The essence of progress in civilization has always been handiwork. In traditional Chinese civilization, the emperor was supreme. Vested with the authority to enjoy the best of handiwork, all crafts used for residence, clothing, food, and travel were the most refined and splendid.

A contemplative trip down memory lane with one of the leading voices of the Second New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema. Saw Tiong Guan clearly established a very personal bond with his subject, and also found many of Tsai Ming-liang’s colleagues prepared to complete this portrait of a quiet yet outspoken artist.

Yves Montmayeur takes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the starting point for his study of the new female warrior in Asian pop culture. From Beijing to Tokyo and Taiwan, he went to meet with the most iconic muses of this new trend, including Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Shu Qi and Asami.

In 2013, the Golden Horse Film Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary. The ministry of Culture commissioned director Yang Li-chou to make a documentary about the history of Golden Horse. What is unique to this film is that it's not an ode to celebrities but about the role cinema plays in ordinary people's lives. It's a love letter to cinema, filmmakers and audiences.

Focusing on Mark Lee Ping-bin, one of the most talented and prolific cinematographers in Asia, the movie details the itinerant lifestyle of a deeply observant and philosophical artist and the tolls that his profession takes on his family life.

Richly illustrated with film clips and interviews, OUR TIME, OUR STORY tells the still-evolving story of the Taiwanese "new wave," from its rise in the early 1980s, as the island was democratizing after decades under martial law, through growing international recognition and domestic debate in the 1990s. Spearheaded in its early years by such filmmakers as Edward Yang, Ko I-cheng, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wan Jen, the movement revitalized Taiwan cinema through low-budget experiments that emphasized personal stories, political reflection and stylistic invention. Said filmmakers, writers and actors like Wu Nien-jen and Sylvia Chang, even "second wave" directors Tsai Ming-liang and Lin Cheng-sheng provide fond reminiscences and retrospective insights in this compelling account of one of the most distinctive national cinemas of the last quarter-century.

Ip Cheung and her husband, a senior police inspector, had been happily married for 18 years. One day, Ip runs into her neighbour, a Taiwanese woman. As they are talking, three men suddenly appeared and tried to kill them. The Taiwanese woman is killed but Ip and the kid, Yen, managed to escape. At the same time, Ip's husband commits suicide. His superior suspected him of corruption. Ip finds out that the Taiwanese woman was her husband's mistress and Yen, his illegitimate son. Ip is given custody of Yen but they are unable to get along. However she will save his live when the gang go after him.

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.

One of Hong Kong's most influential filmmakers, Ann Hui, becomes a “star” for the first time in Man Lim-chung's directorial debut. A forerunner of the New Wave, Hui’s tumultuous, forty-year career is an unequivocal testimony to her unyielding dedication to filmmaking, and her expedition into the metamorphic city. This biopic probes into the acclaimed director’s idiosyncratic world, where we witness her rashness and goofiness, as well as her humanistic concerns for the everyday nobodies which make her films so moving.

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.