Spider Lilies
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Film description
A cult, pioneering film by one of the most important Asian LGBTQI+ directors. Jade is a girl working on an online sex cam. To make her videos more attractive, she decided to get a tattoo. She makes an appointment with the tattoo artist Takeko who unexpectedly turns out to be her childhood neighbor – and her first love.
This sensuous, nuanced beautifully shot film shows the complex emotional connection between the women and reveals painful stories from their pasts. At the same time, it is a film about the first generation growing up in the internet era – like all generations before, they too are lost in their emotions and, despite the unlimited access to media and messengers, surprisingly lonely.
At the time when the film was made, it was a breakthrough. The director had a very difficult time finding actresses willing to star in a film about love between women, so she had to look for her protagonists not only in Taiwan, but also in Hong Kong – this is where she found Isabella Leong who plays Takeko. But the role of the film cannot be overstated – it turned out to be of great importance not only to the audiences in Taiwan, but also in the more conservative Asian countries.
text:
Jagoda Murczyńska
Zero Chou
Director and screenwriter, graduate of the Philosophy Faculty of the National Chengchi University. She worked as a journalist, and made several documentaries shown at worldwide film festivals in the 1990s and 2000s. Her feature debut about drag queens, "Splendid Float" (2004), received three Golden Horse Awards – including Best Taiwanese Film of the Year. Her feature films focus mostly on LGBTQI+ protagonists. Together with her partner, cinematographer Hoho Liu, she is developing the "Over the Rainbow" project whose goal is to produce a series of LGBTIQ+ films in six different Asian metropolises. She is the only Taiwanese director, apart from Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao-hsien, invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the body that awards Oscars.
2002 Si jiao luo / Corners (dok.)
2004 Yan guang si she ge wu tuan / Splendid Float
2007 Pajęcze lilie / Ci qing / Spider Lilies
2012 Hua yang / Ripples of Desire
2017 We Are Gamily / Wei Hun Nan Nv
2020 Ai Sha / Wrath of Desire
