"You have to know what your product is. And then you have to know how to sell it and advertise it." This is Peggy Chiao's credo for promoting Taiwanese films.
She takes Hou Hsiao-hsien's Good Man, Good Woman (
"When I was doing the promotion design for Hou, I told him, `You must explain Taiwan's history during WWII, otherwise the audience will not understand' ... There is no way for people to understand Hou's film if they don't know the context," she said.
So Chiao wrote a thick press release introducing the cultural context of Hou's movies. This kind of work became routine for Chiao, as she traveled to countless festivals with Taiwanese filmmakers.
"I became the one who always carries a huge bag, full of press packets, handing them to everyone I meet," she said.
Jokingly, Chiao recalls a New York Times film critic who wrote that after seeing a Hou Hsiao-hsien film for the first time, he did not understand anything, but after going home and reading "tonnes of material," apparently provided by her, he "realized it was a masterpiece." For Lin Cheng-sheng's Betelnut Beauty, Chiao played "the same trick."
"Since the movie is about Taiwan's betel nut culture, we included a Q&A in the press package, asking Lin questions like `What is betel nut?' `What is its relation to Taiwanese culture?' `Does eating betel nut have a similar effect as smoking cannabis?'" Apparently it worked, because after the screening, reporters asked similar questions, she said.
Chiao's fluent English, her knowledge of film and her association with directors has always made her the favorite interpreter of Taiwanese filmmakers at international film events. "I feel like I'm a translation machine during those events, because I know the directors so well and I know how to explain their films" said Chiao.
She's so familiar with her subject that one time with Hou Hsiao-hsien, while fielding questions at a press conference at a film festival in Europe, Hou said to her privately: "Let's just chat for a few minutes and then you can translate the right answer for them."
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