Sitting by a window at a cafe in Ximending (西門町), Zero Chou (周美玲) appeared surprisingly patient and agreeable as she sat through a weekend afternoon of interviews prior to the theatrical release of her third feature film, Drifting Flowers, (漂浪青春) last Friday.
With a youthful appearance and an unpretentious way of speaking, Taiwan’s foremost lesbian director looked more like a college student than a seasoned filmmaker with a clutch of award-winning films under her belt, the most recent being Spider Lilies (刺青), the winner of last year’s Berlinale Teddy Award for Best Feature Film. Even more surprising was the disarming candor and earnestness that the 39-year-old director displayed throughout our interview, which made the conversation seem like one between old acquaintances catching up on lost time.
Chou spoke openly of her childhood memories of Keelung’s red-light district, her early success as a documentary filmmaker, and her desire to tell the history of homosexuality in Taiwan using a language that can be understood by everyone.
Taipei Times: Your first job after graduating from National Chengchi University (國立政治大學) was working as a reporter at the then-tangwai (黨外, outside the KMT) television network known as Chuan Min (全民) and later at a local newspaper in Kinmen. What motivated you? Social and political awareness?
Zero Chou: That, and just me being young and curious, wanting to experience and experiment. Back then [in early 1990s] cable television stations were mushrooming. There were around 200 of them, 100 of which were the “underground” tangwai cable channels that formed the Chuan Min network. I got to spend lots of time with legislators back when the Legislative Yuan was quite a boisterous scene.
When I was working there, Kinmen was still under martial law [which was lifted in 1992], so it was a place young people thought was cool to visit and hang out at.
TT: Were you also aspiring to become a film director?
ZC: No. Even now I think I would be a lot happier being, say, an assistant art designer. There is an immediate sense of satisfaction from a job well done. The director says [he or she wants] a white plate, you give [him or her] a white plate.
But, unfortunately, I realized how much I loved making films after I started making them. The original motive behind any creative act is always as innocent as a child. But once you try to execute it, you run into complexities and problems that make you wonder how the world has become as messed up as it is now.
TT: Like many local filmmakers, you started off making documentaries. Was this partially for economic reasons?
ZC: At first, yes. It’s a lot easier to get funding for documentary making. I could live on grants of NT$10,000 for three months and make plans for my projects. But I quickly grew fond of this form of filmmaking because it satisfied my appetite for making friends with all kinds of people from different backgrounds and social stratums. I made documentaries about prostitutes, the visually-impaired, homosexuals, hand-puppet artists and nakasi (那卡西) performers [a type of music associated with red-light districts]. They all became material for my feature films. The characters I create [now] feel real and rooted in life because I had seen [so many different] lives.
(In 1999, Chou initiated the ambitious project Floating Islands (流離島影) with 11 other filmmakers. The series documented life on 12 islands separate from the Taiwanese mainland. It is considered a milestone in the history of Taiwanese film because of its scale and its experimental approach to documentary making. Chou then went on to make the award-winning Corner’s (私角落) and Poles Extremity (極端寶島), films about the homosexual community and lower classes, respectively.)
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