cinema or what can be considered as Taiwan cinema that kind of launched me into Taiwan film history and that type of research. So you got into that almost by accident then. Yes. Right I see. Now one of the things that we've noticed because we've been teaching Taiwan cinema now for about 12 or 13 years or so it's been one of our most popular courses and I was wondering why you felt that Taiwan cinema has been so popular as a subject for students and what is the attraction? I think actually that's to do with cinema itself this medium. It has so many dimensions that you can explore and also it's also a tool for authors to express so I think actually for really depends on where you come from you can look at social change you can look at how the culture is reflected you can also look at identity formation and also expression and sometimes questioning and challenge and even actually the footage itself sometimes they give you clues about what society was like then. So you can study the film today from today's perspective but you can also try to understand things from the past from today's point of view or also you can probably try to go as close as you can be in the past by searching for the audience of the past or looking at the archive so there are so many different ways that films really weave into the soul of the society and culture and I think that's why they have such a vast material and also research angles that entice researchers and I think actually researchers enthusiasm then also transpired and then get into the students and obviously you know let along about the filmmakers the filmmakers that's another strength of strength a cultural strength and I think because Taiwan's culture film culture today why it was very difficult especially financially or in terms of distributions it has a challenge but it doesn't have that freedom allow the filmmakers of any creators to be as authentic as you can to touch the subject that actually to your heart so I think it's that sense of authenticity also helped the viewers or the researchers or the students that they can try to get something that interests them so I think that that's what made Taiwan Cinema such a sort of vibrant area of study and that's a continuing proliferating. Yeah I mean what we find quite interesting is that often students who don't have a particular Taiwan interest will study Taiwan film and similarly I think for events we often find Taiwan film are some of the most popular events and I've also found myself using Taiwan film a lot more in my writings about Taiwan politics and a lot of my students are kind of quite used to me bringing in references to Taiwan film I'm hoping that they're going to go on and watch these films eventually. Now one of the things I really admire about what you've been doing over the last decade is the way that you've tried to bring Taiwan film to quite different audiences that aren't necessarily used to Asian film and I was wondering if you could comment a little bit about the kind of audience response that you've got to Taiwan film beyond our kind of regular Taiwan studies audiences. Yeah I really enjoy that experience in direct exchange with audience either very small venues you know with only one person or actually with a bigger venue with 200 people but I think the audience question really was fascinating and illuminating as well so I think you know not only enhance your own enjoyment of the film you watch or subject you study but also actually always give you new inspiration and one thing I do also learn and this my reflection I think actually for a niche cinema subject or just cinema Taiwan cinema if we want to reach a wider audience either at home or abroad I think actually this kind of exchange could be crucial because it really gives the audience a bigger context you also help them to really understand where these films or the context come from and so they can appreciate a lot more whether or not they are you know very familiar with Taiwan and I think that's actually also one of the things we said earlier because Taiwan cinema that we have today often actually has a lot of authenticity from different angles and so to to help to communicate that to the audience I think really you know through this kind of direct exchange that that really helps enhance that kind of mutual understanding so the various experience I had I suppose one thing I have pondered and I failed on that one is actually I took Taiwan cinema to an English school once and there were 200 students so I think actually trying to choose the right film that was very is a challenge and then you know to talk to them so I shouldn't say I failed I think was enjoyable so something to be able but just didn't I didn't get as much response as I was hoping for okay so I really hope there'll be other opportunities actually really get to talk to kids so what kind of towel film do you think works best for let's say a British audience? I actually don't know yes and also I have to say you know I'm not a professional curator so I think also you're limited by the knowledge or the material available to you but I do find certainly from a sort of a film screening tool I did with the Cape number seven I find the response from audience quite different if if these group audience are sort of with very rich Taiwan, China, Asian understanding or they come from very mainstream film studies background they do give me very different sort of feedback about the film and earlier you talked about your that you've moved into the direction of looking at Taiwan cinema history the one of the big projects you've been doing over the last year or so is bringing a tour of Taiwanese language kind of historical cinema and you've been taking it not only around you and Chris Berry have taken it not only around the UK but also to a number of European settings I'm wondering how you felt about that kind of response because we showed two of the films here at SOAS and the audience response was better than I expected the films created a really interesting debate and actually at least the one we watched was actually better than I expected it was it was quite daring actually so could you comment on on the audience responses that you've found? Yeah I think in terms of audience response I agree with you that was a real enthusiasm although I still say it's niche so I think actually we also have to I think actually is quality other than quantity I would say but that engagement with a different type of audience through this tour Chris and I both also learned a lot often after each screening we were exchanged by email about what kind of questions the audience asked and how we addressed them and then we also learned from each other so for example when if I get a question actually very much about politics which we didn't expect but you know talking about Cold War for example so we did try to answer as much as I can and while Chris also gets a very interesting question about asking him to do a compare and contrast between a Taiwanese language film and Mandarin language film so his point of view also I find you know very succinct and so actually this really is a learning experience not only you know from each other also from our audience so I think with this response we really think actually this is worthwhile continuing not only just continuing the screening but also we hope we can get a research project going because for a film study you know basically we just say we can look at film industry we can look at film analysis but we can also look at audience research which is I think the least done part of research and for this project when I was looking at the cultural democratization in Taiwan I tried to tease out what Taiwan film industry was like through looking at you know earlier a film studios that purely focus on Taiwanese language film and for this film tour because we start to be able to go through as many films available available to us so I also want to do a project actually looking at film analysis to understand you know how different kind of Taiwan or different issues were represented on screen but you know another big project I think really expect to be done is about the audience you know these audience that used to enjoy these classic films if we don't get to them soon maybe actually will become really difficult so what do you think that topic hasn't really been covered much in the literature then I think firstly is availability okay secondly I think is to do with the the perception of Taiwanese language film okay so so for a long time the Taiwanese language film really was seen as very cheap commodity and entertainment no value no cultural value and that's also generally speaking for Taiwan society prior to democratization was seen film as entertainment rather than cultural heritage so I think one thing is the society's general perception about cinema changed gradually and alongside democratization has actually people start to re-evaluate your own cultural identity and cultural heritage including Taiwanese language cinema and I think actually put all these things together so finally you start to see more and more research but it's still a starting point there's a vast amount actually to be done but in terms of audience research because of the difficulty so even actually for cinema study today I think that's still one straw I think fewer researchers willing to touch but I think actually from history point of view culture point of view anything together I just thought you know that would be a really important dimension we can get into about the Taiwanese language of cinema research so I hope we can do something more comprehensive and so one of your many roles is running the European Association so from that angle do you feel that research on Taiwan film within Europe is still a big topic are you still getting enough abstracts on that kind of topic yes yeah I think Taiwan cinema has been very popular and I think again not only just from people who study film studies but also from Taiwan and from different disciplines so for example I think you make a great contribution to the study of Taiwan cinema so I think actually you know sort of specific looking at politics of Taiwan cinema is something should be done yes and I think and also again different angles so so I think actually this is kind of multiplying rather than exhausting and I think you know it's this network is a fantastic network that facilitate individual research but I hope also you know that network will will will also actually yeah it facilitate each other's research but you know it also enhance yeah so I think actually you know what individual will also bring in in to make this association network sort of become stronger and richer every day okay well we've covered a huge amount of ground from from your kind of earliest interest in Taiwan film through to your your most recent research thanks Minye for sharing your kind of passion for Taiwan film and research for Taiwan film thank you very much David