《TAIPEI TIMES》Director aims to showcase the nation’s openness

Staff writer, with CNA

Su I-hsuan （蘇奕瑄）, Taiwanese director of Who’ll Stop the Rain （青春並不溫柔）, said the aim of her queer film which screened on Saturday as the closing movie at this year’s Melbourne Taiwan Film Festival （MTFF） is to showcase Taiwan’s openness.

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The film follows the story of two girls falling in love while involved in a student strike for freedom of expression, inspired by true events that took place at a Taipei university in 1994.

At the question-and-answer session after the screening, Su said she began developing the idea for the film and researching in 2014 while participating in the Sunflower movement.

This resulted in the first draft of the script in 2015, which centered on the protests, Su said.

She said she was able to distance herself from the events, as she continued to develop the script after 2018.

Following Taiwan’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2019, she also changed the original pessimistic ending of the film, to give it a more contemporary feeling, Su said.

She had initially worried about the acceptance of the subject matter by investors due to the “China factor,” Su said.

Still, she thought it was ridiculous to self-censor while making a film about freedom of expression, so she continued, she added.

Su said there had been few queer films in Taiwan before 2019, so she hoped her movie could show the world that the nation can make such films, adding that she is from the most democratic and open country in Asia and of the Chinese-speaking nations.

Emotions and love are common among people regardless of their nationality or sexual orientation, Su said.

Many audience members expressed their love for the film after its Australian premiere, which was in February at the 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival, a queer film festival, in Sydney.

Su at the premiere said that the film’s English title is taken from an anti-war song by US rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival and that the rain symbolizes society and the establishment, also echoing the rainy season in which the events occurred.

The two other films screened at MTFF were Trouble Girl （小曉）, directed by Chin Chia-hua （靳家驊） and Lokah Laqi （只要我長大）, directed by Laha Mebow, according to the festival’s official Facebook page.

The MTFF, held for the third time from Thursday to Saturday last week, was established by the Australasian Taiwan Studies Association, which is dedicated to promoting Taiwan studies and culture in Australia.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES