The Great Buddha+ director Huang Hsin-yao on his Golden Horse-winning feature debut – and the depressing state of Taiwanese society
Documentary filmmaker had hoped his project, a relentlessly bleak view on the daily life of people on the fringes of society, would gain a little interest – instead it swept the boards at all the major Taiwan film festivals
As soon as Huang Hsin-yao was given the go-ahead to make his first fiction feature, the Taiwanese documentary filmmaker was already thinking to himself how his project – a predominantly black-and-white film with two little-known actors as leads – would do little business at the box office and be admired by few people.
“I thought it could be considered a job very well done if the film would receive a bit of attention at some film festivals,” Huang tells the Post in a recent interview. “To see the film achieve what it has done to this point – I couldn’t have imagined any of that from the beginning.”
Two weeks after it opened the Taipei Film Festival in late June to the surprised delight of many (“very few people had watched the film before that point”), The Great Buddha+ became the festival’s biggest winner, taking home five awards that included the Grand Prize and the best narrative feature accolade.
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“I have to thank all the people who have helped me along the way,” the 44-year-old filmmaker says in his typically gentle tone. “I feel a little bit more confident about myself now.”