 Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the second Director's Q&A session of the Taiwan Post-New Wave Cinema series. I'm Zhang Beiyu, the Deputy Director of the Center of Taiwan Studies. This year marks the 20th anniversary. This series is part of our celebration of this memorable year. The Taiwan Post-New Wave Cinema series aims to investigate Taiwan's cinematic landscape of the past 30 years, in contrast to a significant amount of research undertaken on Taiwan New Wave and the important authors such as Liu Xiaoxian, Edward Yang, Cai Mingliang, Lian. Little academic attention has been given to what has followed. Our focus is to map this long-overdue and long-overlooked cinematic landscape, examining the aesthetics of new film from Taiwan, and it contextualizes the post-new wave generation directors and their films. It is our pleasure to welcome Director Lin Shuyu today, one of the most important of the younger generation of filmmakers. May I ask you to switch on your microphone and put your hands together? Hold on, let me highlight him and welcome him. Thank you. Because I will introduce him briefly. What are the interesting questions? Well, as you know, we have shown some of Director Lin's most important films this week, starting from his first short film, The Pain of Others, which won Golden Harvest Award for Outstanding Short Films in 2005. We're also screened his feature film, Winds of September 2008, Starry Starry Night 2011, and Zinnia Flower 2015. These films have not only won him prestigious award domestically and internationally, but also have built his reputation as a sophisticated and versatile filmmaker and script writer. He is a real master of storytelling, and his films are sleek, beautiful, dramatic, with striking visual. Before we start the Q&A session, I would like to thank our funder, the Ministry of Culture Taiwan, the Cultural Division, at the Taipei representative office in the UK, and also the Taiwan Film Institute for their support. Without their generous funding and continuous backing, it would not have been possible to launch such an ambitious project. Please be aware this session is recorded. I would appreciate it if you could turn off your audio and video functions so to enhance the quality of the session. To ask questions as we have done in the past few days, please post them in the chat column, and please refrain from irrelevant topics. As usual, could you pose only one question at a time and keep them succinct? Our assistant curator, Shaoyi, will collate them and present them to Director Lin. To start the Q&A session directly, we'll say a few words first. So, Shuyu. Right. Yes. It's up over to you. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I just had something in my throat. Yeah. Well, thank you all for being here. And I'd like to thank you guys for hosting this, for shining a spotlight on... Well, I never thought of myself as any kind of wave or anything like that. So, I mean, it's fun to hear that, okay, I guess I am part of a post-New Wave. And just the fact that the other directors that are also highlighted in this season are also good friends of mine. And we've known each other for a long time. One which, of course, Chen Youjie, which we've worked together on many projects together. So, yeah. So, it's great to, I guess, be acknowledged for our work. And, you know, I'm here to, you know, I guess answer any questions anybody would have. And I'm sure a lot of the questions that you guys may ask probably will shed a light on how I actually see myself, because I don't really, you know, I'm not that introspective. You make a film, you put everything you have into it, and you give it to the world, and then you move on. You know, you move on to the next project, you move on to the next story. I seldom really look back at what I've done before. I know what I've done. While I've been, while I was doing it, I've watched it hundreds of times, you know, and so, yeah, I'm very excited to do this. So, it's a great chance to do this. And I guess before we begin, I like to share, like, a small story of when we were in, I think it was our late 20s, early 30s, somewhere around there. No, probably in the 30s, yeah, because both Yeo Jie and I, we've made our first feature film. And so, we've been working in the industry for a while, and we both have a feature film under our belt. And so, one day we were sitting in the coffee shop one afternoon, you know, just chatting, and we didn't know what we were going to do next. We didn't know what our next project was going to be, or where the funding's going to come from, or anything. And we started talking about, like, it wasn't, we weren't talking about a way, but we were talking about, like, being in a film circle. We sell the, we always call it, like, like a film circle. And when we, in our 20s, when we mentioned a film circle, it was always the other guys, it was all the other filmmakers that came ahead of us. You know, in our early 20s, when we talk about the ancient, of course, we were mentioning masters such as Ho Xiaoxian and Edward Yang, and Taiming Liang, and Lee. And then you have another generation that's a little bit younger than them, where you have, like, Yi Zhiyan, Cheng Yu Xun, who's about a decade older than us. So we were talking and then we were like, it was weird because we were just, because our lives haven't really changed. Not that much. We're still struggling filmmakers, even though we have a film, and we still, you know, hang out at coffee shops, and we're still eating the same thing, but that's the same way. And we were talking, and then I asked him, and I said, hey, we're, you know, are we in the circle now? You know, are we, like, do we feel like we're in a circle now? Do we feel like we're in the film circle? And he was thinking about it. It's like, I don't know. I didn't, like, nothing really changed. The circle, and, but then the more we thought about it, it kind of occurred to us, like, well, the circle is what we make of it, and what we actually do, the work that we do. So there's, like, not a real circle, but then the circle comes from just putting in the work, just doing more work, just making more films, just building a body of work, and then, you know, and having a reputation of hopefully making good films. And with that, you know, it just, it kind of forms a circle, or it kind of forms a unity of some sort. And because, you know, we grew up in the same era, we were influenced by the same things. We were seeing our surroundings and reflecting upon them. And at the same time, we were, of course, very aware of all the other filmmakers our age and what they were coming up with, what they were shooting. And then that stimulates us to do more. I remember when Arvin, Arvin Chen, came back from the States, he made a Taipei, of our Taipei. And, like, you know, I've never seen Taipei shot like that. And I was, I was jealous in a little bit. It was like, wow, that looks so great. You know, you did a really great job of shooting Taipei, of making Taipei look romantic and everything. I really wanted to do that, never done that before. And yeah, so we were, like, bouncing off each other. So, yeah, I guess that's kind of how... I mean, I don't know if there were waves, because it also comes with the audience. But, you know, we did feel that, you know, we had our own circle of filmmaker friends, and we were supporting each other. And we were giving each other advice. We were supporting each other in a way where, you know, like, when nobody believed in our work, you know, we still had each other. And we could still look at each other's work and say, no, no, you know, you're doing fine. It's okay, keep on going, you know. So, yeah, yeah. I don't know if all that added up qualifies as a post-new wave, but yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt in the flow. No, no, no, no, no, I was pretty much done anyway. Oh, great. Actually, I have to say, it is so funny, because this is the first question I was going to ask you. Oh. And it is so funny, because I noticed Deng Youjie appeared in several of the films, right? And it seems that... And also, I read about it, that other directors also got involved in Zinnia Flower, for example, Niu Chengze and Dai Liren involved in the editing process. Yes, yes, yes. So, this really reminds me of the camaraderie among the new wave directors, you know, between the Hou Xiaoxian, Yang Dechang, Wan Ren, Ke Yi Zheng, they all play in each other's films, they all help each other, and so on. So, my question originally was asking you, in your opinion, do you also have this similar relationship with not just Deng Youjie, but also other filmmakers? And also, how does that sort of relationship help you in your artistic pursuit as a director? Yeah. Other directors also, you know, we probably don't work on each other's films, but we watch each other's films while it's being done, and we give each other critique. I remember that Yang Yazi was editing... We actually shot our first feature probably all around the same time. We were shooting in the same summer, we were editing in the same place, too. We were editing at Zhongying, of all places. Zhongying, that's where all these other guys came from. And we were there. We were there editing with the two senior editors that were at Zhongying. One was Lei Zhenqing, who edited Yang Yazi's first film, Jionanhai. And then my editor was Chen Xiaodong. We did, winds of September. And we were literally just room by room. Our two rooms were together. And we would be editing in the daytime. At lunchtime, we would have lunch together. All of us would have lunch together. And then in the afternoon, we'd go back to our rooms and edit. And then when I got bored in my room, I'd go to his room. And when he got bored in his room, he'd come to my room and then look at what we've done. And then like, oh, okay, that's a nice shot. Oh, okay, that looks cool. And so, yeah, I mean, it did feel very... There was a closeness. And I guess also, for me, I guess I'm a little different just because I also do a lot of first assistant director work. Yes. And so I have a different kind of relationship with a lot of directors because I work with them. Or I work for them, you could say. So, you know, starting with Zheng Wen Tang. And then I was assistant director for Taiming Liang on Wayward Cloud and Zhou Meiling, Zheng Youjie, Niu Chenze. And so, yeah, I've worked with all these directors before. And I learned from them. And then we become friends. And I guess it's a personality thing, but then I'm not shy about asking for favors. That's good. So I'm like, yeah, please help me, you know. Come help me. Especially for Xenia Flower, they were very grateful. I mean, I was very grateful for them because they were so gracious with their time. I had like a pre-screening session for a bunch of my director friends. So Niu Chenze came, Daddy Ren, Yi Zhi Yan, Dao Yan. A lot of these are my director's friends. They all came and they watched the film. It was like a rough, not a rough edit, but then it was quite a long edit. So they watched it and they were giving me advice. And then it was, you know, Chenze who first suggested that, you know, like, well, besides giving advice, maybe he'll just work with my editor and then he'll come with a version. And then he said, you know, I could try and cut something and then you could see what you can take from that. And again, I think this is, this all comes down to our tradition. Because this also came when Niu Chenze, he was about to finish, oh no, or has he already finished Jun Zhong Le Yuan, which I don't know if a lot of people knew about the editing process of Jun Zhong Le Yuan because it was the same thing, that he shot the film, he edited it, and then he had a version, and then he showed it to Hou Xiaoxian. He showed it to Hou Xiaoxian and asked him, like, what do you think? And Hou Xiaoxian said, you know, I'll edit a version. You know, I'll just give me a week or two weeks. So Hou Xiaoxian actually, yeah, Hou Xiaoxian actually came to the office. I remember because I was first assistant for Jun Zhong Le Yuan. So Hou Xiaoxian actually came to the office every day from morning to night with the editor without Niu Chenze, just with the editor, and he edited another version of Jun Zhong Le Yuan. Giving the whole film. The whole film, the whole film. I mean, he was working from, you know, the Niu Chenze cut, but then he was taking out things, putting in new things. It wasn't just like giving little advices. It was actually going into the bin. It was going in, it was like, so let me look at another take. It was kind of like that. It was like, let's see another take. Let's see what we have. Let's see what we have in the bin. And it was editing that way. And so after he finished that, he showed it to Niu Chenze. He said, you know, this is my suggestion. Take what you can from it. You know, your version is still there. It's not like, you know, it's not there anymore. Take what you can and see what you like and you could figure it out. And so I think like going through that and then me asking Niu Chenze to like watch my film, he suggested that he could do the same thing. So he sat down with my editor. He told me to go home. He said, don't sit there. You know, he said, like go home. So he told me to go home and then he actually worked on a version with my editor for a week. He came out with a version. I watched it and it stimulated me. It gave me more ideas. And then with Dai Di Ren, it was because he's great at looking at acting. And because for me, my main actor, Shi Jinghang, Shi Tou, because he's a musician. He's not like a professional actor. He's a guitarist for a big rock band in Taiwan. So he had, you know, problems in his editing, in his performance that needs some editing. But I couldn't tell anymore because I've watched it so many times I was kind of numb. So I didn't really know how to help the performance because I was like, well, it all looks good. And then, you know, I was like, it looks good to me. What's wrong with it? I was like, no, no, there's something wrong. And so I was kind of like blinded already because I've watched it so many times. And so I asked Dai Di Ren if he could come in and help me with his performance, with Shi Jinghang's performance and see the stuff that, oh, this is not a good take. Okay, this is not a good performance. We need to edit around this. We need to go find another way to show it, things like that. Yeah, so I mean, I've been fortunate to have, you know, the help of all these people. And it's nice when people are selfless. And like I said, it passes down. It passes down how, you know, Tenza and then he would come and help me. And this is like, you know, nobody's paying anybody to do this. This is just people offering to do it because there's, you know, there's very little money in Taiwanese cinema. And it really gives, you know, our generation of filmmakers, if we've gone through this, if people have been this way for us, we do it for others too. We do it for our friends. We do it for the younger filmmakers that is coming, that is making films now. I'm in the process of producing a feature film for a young director right now. And it started the same way, kind of, because we met at some festival. They asked, she asked me if I could read her script. I read it. I gave her some comments and then the kind of snowball from there. And then now I'm her EP. And then, and the thing is going, we have the money and everything like that. And, you know, however we can help. So, so, yeah, yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's like a mutual help. We do that a lot. Fascinating scene because it seemed to have a similar sort of really comradeship there. Yeah, yeah. There is, there is a comradeship because it is a very small community of filmmakers. Yeah. The background. Your cat. Oh, yeah. Oh, hey. Okay. I think I actually got another question, but I can see quite already I can see the accumulation of questions. So I'll hand it to Shao Yi. Shao Yi, would you mind take up the first question, please? Yeah, that's great. I think first question actually comes from Matt. So, in your experience, have some companies or directors, et cetera, you've collaborated with from outside of Taiwan and seen themselves as contributing to this kind of post new wave cinema by working with you on, on projects. Have there been any instance where people have actively tried to tie or distance themselves to this? Yeah, I think that that's the question. Oh, okay. That's a, that's a very interesting question. Well, I don't know if they particularly saw it as a post new wave, but, but of course there has been collaborators that came to Taiwan because of the new wave cinema, because of their, because of their familiarity with, with their work with Hoshiao Shen's work or Edward Yan's work. And that's where they knew Taiwan and then they want to know more about Taiwanese cinema. And they come here, they find us. So I'll, you know, say for example, my, my, my DP, my, my director of photography, Jake, Jake Pollock is from the United States. When he first came to Taiwan, you know, he was shooting commercials. One big reason why he came was while his friend was here, Weeding, Weeding Ho, a Malaysian filmmaker. He was working in Taiwan. And, but another thing was, you know, Taiwanese cinema. He was familiar with Taiwanese cinema. And he wanted to, to, to, to work in this industry. He wanted to find out more about the culture and to work here. I think it goes the same with collaborators that I've worked with in Malaysia too. And I guess also because Malaysia is very familiar with the Taiwanese new wave. So, especially like, I guess my, like my editor, my Malaysian editor, his name is Asu. He's also the editor for Ho Yuhan. I'm sure a lot of people here might be familiar with Yuhan. He's a Malaysian filmmaker, very great filmmaker. And, and so like with Asu, he's, he's, he's 10 years younger. And he actually does see me and like, like, you know, Yadze or Yodja, he actually does see us as a certain wave, I guess. And he, when, when he's editing my film, he asks me a lot about my generation of filmmakers, what we've been doing and the films and the work that we do. So, so I guess, yeah, I never thought of it that way. But yeah, now that Max asked this question. Yeah, thank you, Max. Yeah, I think that's, that's very interesting. I mean, it's, it's really different when, when you're, but like you said, you're inside the circle, but you don't know if you're actually constituting the kind of a wave, another wave or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's actually very interesting because last week it was Gujiran Daoyin Q&A. And it's very interesting. I mean, he did have his own interpretation of, of this generation, if, if I understand him correctly. What was his, like in a nutshell, what was his interpretation? Is that, is that possible to nutshell? Yeah, I mean, I guess what he thinks of your generation or his generation is that your filmmaking actually constitutes the kind of response to the new wave masters. Oh yes, of course. I totally agree. Yeah. And so when we, a lot of people are talking about the new wave filmmakers, they often understand their films as more kind of politicized or cinema that tries to tie in more with the social political background, whereas the new generation, younger generation of filmmakers would have a kind of response or a kind of rebellion by trying to distance from the political cinema. But, but of course, so Gujiran Daoyin also thinks things take a change after 2010. And after that, many of the younger filmmakers start to make more politicized films as well. So yeah, that's, that's not show. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I totally agree. We are, we are very responsive of what has come before and we're heavily influenced. I think consciously and subconsciously we're heavily influenced. I mean, we're so influenced, I think, by that generation's film making that it, it even, it even affects how we direct actors, how we choose our actors, the way that we use non-actors, sometimes non-actors over movie stars. A lot of that is still very heavily influenced by what they do, what they did. Do you, do you think there's a, do you think there's a feature or something that characterizes your generation or you think it's, it's not a thing? There isn't a really central element that, that yeah, bring you all together. I think one thing that, that, that is a bit more apparent with my generation of filmmakers is our, is our balancing of, of the commercial aspect of our films and the artistic side of it. I think we're, for good or for bad, a lot of our films are caught in the middle. I don't think we are as daring in a way as some of the filmmakers that came before us. The way we deal with money and the, the way we deal with our box, how we face box office, it has affected our generation I think. But we still, I think the heavily influenced part is the part where we, what we learned as a film student, what we learned as a cinephile, what we've been told are quote unquote important films, you know, so-called important films. These are serious films, you know, like this is what we should be striving for. That still has a heavy influence on our generation of filmmakers where filmmakers like 10, 15 years younger than me, they actually don't have that. They didn't grow up watching Ho Xiao Shen films. They know of him, but, but they didn't grow up watching them. They didn't grow up watching, you know, Edward Yang movies, you know. I mean, I grew up in the era where, you know, a brighter summer day was in theaters, you know, a confusion, a confusion, you know, a confusion, confusion, mahjong. I watched all these in movie theaters, you know, these were, these were movies that I went to the theaters to see. The filmmakers that are younger than us, they probably, I don't know, they probably watched our films, you know. They watched, when Zip Zip time, they watched The Wolverine, they watched, they watched our films, but they're not as influenced by, by the realism, by our balance of what we think is important. Now you, most, I mean, now, like, I would say, I think about six to seven out of 10 movies that are coming out in Taiwan now are, are genre films, are, are thriller film, are thriller, or action, or suspense, horror, yeah, comedy. Yeah, now they don't, they don't have that thing anymore. And then they're like, yeah, we just, we just make what we want to make. Yeah. That's very interesting. Okay, yeah, I think I will, I think our audience, Kavan has, okay, there's a lot of questions, so I shouldn't keep him from asking those. So, so I think he's very, very interested in starring, very, very nice. And so he would love to know who did the dream sequence of the train before, before it comes into the station and flying through the, the starry, starry sky. So, yeah, is it someone who you always often worked with, or, yeah. Oh, the dream sequence. Well, I mean, I worked with a CG company in Beijing to do that, to do all the sequences, all the animation sequences in Starry Starry Night. But those ideas were more, there are, the ideas were more pulled from the source, the source material. Starry Starry Night is based on an illustration book by a very famous illustrator called Jimmy Liao. And in his book, it's, it suggests a lot of these things. I remember the picture of the train by night, a picture, it had a picture, it was a picture of a moving train at night and with starry sky is on top. And it had the little boy and the little girl standing on the train while it was moving. That was the picture, that was the picture drawn. And it had a surrealism to it, like, you know, how could two kids stand on the train, right? While it's going. So it had that beautiful thing about it. And with that picture, I imagine a flying train, I imagine a train flying through the starry starry night. And so when I came up with that idea, I went to our art designers in the CG department. And I asked them, like, you know, how, like, you know, like Van Gogh's Starry Night, can we make that into an animation? And how, how would it look like if we were actually in it? If we were actually in that painting. But it's CG. You know, how do we make that, you know, how, how would that look? So it was kind of like that. And then it all came from there. And kudos to the CG team because we had a like a very tight deadline for that movie. And they were working day and night. It was, it was crazy how, you know, I'm sure we broke a lot of labor laws. Doing the CG for starry starry night. Yeah, yeah. So it was, it was with the Beijing CG company. Hmm. Well, that's very interesting. And Kevan is also curious about the opening sequence of Starry Starry Night, which is set in the train station. So what made you decide to open the film in the train station? Um, that's a good question. I, I don't remember. I honestly don't remember why I opened the film that way. Um, I remember the scene. Um, yes, I'm sorry. This is so long ago. Um, this was like, well, 2011, I think. So that was like, I probably wrote it in 2009 or 2010. So those are the decade ago. Um, I don't, I don't remember. Oh, no, wait, no, I opened the scene. Oh, it was a very logical choice. I opened the scene, um, with the girl wanting to run away for the first time. Um, I wanted to establish that right in the beginning that, that she wanted to run away for the very first time. She want, she went to the train station. She wanted to go see her grandfather, but she chickened out. Um, and the sad thing, and the sad thing about that big first big sequence for me was. When she actually got home from not running away. Her parents didn't, her parents didn't even know that she was gone. Like her parents didn't even care. And, um, and so that, yeah, yeah, I, I opened it that way. I was, it was a little sequence. Um, uh, yeah, yeah, I remember that now. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I think it's very interesting because, um, particularly we, we have received several feedback from audience and they're all, um, they're all particularly drawn to starry starry night. Of course, I think all of your films are great, but I think for some reason there's something in starry starry night that speaks to our audience. Oh, that's, that's, that's nice. That's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The film is also quite different from the rest of your work because it is the only work that you put a fantasy a little with, with a lot of fantastical elements. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's not, um, it's the first film of mine that, um, I mean, I wrote it, but then I wrote it based. It was an adaptation. Um, all of my other films, excluding my last one, the Malaysian one, but then all my other ones, the, the pain of others, Winds of September and Xenia flower, they all have, uh, by autobiographical parts to it. They're all coming from me. They're all coming from my life and what I've gone through, um, except for, yeah, except for starry starry night. Yeah. But yeah, which is, which was, it's a weird movie. It's weird to call my film a weird movie. I mean, it's, it's, it's weird for me because when it's, it was odd because when I finished the film, um, I don't know because it was very rushed. Like I said, it was a Taiwan, China co-production and we had, we had a tiny show in the state. And, um, and so it was very rushed. And I remember very clearly that emotion of when I finished that film, I was actually not very pleased with the end result. Um, I felt like I didn't do enough or I felt like I didn't do more. I thought there was more I could have done. And, um, when I first finished, I could say it now, I couldn't say it 10 years ago, 10 years ago, I was promoting it though. So I had to say it was great. Um, so yeah, so when I, when I, when I finished it, um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I wasn't very pleased with it. I was, I, I, I kind of didn't really like it. Um, I was proud of it. I mean, it's still, you know, we put in the work. It looked beautiful. Um, but for me, there was like, oh, I don't know. But then I remember about like five years later after the film came out, um, they had an outdoor screening. Um, um, in Taipei, I think it was like a part of the Taipei Film Festival thing. And they had an outdoor screening and it was in the summer. Um, and they showed it on a, on a big lawn and hundreds of people showed up to watch the film. And I haven't seen it in a couple of years. So I figured, you know, yeah, I'll go. I'll, you know, I'll go sit in the back and then I'll, I'll watch it again. I haven't seen it for a while. And I was, I was quite taken by the film to be honest. I was like, I do it. There were parts of it because I haven't seen it for a while. There were parts of it. I forgot that I did. And then I watched a certain sequence and I was like, wow, that's actually a nice sequence. That's actually, um, and, uh, yeah. And then the, from, and the reaction of the audience, um, because it was an outdoor screening. So there was a lot of families, a lot of parents brought their children to watch the movie. And, um, yeah, it was, it was, um, a quite pleasant experience, um, revisiting that film that, that, you know, um, when I finished it, I thought it wasn't good, but after the fact, like, no, it's, it's actually, it's okay. It's a decent movie. Um, yeah, I think, um, the next question is also about sorry, sorry, which is from our guest, Dr. Christopher Brown, who will be giving a talk next week. Um, so I'm asking about the forest scenes in starry, starry night. Um, so you use some really interesting locations around Ali-san. Um, like the railway, um, with the land site. Um, could you tell us about why you chose these locations and what it, what it was like filming there? Oh, um, no, thank you for that question. Um, well, um, Ali-san, um, the, the railways and everything were, I mean, we didn't write it, um, like that. That came from scouting. Um, when we went up to the mountains and we started scouting locations, we found these, um, these, these great places. Um, before shooting, uh, there was a big typhoon and there were landslide, there were mudslides. And then we, we had these tracks that were hanging there. Um, and they haven't come and fixed it yet. And, um, and when you see something like that, you're like, well, no, we got to, we could, you know, like, we got to document this. We got it. We got to shoot it. We got to put this on celluloid. Um, so a lot of it came from that. A lot of it came from, um, seeing these great locations. Um, There's a feedback. I'm sorry. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of it came from seeing these great locations and, um, and, and working the script around it. Um, I remember that the second half of the script where the children are lost in the forest, we had some setups, but then we, we, intentionally kept it loose also just because, um, when you're in the Ali mountains, um, you never really know what kind of weather you're going to get. It could be raining one, one minute. It could be sunny the next, and then it could be misty another. And, um, and a lot of it was just coming out of, um, what, um, what opportune gave us what God was presenting us. Um, it, I really felt, um, because, and also because when we had a very tight schedule, we knew we were going to shoot in Ali sun. We had, we built the little cabin there, but, um, everything around it. Um, a lot of stuff when we were going here and there, and they're, they're lost. They're going in circles and stuff like that. Um, a lot of that was in a way, it was improvised. It was, you know, me working on the script that the, the previous night and then like, well, the next day let's go shoot this or let's go shoot that. Um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So, um, so we're going to do a little bit of this next day, let's go shoot this or let's go shoot that. There's one sequence. I remember in the, in the, in the forest where. The two of them are just walking in the miss for awhile. And it was like two close-ups and they're just walking and walking and walking. We did that just because the fog just came and then it couldn't let us shoot. So I figured, well, if we can't see anything, can I ask my DP, well, can we see something that's, you know, like five feet away from us? Yeah, that we could see. So I go, well, let's put a really long track and let's just shoot the two kids walking. And it'll be close up enough and that we could see them and they'll be in the mist and we'll do that. And we'll see how I work that into the film, the editing, you know, and then we shot that. So yeah, a lot of it was like that. Was that we found this and then it's like that. Let's do it. Another thing about Ali Mountain is that it could, you know, one side, you could go to it and then like one side of the mountain could look rural enough. But then then, you know, you turn around 180 degrees and there might be a road. And so it's easier access. So there's still that there's still the fact that we needed a mountain where it could look reclusive, but at the same time, you know, easy access. So that's why we chose the Ali Mountain. Wow. Wait, that's very interesting. Thank you. So our next question is from our audience, Xin Yang. So this question is about Winds of September. So in that film, each of the teenagers had had a very strong and vivid personality for them and they did a very good job and in their performance. Yeah, so audience is wondering how how you cast these actors. I know you said you you chose mostly non actors as in your films. Since in the new wave cinema. Yeah, like it ties in with the new wave cinema where the directors usually used amateurs in their films. Does it kind of influence you on choosing the actors. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you seeing Yang for this question. Winds of September for me. I don't know how other people see it but Winds of September for me is like my most, my most Taiwan new wave film, you know, if there's a definition if there's a definition of Taiwan new wave that's my Taiwan new wave movie. Yeah, or I always, I actually think of it as my homage to the Taiwan new wave. And I kind of shot it that way to the realism of it, the actors. We did for the for Winds of September we did a very wide casting call. I knew that I didn't want like movie stars or I didn't want like pop icons. I wanted real teenagers. I wanted people who were in in that age you know I don't want to see. And I think this is again this is from the tradition of Taiwanese new wave. You know, I didn't feel like it was right to see, like 25 year olds or 28 year old play high school kids. I didn't want that. So, yeah, so you know we were, we were looking everywhere I mean there were casting agency that had young kids. They were mostly amateurs. Some of them, maybe they've done a few commercials. One kid was you know one of the nine kids. I actually found in a supermarket he was just a high school kid. He was he was he was in a supermarket, like buying face cream or something. And he was like, he was like, you know, he was joking around with his friends and I saw him and I was like wow that that's a great looking kid. And I asked him you know I went up to him and I asked him like you know I'm a film director I'm getting ready to do a movie. Would you like to come and audition and and yeah so the guy the kid took my card, very skeptical of me. He took my card. And a week later he actually he finally called. Oh, and he said that you know he looked me up on the internet. I looked legit. And he'll come to the audition he's the fact kid. Oh, so he's he's actually he's not an actor at all. There's nothing to do with like no commercials nor anything he had like no prior experience of filmmaking whatsoever. It's very interesting, because I looked him up after watching the film and I don't think he has any other work or just not not that I know of. No, no, he just that was it that was it for him for that one summer. He did a movie, and we're still great friends and you know we still have gatherings and stuff. He's he's in insurance now. And, and I think he actually does insurance for a couple of the other actors in the film. Yeah, so and you know, yeah yeah we still you know we still hang out. And yeah so that was kind of how we were casting wins of September. Our main protagonist, I met him through timing Liang's films. Zhang Jie, Zhang Jie was he was the star. He was the main actor for Li Kangshen's Bujian. And, and I did the, I didn't work on Bujian Busan but I did the subtitle English translation for those two films. That was my first encounter with timing Liang. And, yeah, so I met them and then I saw Zhang Jie and like the kid a lot. I put him in my first short he was he was the rookie in the pain of others. And then I figured y'all just keep on working with him. So it was kind of like that I had Zhang Jie and then everything was building around that. I met Zhang Jie at the time he was 17 or 18. If I remember correctly, none of the kids I mean the oldest kid in that group was like 19 that's that's you know, that's where I was willing to go like 19 yeah okay yeah 19. I mean, you know, processes change, you know, nowadays, you know, if you ask me would I be willing to like take a 23 year old and shoot a high school movie I go yeah you know why not but then at that time I was like very, at that time I was very adamant, you know like no nobody. And, and one, I mean I have to do one shout out to our producer. He's, of course, a lot of people know him. Hong Kong filmmaker actor. He's the, he's the, you know, he's the bad guy in inferno affairs everybody knows him. So, what was great about sense way was that he was okay with us choosing newcomers, all nine. And for him, he had a way of packaging this, or in his mind he had a way of packaging this because with Windsor September. What sense away did was he took my script, and he gave it to two young filmmakers, one in Hong Kong and one in mainland China. Yeah, my scene and Han Yan. So, they got, they also got my script, and then they adapted my script into their own screenplay with seven boys and two girls, and they wrote their own coming of age movie. And so, we never got to do it but then sense away Eric saying he that his great idea was that what he saw was like on a cover of a magazine would be a long photo. And on that photo would be 27 new actors, three new directors, and him sitting in the middle of Godfather. You know, that's what he saw he saw him in the middle as the Godfather, three young directors behind him and 27 new actors. And this is his family that's what he wanted to do. So, I mean kudos to him he had a vision that he wanted to pursue and he's like, yeah, go ahead, go, you know find your perfect cast find newcomers it's fine it's okay just do this. So yeah so you know I wasn't. I was very lucky they didn't force me to use pop icon, they didn't force me to use, like the hottest new kid around or anything like that I you know yeah winds up September we got our casting. We got very lucky. Oh, right. So, oh so it actually all three films started with your with your script. Yes, all three films started with winds up September. And this goes back to, again this goes back to, like everything's connected. Let's go back to Zen Yoji too, because Yoji's wife is very good friends with Zenzhen Wei's daughter. And so Yoji's wife knew that I was fine having trouble financing with the September. And so he asked Zenzhen Wei's daughter, like, would she want to read my script. She read this. Like Zimbabwe read the script and she liked it. And she said that, you know what, I think my dad will love it. So she gave the script to her father and Eric Zen read it he loved it, and he wanted to produce it and he at the same time he asked me he said, I want to produce it, but I also want to take the rights of the script and then give it to two other directors. Are you okay with that. And I said, you know that's fine that's of course that's that I'm cool with that. Yeah, so that was my scenes first film and that was Hanyin's first film, which, which sadly was banned by the Chinese authorities. But the Hanyin version of winds up September is excellent. I loved it. Not a lot of people saw it just because it never made it theatrically. I got to see like a close the finished version in Hong Kong. It was great. It's, it's, yeah, it's a really good movie. Oh, it did get released in Hong Kong. It didn't it didn't I saw it in Hong Kong because I was in Eric Zen's office, and he showed it to me. Oh, that's it was never it was never released anywhere I don't I mean I know Hanyin probably has a copy of it. But yeah but he's, he's not allowed to release it. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I think Ivan has another question about winds of September so yes it's just that was it autobiographical. It was out of biographical. The screenplay started out from, it was one year Chinese New Year is I went back home to my hometown, and not a lot of friends were around I was, I was kind of alone. And one morning I was bored. And so I went back to my high school, I went back to my high school just to look around, look around at the old hangouts and, and just by looking at the locations a lot of memories came back. This was when I was like 28 or 29 so to say, like 10 years after high school. And so a lot of these memories I wanted to. I wanted to hold on to I wanted to jog down. I started writing, like little memory scenes like oh this is what happened here. I remember this I remember that and, and then you know after a while I was, I had pages and pages of stuff. Of what, you know, what happened with, you know, my, my, my gang of friends. And so it kind of started from there and then you know I had all these notes. And then, I remember it was getting close to the, the, the Taiwan screenplay award. Every year we have a you're down to decide, which is, you know, the screenplay award. And I think it was like two or three months before the deadline. And, and so I thought, you know, hey, maybe I'll just all that stuff, maybe I could work that into a feature maybe I could work that into a story. And so, when September came from there. I had to like throw in a couple of characters together, a couple of friends together as one character. I mean, our group of friends our group of friends we had a huge group we had a group of 15 kids. So that was like too much to tackle. And I couldn't write all 15. So I was like putting together personalities that were similar into one character. And then I ended up with nine. Yeah. Oh, did any of the kids in the film represent yourself. Yeah, of course, of course there's a kid that represents myself. And it's funny, because it's, it's, it's, it's funny. I think in retrospect, the character with the least personality represents who I am. Just because, again, I'm not very reflexive of myself. And I don't see how I'm special in any way. But when I look at my other friends, I see their speciality, you know, he's the funny one. He's the good looking one. He's the bad tempered one. He's the, he's the soft spoken one. You know, he's the, he's the Joker. You know, I like when I see all my friends it's very easy to pinpoint their special personality, but it's hard to pinpoint my own. And so the character that most represents me, I think on screen is the most boring. I think that's, that's, that's how it came to be. Is it, is it Chaoran? No, come on. He's, he's more, he has more personality. No, I think the one that most represents me is the Zhang Jie character. Oh. Yeah, he doesn't really do much. I mean, he's kind of, he's quite boring. We see, we see a lot of the story from his eyes, of course, but then he's quite boring, I think. I think he's very interesting. That's what I have thought of. He's interesting because Zhang Jie is interesting. I like Zhang Jie. I mean, I mean, he brings a lot to the character. But the whole screenplay, I mean, once we casted the actors, we were also, you know, fitting. I guess, again, this is like, you know, Kaohan New Wave, they do that a lot. We were fitting the story to the character, I mean, to the actors. Yep. We had a certain sense of what the character should be like, but then these are non-actors. So when they come, they bring their own thing. And then when they have that thing, you utilize it. And then you say, okay, we'll go with this. We'll, we'll make it more this way, we'll make it more that way to fit them, you know. Right. And their friendship on screen, that's real. That was real. That was us training for three months. And so they were training for three months. They knew each other for three months. They got to be friends. They got to hang out. And then for them, it was like summer vacation, you know, like summer camp. They went off summer camp. They all went to my hometown. They all lived in the hotel. And they were having a great time. They were having a blast hanging out with each other, just being friends. And we captured that. We captured that on film. Yeah, we were fortunate. Yeah, I think, oh, I think Max is also very interested in your latest work, which is The Garden of Evening Mist. So Max is wondering what the competition was like amongst the Japanese actors for the role of Nakamura Aritomo. So you cast Hiroshi Abe for the role and he suits it very well. And he's asking because he imagines someone else such as Watanabe Ken could also have been a popular choice as a similarly brooding, mysterious presence. Yes, of course. Yes. So yeah, so how did you work on that? Well, I think when I'm casting, I'm quite rebellious when I'm casting. Or you could see it another way where when I'm casting, I'm casting as a very often moviegoer. I watch a lot of movies. I'm a cinephile. I watch, and I watch everything too, not just art films, you know, I watch commercial movies too, and I enjoy them a lot. And so I'm very familiar with the usual suspects of Japanese actors that could play an English speaking role. Right. And so I didn't want to go the obvious. That was my idea because as an audience, I didn't really want to see that anymore. Every English speaking Japanese role is played by the same actors. There's only a handful of actors or actresses, and it's just them. And I was kind of like, well, you know, like, when I'm an audience, I would say like, you know, like, can't you guys give me something else? So as a filmmaker, I get the opportunity to do that. I get the opportunity to do, let's give him something else. Let's give him some other actor that nobody would think would probably do this or would be able to do this. We, I mean, we got, again, I got pretty lucky with Hiroshi Abe. I mean, I loved him. Like, even before, you know, even before he did his, he started doing the Koreata movies. I mean, I was a big fan of him already in television series. And I loved him even more when you know when I saw him is still walking by Koreata. Oh, that just that was heartbreaking movie. So great. Well, I didn't even know if Hiroshi Abe spoke English, or if he was interested in doing an English speaking role, I had no idea. But I pitched it to the film company and I said, you know, would we want to approach Hiroshi Abe and see and I mean, what's the worst? What's the worst thing that could happen? He says no, you know, and, you know, that's no loss on our end. So let's try it. So that's, that's what we did. You know, I wrote a very long letter to Mr. And and explain to him why I saw him as the role of Nakamura Haritomo and and invited him and wish that he could come play this role. And yeah, and I, and again, I like I said, lucky that he was in, I mean, in his career, he was at a point in his career where he he wanted to try that where he wanted to try something new. He wanted to go abroad. He wanted and he had a good experience working with Chen Haige in China with Yamao Juan. So he had a good experience doing that, working with a Chinese crew. So he figured, well, another opportunity in Malaysia, English, and then like everything kind of like spoke to him and said that this is a good challenge. And, and he took it. So he was actually, he was the first Japanese actor that we approached. And he said yes. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were very lucky. Yeah. Okay, that's very interesting. B, you mentioned that she had another question, but she didn't have the chance to, to say it. So would you like to come on stage. Fantastic. Thank you. It's such a great Q&A. Thank you very much, Tom. No, no, no problem. I would like to ask you something really reflecting the series really because what we wanted to do as we said at the beginning, really trying to figure out what is what happened next after new wave. So, as one of the younger generation directors, would you say that you're influenced by them? We have, you have talked about it, but can you elaborate a little bit about how you are influenced and who you think you take away most? And what's the big, biggest difference between your generation, as you said, in the circle from those before you? What's the difference? Oh, wow, that's, that's a great question. Well, I mean, a lot of filmmaking methods, we're very influenced by the new wave. Realism, social importance, when we do our own work, we actually, we ask ourselves, you know, is there social importance in this, in this, in this work? Is this speaking to the community that we live in? The naturalism that we try to go for? Minimalism, in a way, you know, we, you know, we feel guilty when we're using music, you know, it's like, you look, you know, like, yeah, we do. I mean, you know, there was a, you know, there was a time where it's like, oh, should we be using so much music? It's getting, it's starting to feel melodramatic. They wouldn't do this, you know. Yeah, so. And then, of course, I think also like, you know, how a lot of our professors, when they're talking about the new wave, they talk about, you know, how they were doing, how they were coming up with what they were doing and what they were fighting for. So it all, it's all, it all impacts us. And so like, you know, like I said, you know, for me, Winds of September was probably my most Taiwan new wave film. From the choice of actors to the locations I was going back to my hometown to make the film. I was, and the whole baseball scandal that happened in the year, in 1997 was also a very important backdrop for the story. I mean, all that was coming from the tradition of the new wave. Yeah, it's, it's, if the, I think the one difference that our generation has from, from their generation was we were losing something to fight against. So we had to start looking internally. I mean, because we were growing up in the 80s and 90s, we were going up after, you know, after the end of martial law, we were growing up in a post type pay that was not, you know, that heavily controlled by the government. We weren't, we didn't grow up being censored. We didn't grow up with people telling us we can't say this we can't say that. We didn't have that. We didn't have that fire in us to rebel against something. So we were just rebelling. So in a way I do see, in a way I do see the post, the post new wave as these, these rebels without a cause, a little bit. We're trying to find something to fight for and fight against, but we're not quite sure what that is. And so we just look at ourselves. And we look at what has influenced us and what, you know, and, and I also think we're not as ambitious. I think we do feel that we. I can't, I can't speak for my whole, my entire generation, but when I speak for myself is I felt that I had more to lose because I was, I was growing up. I mean, I'm not like, you know, I'm not like in a rich family or anything like that, you know, but I grew up quite, you know, privileged. I was a middle class family. I didn't have to worry too much about money. And, and, you know, you know, I didn't have, you know, I, you know, I did a lot of part time jobs and had to make money for myself sometimes. But I wasn't like starving. And I wasn't. There really wasn't that, that thing there that I don't know that creates the artist. I'm not sure. And I think because our generation kind of grew up like that, we kind of grew up in a very stable environment. And that stability speaks, I think, in our, our films. There's something in it that. That's just not the same. That's, that's, that, that is a little. I don't want to use the word meek, but, but that's, that's, that's more calming or, or that's, you know, there's just, yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. Because, although you, you have no authoritarian regime to fight. There are plenty of other kind of enemy, for example, like commercial interests. There's another factor is the China factor. So sometimes people do have, find their own enemies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. But, but the, but the surrounding that we were in was made us feel quite safe. And so it's, it's in a way like, you know, the safer you feel the less you know what you want to say. And then you have to go back to a time where maybe something was being fought, or maybe there was something there, which kind of explains, you know, like Yang Xiaozhi is a girlfriend boyfriend, setting the film back to the, the, the, the, the, the Ye Baihe era, the student movement. Because, you know, at that time, they were fighting for something. No, no. Can I also ask about Xinyi Flower? Yes, sure. It's such a mature film in comparison to this coming of age sort of winds of September. It's almost seeing your own growth when you talk about autobiographical sort of a nature. Because actually, all your films feels, apart from Xinyi Flower, it feels quite a man's film, a male's perspective. For example, Pain of Others is, is a kind of like a collective memory among all the Taiwanese men. This kind of experience. Xinyi Flower is very mature, very understated in comparison to your other films. So could you talk a little bit about this particular film? I know it's a personal tragedy, but at the same time, how to transfer a personal experience to an artistic work is there are quite a lot of process going through. Could you discuss, just tell us a little bit about it? Yeah. I mean, Xinyi Flower came out of, it was my catharsis. It was something I needed to do to move on. If I wanted to make any more films, I needed to make Xinyi Flower. I had the very strong feeling that I had to do that. I didn't know quite what I wanted to do, or even if I wanted to do it, or if I was able to go through it. So a lot of conscious choice when I was making that film was made, was made just to finish it basically. I didn't care about how it was going to be perceived. I didn't care about where people are going to see it or what's it going to look like. I just needed to make it and I needed to go through it, go through the process of making it. For that film, I particularly, with the exception of the DP, because the previous DP that I chose had other stuff, and then he had to drop out. So with the exception of the DP, everybody else on that film has never worked with me before, and does not know my wife. And that was a conscious decision on my part. I did not want anybody near me reminding me of what I'm already doing. So it's kind of weird. But so in a sense, it's my purest film, because I was making it for no other reason than the reason of I need to finish this. I need to just get this out of my system and tell it. This is the grief that I went through. This is the grief that a lot of people like me go through. Nobody talks about this grief. Nobody shows this kind of grief in this rawness, in this sense, and I wanted to do that. So yeah, that was, yeah, and then, you know, I made it. So at the same time, while I was making it, I was making all sorts of compromises, just knowing that it's not going to be a film that's going to be very commercial. It's not going to be a film that are going to be rushing to see. It might lose money for the financiers, and I need to find ways for them to feel safe about their money. And so I think a lot of the financing came from sponsorships and fundings. We had the Taiwan Film Grant. We had grants from different cities. Gao Xiong said they were willing to give me a grant, so I wrote and then I changed the screenplay to Gao Xiong. Taoyuan gave me some money, so I found the temple in Taoyuan. Okinawa was willing to sponsor us with the Okinawa shooting part. So to give the Okinawa Production Company co-producer credit, they went and got their sponsorship. So I was choosing a lot of these locations based on who's giving me money to do this, who's going to give me some grants that I don't have to pay back. And I'll work it that way. I'll work it there. I'll go here to do it. I'll go there to do it. I had a story, but then all these locations, I was just fitting it left and right just because that's where the money was coming from. And yes, I was working with a lot of limitations in that sense. But story-wise, and what I wanted to do, I was just, one, I was free to do anything I wanted, and two, I didn't really care. In a way, you could say it's my most selfish work, but that's kind of how it came about. And the fact that it actually found an audience that people were touched by the film, I think I got more responses from Xenia Flower than any of my movies. People were writing to me. People were messaging me. Sometimes they were thanking me. Sometimes they were just telling me their story of what they went through, of who they lost. And so it turned out to be quite the experience. So it is really not selfish film. It is a personal film, I would say. Yeah, yeah. And can you also explain a little bit about this film that why it's a parallel emphasis? So someone lost their wife and his wife and one lost the husband. And going through the process, they cope differently. Yes. That I was actually inspired by something that actually happened to me. It was true. After my wife passed away, I was, there was, there's a period of time where I would go to the being equal. What do you call that in English? The morgue? It's not the morgue. It's the, it's not the cemetery either. What is it? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the morgue cemetery. It's, it's, it's, you know, where people, it's not like they're there, but then we have like incense and spirit and boards and stuff like that for them. And so after my wife passed away, you know, a lot of friends came to light an incense for her. And so I was there for, for many, many days. I was just doing nothing. Like in the morning I get up, I go there. I knew that friends were becoming and I would show them where my wife is. They would light an incense and then they would go, they would chat with me. And I was there for a couple of days. And then one day I saw this woman bawling. She was, she came and she was crying so hard that her family had to carry her. She couldn't even walk. I didn't know who she lost, but, but she was very devastated by the loss. And then, and so, and so I remember, so, you know, that struck me. I was like, I saw her and I was like, wow, she's so sad. She's like, she's really, really sad. And, and, and it made an impression. And because my wife's Buddhist, so like the movie, you know, I would do the, the, the every seven day ritual, the 7770, the 49 with ritual. And, and on that seventh day, when I went up to the temple and then we had the mass, the mass, the mass prayer, I saw her again. And this time, of course, she's calmer. She's a lot calmer this time, but then I saw this woman again. And, and immediately struck me that with her being here on the seventh day, we lost somebody on the same day. Like, you know, logically, that's how you do the math. That's, that's, we lost somebody on the same day. And then for the next couple of weeks, every seven days, I would see her. I would see her there, praying for the person that she lost. And I never talked to her or anything like that. It was nothing like the movie. We never really, we never talked or anything. But then on the 100th, and then I forgot about her, like after the 49th day, you know, I went on with my life, of course, and then I was struggling. I was dealing with a lot of things, moving her will, all that stuff. And then on the 100th day, while I was going up the mountain, I thought of that woman again. And I, and I thought like, wow, it's like all of a sudden I was like, it was just struck me like, Oh, will she be there? Will she, will she also come for the 100th day ceremony because not, not everybody does it. A lot of not a lot of people chooses just to do the 49 and that's it. So I was thinking like, wow, is she going to be there? Is she am I actually going to see her again? And out of, I guess just out of curiosity, I wanted to know what she went through. Like how did she spent her 100th day. But I didn't see her at the last prayer. I didn't see her. But it got me thinking it got me thinking about other people. It got me thinking about dealing with grief. It got me thinking about how other people deal with grief. And again, and it's not just her, it's like, when you go do this thing, everybody around you has lost somebody dear to them, and they're all praying for them at the same time. And, and we probably lost them at the same time. And so there's a connection to that. And then I wanted to tap into that connection of these strangers that has this common thing, a common tragedy that happened to them. And, and it was, it was, I think it was on that day that I started writing the story on the 100th day I came, I came back home, and I started writing I started writing this idea of two people going through same thing in a very, very different way. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with us. No, no, no problem. And there seem to be a slight social commentary or criticism about a different way of facing death. There's a Christian approach and Buddhist approach. And I did find it very interesting to see the contrast. Can you talk a little bit about it? That was, that was, that was just inspired by what my friend went through. My friend went through a similar thing where the two families had different religious backgrounds and they wanted different kinds of ceremonies and they got into a quite a big argument about that. And I always thought that was, I always thought that was kind of ridiculous, just because anything that we do is more for the living than for the dead. And, and so it doesn't really matter what you do. As long as you're comfortable with it, that's fine. Why fight that, you know, if it's, if they feel more comfortable doing a Christian thing, then let's do a Christian thing. If it's more comfortable as a Buddhist thing, let's do a Buddhist thing. It probably doesn't really matter that much to the person that passed away. You know, yeah. But I always thought that was kind of, like, that was kind of interesting. So I put that in the, in the story. It's quite, quite interesting, almost like social commentary in a way. Yeah, a little bit. May I ask Shao Yi, is there any more question there? I do think Elena has a question, but I'm not quite sure if I understand her question. So Elena is asking if the new New Wave Cinema is already a corporation. Maybe Elena, would you like to elaborate on your question? The New Wave Cinema Corporation. What does that mean? Well, it was, it was actually helped by a corporation. It was helped by a company called CMPC. It kind of pushed this whole Taiwan New Wave thing. I don't know if that answers anything regarding the New Wave. Okay, so if Elena is not coming in to ask that question, maybe we should wrap it up. Thank you so much. It's a fantastic session because, you know, this is a real treat for us. Oh, you see people already saying thank you. Oh, perfect ending really. It's fascinating. You know, we'll talk about more or less cover all the films we're showing this week. Thank you all for taking part in the first, I mean, the second director Q&A session. When I ask you again to switch on your microphone, really this time you owe Tom his round of applause. Okay.