Hsiao-hsien Hou

Born 1947, Meixian, Guangdong, China.
In 1948, his family moved to Taiwan. In 1969-72, Hou studied film at the National Taiwan Arts Academy. He began his film career as a scriptwriter and assistant director. Hou's films are often concerned with his experiences of growing up in rural Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s marked a time in which refugee families from the mainland were struggling painfully for survival, while the 1960s saw the beginning of the most significant social change in modern Taiwan. The economic boom of that period meant the beginning of Western-style industrialization. Hiou’s stories in a poetic yet relaxed style reflect a deep sympathy and a profound humanism. Of the ten films that he directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed as "one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema." Hou  was voted the most important director of the 1990s by the International Society of Cinèmathèques.

Filmography
The Boys from Fenkuei (1983), A Summer at Grandpa`s (Dongdong de jiaqi, 1984), A Time to Live, A Time to Die (Tong nien wang shi, 1985), Dust in the Wind (Lianlian fengchen, 1986), Daughter of the Nile (Niluohe nuer, 1987), A City of Sadness (Beiging chengshi, 1989), The Puppetmaster (Hsimeng jensheng, 1993), Good Men, Good Women (Haonan haonu, 1995), Goodbye South, Goodbye (Nanguo zaijian, nanguo, 1996), Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shan hua, 1998), Millennium Mambo (Qianxi manbo, 2001), Café Lumiere (Kohi jikou, 2004), Three Times (Zui hao de shi guang, 2005).