Join us on Friday, June 13, for a free online film screening and filmmaker Q&A featuring CHEN Hui-Ling’s A Letter to A’ma (2021), co-presented by the UW Taiwan Studies Arts & Culture Program, The Taiwan World Portrait Project, and overseas Taiwanese communities across the U.S. (see full list at the end)
- 5:00–6:45 PM｜Film Screening (with English subtitles)
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7:00–8:30 PM｜Post-Screening Discussion with Dir. CHEN Hui-Ling (with AI-generated English captions)
All events are free and open to the public!
RSVP required: https://forms.gle/aetLMAXSxgHneUZ1A
Screening | A Letter to A’ma (Hui-Ling Chen, 2021) | 1h 37m
Watch the trailer here
In A Letter to A’ma, Taiwanese art teacher/filmmaker Hui-Ling returns to her childhood home to mourn the passing of her grandmother. As she pieces together the fragmented memories of her youth, she finds herself coming face-to-face with the problematic issue of her country’s fractured history. Through a student art project guided by this teacher that has lasted for over a decade, a representational portrait of the island’s collective memory begins to emerge, initiating a process in which Taiwan, an island-nation forgotten by the world and in the midst of forgetting itself after centuries of colonization and decades of dictatorship, can now remember its past and re-envision its postcolonial identity through art.
*A Letter to A’ma is in Taiwanese Hokkien, Indigenous Taiwanese languages, Mandarin, and Japanese, with English subtitles.
Filmmaker | CHEN Hui-Ling
CHEN Hui-Lin was a high school art teacher before leaving her post to study cinema in France. After studying cinema, she returned to Taiwan and founded the educational project: “The collective memory of the island”, while filming the documentary A Letter to A’ma. She has collaborated with schools across the country to empower youths in harnessing their creativity through art. The film testifies to the dedication over ten years of this project. In 2018, she received an award from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan for her contribution to arts education for the younger generation.
This free online screening and discussion is a collaborative effort between the UW Taiwan Studies Arts & Culture Program and Taiwan World Portrait Project, and our generous partners: Utah State University Extension, Taiwanese American Foundation of San Diego, Taiwanese American Community Center-UC San Diego, Center for Taiwan Studies, Taiwan Center Foundation of Greater Los Angeles & Taiwan School, Taiwanese Association of Northwest Los Angeles, East Bay Taiwanese Association, Seattle Taiwanese Language Association, KITA Foundation, Team Taiwan Foundation, Professor Chen Wen-Chen Memorial Foundation, and Dr. Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation (Taiwan).