“In the past decade, I have witnessed the impact and influence multi-cultural films and animations can have on people. People most often look to film for entertainment, but this is only the beginning. I have learned that film can be more than just a source of entertainment. Multi-cultural films are an important tool to communicate and connect with audiences on a deeper level,” says film director Chin-Wei Chang.
A collection of his cinematic works – both real and animated – is now available for review.
Works include
CORN – a film about the emotional awakening of a q4-year-old boy
DOLLY – the destruction of a family through the eyes of an 8-year-old girl
ANGELA! – a game of hide-and-go seek turns into an old man’s journey in finding himself
PHOENIX – A deeply disturbing parable of what happens when you just go with the flow.
HUHU – a clever animated short about the Gods of an Old temple decision to fix the place up!
HAPPY NEW YEAR – a moment of joy.
and the brilliant WHITE TUNNEL, which mixes parable with reality; ancient ideals with modern ways… the living with the dead. Stunning animation in noir form.
The Taiwanese film director and screenwriter, has won national and international film festivals and exhibitions in the United States and abroad. His works have been nominated for – and received – prestigious awards at Academy Award-qualifying film festivals like the 57th Krakao Film Festival, 25th Raindance Film Festival, 33rd Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and the SIGGRAPH Film Festival.
“Multi-cultural films are an important tool to communicate and connect with audiences on a deeper level. I have been working on artistic projects through filmmaking and computer animation to share stories of people around the world and inspire others to start conversations and be aware of important issues affecting society today,” he continued. His films, HUHU and White Tunnel, shared stories of traditional social behaviors and shared meanings and introduced them to audiences in an artistic way to bridge gaps between traditional beliefs and modern societal norms and customs; while his works, Dolly and Corn, portray characters experiencing societal difficulties, struggles between dream and reality, such as psychological health and broken family relationships that influence the lives of children.
Chang concluded by saying, “I plan to continue creating such films utilizing my story-telling capabilities and filmmaking to leave a lasting impact on society for generations to come.”
InD wanted to pick the brain of this visionary filmmaker on the eve of his works being available as a group.
What inspired you to come to the United States?
I was born in a family with my parents who always busy taking care of their own company, it’s about the Air-conditioning industry. They work so hard almost 24/7 365 days when I was little. Thus, I and my younger sister usually took care of by my grandma. Sometimes my parents brought us to the theater to watch a movie at the weekend. We stayed inside the dark box for two hours. It’s precious family time for me to laugh, cried, enjoyed with my parent without any interruption by the work. By that time movies is more like entertainment to me, but Hollywood was a profound name in my childhood. When I was in college, I got into the animation field but I still had a high interest in live-action movies. Until a trip that I had in 2013, My animation short was selected by SIGGRAPH, which is the biggest conference on computer graphics in the world. It got me a chance to came to California. it had me experiencing in person how excellent CGI technologies that American has and influences the movie industry of whole the world, but the real trigger that made me want to get into the live-action field was after I spent the rest of the days of my trip to have tours in many picture studio like Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal Studio. I saw a number of classic movie titles on the outside of sound stages, crew members and golf carts busy around everywhere, a guy was sitting on a chair in the corner of the set and reading his notes on the script. As a movie lover who grew up watching Hollywood movies, it’s really hard to describe how profound those moments were to me in words, but I feel a strong simple pure pleasure inside me at that time. After that, I back to my country and determined to get into the next level of the medium of art. So, I started to study films by watching while taking care of my animation company, I got to know many art films and directors around the world like the French new wave, which is what inspired me the most. After 5 years, the movie is more than just entertainment to me, it teaches me using different perspectives to look and think of the world we live in. Until 2017, I came back to the U.S.A to get into the field that I dream of for pursuing that simple pure pleasure that filmmaking gave me.
What have you been doing since you arrived?
I arrived in the United States in 2017 winter, and New York is the first city that I stay in. The thing that shocked me is not how big of America or the cultural difference. Instead, is subway train, I saw many people from a different country and squeezed in a tiny subway train that diversity gave me a lot of inspiration, seems like a thousand and thousand stories happened in a second made me lingered. Certainly, a place is full of stories also full of problems, homeless, social conflict, racial issues. Etc. Many not cool stuff happened as well. From my perspective, every different culture has its own different way to deal with social issues, I think the conflict happened only because of not understanding each other. For me, cinema is like a platform that brings me a chance to learn from a variety of cultures from everywhere in the world. In the same way, seeing different cultural stories gradually appears in front of the audience or film industry in the West, which is also a good chance to let people immerse themselves in a different perspective to see our society and the world. It’s huge progress of this medium of art to achieve diversity, which is the significant goal of the world right now as well.
How has the pandemic affected you in terms of your career?
It’s really heartbreaking to see an enormous number of families and all the fields in the whole world got impacted by the pandemic in 2020. In the film industry, many productions shut down and worked on the preproduction instead. Because of this affection, I got more time to build ideas for my feature films than before, but it’s also more difficult to work without feeling anxiety and doubt about the future, especially as a foreigner who came here with the strong expectation to learn and develop the career, It really took me a while to adjust myself by writing, reading, and exercise then get back on track. Concentrating on work, future plans, and staying healthy and safe are the things I can do right now as a filmmaker.
What are your ultimate goals?
I was born in Taiwan, which is a place having highly acceptability of foreign cultures but also maintaining strongly traditional local culture itself. Growing up in this culture blended environment kind like teach us a friendly balance to live with a variety of differences, also built me a sense to see the common in differences, rather than just amplify the differences. This idea was support after I came to NYC and saw a hundred times complex of cultures gather in this city, where was just like a condensed version of the world to me. I learned a lot about a variety of culture from the people around the world, also got me to see closer to many complicated issues of the society in our world. Therefore, bridging gaps between extreme things or social issues in an artistic way that I would like to give back to our society, which is the ultimate goal for me as a filmmaker.
What’s happening for you next year?
First of all, I hope we all can keep healthy from this pandemic. Second, to be a professional filmmaker and director is the goal that I come to the USA and I’ve been working on my first feature script since last year before the pandemic begins and hope I can finish the pre-production at the end of this year and release it as soon as possible.
inDfilm 