Dah Yuan, a sensitive young boy whose only friend is Hsiao Chü, takes on a secret night job to help his father pay off a mountain of gambling debt. However, the misunderstanding of the adults in his life only intensifies his struggle to balance work and education as a child. The first full-length feature of director Mou Tun-fei—then freshly out of the National Arts Institute—I Didn't Dare Tell You tenderly and provocatively frames the dream of social mobility against a background of martial law under the Kuomintang. This sensitive treatment contrasts with his later work on bold exploitation films in collaboration with the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. Though it screened only privately in Taiwan due to state censorship, the film nonetheless spurred discussions amongst viewers for its neorealist style and depiction of economic inequality. The existing version is incomplete due to the loss of one reel from the original print. Still, I Didn't Dare Tell You offers a rare, stunning look into 1960s Taiwan that is limned with poignance and humor. —Yufan Chen and Hannah Baek

I Didn't Dare Tell You / Bugan gen ni jiang

Dr. Victor Fan graduated with a PhD from the Film Studies Program and the Comparative Literature Department of Yale University, and an MFA in Film and Television Productions at School of Cinema-Television (now School of Cinematic Arts), University of Southern California. Prior to his position as Reader in Film and Media Philosophy at King’s College London, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, McGill University. He is the author of&nbsp;Cinema Approaching Reality: Locating Chinese Film Theory&nbsp;(University of Minnesota Press, 2015) and&nbsp;Extraterritoriality: Locating Hong Kong Cinema and Media&nbsp;(Edinburgh University Press, 2019).&nbsp;His forthcoming monograph,&nbsp;Cinema Illuminating Reality: Media Philosophy through Buddhism,&nbsp;will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2022. Dr. Victor Fan contextualizes Mou Tun-fei's early life and career in the political and cultural landscape of Taiwan from the 1920s to the 1970s. In doing so, Dr. Fan underscores the significance of Mou Tun-fei's early works in not only his career but also in Taiwan film history.

Lecture: Dr. Victor Fan, King's College London

Born in 1981, Wood Lin received his MA from the Graduate Institute of Sound and Image Studies at Tainan National University of the Arts. He is a film critic and a festival&nbsp;organizer&nbsp;specializing&nbsp;in documentary. He&nbsp;formerly served on the jury&nbsp;for&nbsp;several&nbsp;international film festivals.&nbsp;He now&nbsp;serves as&nbsp;program&nbsp;director of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) and the&nbsp;program&nbsp;advisor of&nbsp;the&nbsp;International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), as well as Supervisor of Research and Development at the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. Wood Lin draws from interviews with Mou Tun-fei's collaborators to&nbsp;unearth new details about the director's early works. Through lively anecdotes, Lin paints a vivid image of the creation, exhibition, and rediscovery of the two films in this program.

Lecture: Wood Lin, Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute

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TABOOED INITIATION: TWO EARLY FILMS BY MOU TUN-FEI

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