Smithsonian Museum to Pay Tribute to Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards With Film Screenings

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the prestigious Chinese-language cinema awards, the museum will screen past winning titles, such as Taiwanese new wave classic "Vive L'Amour."

The Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C. has announced plans to screen Taiwanese films during November to celebrate this year’s 50th anniversary of Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, the most established film honors in Chinese-language cinema.

Four Golden Horse Award-winning films from years past will be screened at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art from Nov. 15-24, offering a rare chance for local cinephiles to see retrospective Taiwanese titles on the big screen.

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The films include Edward Yang's 1986 thriller The Terrorizers, about the curiously intertwining lives of three groups of people in urban Taipei, and Vive L'Amour, Tsai Ming-liang’s Taiwanese New Wave film about the alienation of three people sharing an apartment in the city. Taiwanese actor-turned-director Leon Dai’s Cannot Live Without You, will also get a screening. It tells the true story of a single father who battled Taiwan’s bureaucracy to retain custody of his daughter. The film was Taiwan’s official Oscar entry in 2009. The most contemporary of the titles included in the mini-retrospective is director Gillies Ya-che Yang's 2012 film GF*BF about two high school boys and a high school girl caught in a emotionally complicated bi-sexual love triangle during the student movements of 1980s Taiwan.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian jointly organized the event. Prior to the first screening on Nov. 15, there will be a Chinese tea ceremony open to the public.

STORY: Wong Kar Wai's 'The Grandmaster' Leads Taiwan's Golden Horse Nominations

The 50th Golden Horse Film Awards ceremony will be held in Taipei on Nov 23. This year’s nominees for best feature film are Singaporean’ director Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo, Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s Cannes best screenplay winner, A Touch of Sin, The Grandmaster from Hong Kong arthouse master Wong Kar Wai, Tsai Ming Liang‘s Stray Dogs, and Drug War, from genre veteran, Johnnie To.

This year's jury chair is Taiwan-born Oscar winner Ang Lee.