A Deer Film Production
A Letter to A’ma 給阿媽的一封信
Hui-Ling Chen | 2021 | 1h45m
Chen Hui-Ling’s A Letter to A’ma is a brilliant and deeply felt exploration of Taiwan’s complicated and often traumatic past. Exhilaratingly photographed, the documentary focusses on a series of encounters between school and university art students and their grandparents. The students—it would appear—are often hearing stories about their grandparent’s lives for the first time. The way the student process these shocking, or confusing, or confounding recollections are reflected in the art they produce. A Letter to A’ma is a profound and moving meditation on connections between generations, on the unearthing of history, and on the vital importance of individual experience.
Awards:
Best Documentary and Best Music, Les Rimbaud du Cinéma 2021
Best Documentary, Best Music and Best Photography, Festival International du Film Indépendant SMR13
An in-conversation between Brian Hioe and Hui-Ling Chen (online) will precede the film screening. The conversation will be in Mandarin and translated into English.
Event Speakers
Hui-Ling Chen
Hui-Ling Chen was a plastic art teacher in high school before she left for France to study cinema. She then returned to Taiwan to found the educational project: “The collective memory of the island”, while filming the documentary A Letter to A’ma. In 2018, she won an award from the Ministry of Education for her contribution to artistic education for the younger generation.