Hou Hsiao Hsien, the grand master of Taiwan cinema, is one of the 20 directors from all over the world that the Cannes Film Festival invited to shoot a three-minute short film.

 

 

Each of the short films will explore the theme of "cinema" to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film festival.

 

Director Hou plans to renovate a baroque-style deserted theater in Tainan, southern Taiwan, for his film. The theater is the oldest one in Tainan and played silent films before the 1930s.

 

Taiwan actress Tsu Chi and actor Chang Chen will play a couple living in 1960s Taiwan.

 

This is the third time the two actors have played the lead roles in one of Hou's films. They have previously made Three Times, which won the Best Film Award at the 2005 Golden Horse Awards, as well as Millennium Mambo, the Grand Jury Prize winner at Cannes in 2001.

 

Hou is also expected to enter is latest film, a remake of French director Albert Lamorisse's Le Ballon Rouge, in the competition at the Cannes Film festival this year.

 

(CRI January 6, 2007)