PRESS RELEASE
Get a first taste this May with the 4K restoration of Millennium Mambo!
The 8th Taiwan Film Festival in Australia is set to take place from 24 July to 6 September, spanning six cities and introducing an exciting lineup of new venue partners and locations.
Ahead of the festival, we are honoured to co-present a special screening of Millennium Mambo in stunning 4K restoration on 2 May, offering audiences a glimpse into this remarkable cinema and venue. Directed by renowned Taiwanese auteur HOU Hsiao-Hsien, Millennium Mambo was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and won the Technical Grand Prize for Sound Design (TU Duu-Chih). That same year, the film also received accolades for Best Cinematography (LEE Pin-Bing), Best Original Score (LIM Giong), and Best Sound Effects (TU Duu-Chih). The film revolutionized Taiwanese cinema, and its influence continues to this day.
Set in 2011, the story follows Vicky as she recounts her life ten years earlier. At the time, she was living with her boyfriend, Hao, who refused to work and relied entirely on her earnings from a hostess club. Despite this, Hao was intensely possessive—unable to bear the thought of other men touching Vicky, he would even meticulously inspect her receipts.
Written by award-winning writer CHU T’ien-Wen, a longtime collaborator of director HOU, Millennium Mambo marks another milestone in their partnership, which spans from Growing Up (1983) to Palme d’Or winner The Assassin (2015).
Tickets are available here.
Based on the novel, The Stolen Bicycle, by WU Ming Yi, adaptation into short film by Chromatic Aberration Production
In 2024, the festival launched its first-ever IP Adaptation competition, with a distinguished jury panel featuring Colin Cairnes, Kylie du Fresne, Benjamin Law, and Taiwanese actress Esther LIU. The winning team, led by co-directors and writers Joseph McKenna and Freya Xu, will present their adaptation of The Stolen Bicycle, based on the award-winning novel by WU Ming-Yi, originally published in 2017. The project is now officially entering production and is set to begin filming in mid-2025, with completion expected by the end of the year and the chance to premier at the festival’s closing night.
Stolen Bicycle follows a young boy and his community’s response to the theft of his vintage bicycle, weaving together themes of traditional Chinese morality, vigilante justice, and the loss of childhood innocence.
“I first got involved with the Taiwan Film Festival in Australia as a volunteer during their Adelaide screenings. I chose to volunteer because I’ve long been interested in Taiwanese films—Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness was a key inspiration behind my own short film about Hong Kong, When The City Fell Silent,” said Joseph McKenna. “It was while shooting that short film in Hong Kong that I met Freya, with whom I pitched The Stolen Bicycle to TWFF. It just so happened that Freya had read the novel as part of a book club and was interested in adapting it into a screenplay. So together, we wrote one and created a storyboard. The pitching competition felt like the perfect opportunity for us.”