ACF 1528: Meeting and interviewing Giddens Ko & Michelle Chen

Giddens Ko, left, yous truly, and Michelle Chen

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of spending some time interviewing Giddens Ko and Michelle Chen. They were in town for the New York Premiere of You Are the Apple of My Eye (Taiwan, 2011) at the 2012 NY Asian Film Festival.

Giddens wrote the novel upon which his screenplay was based and also directed. The film just happens to be his first feature film, but it's done with such a sure hand and fine sense of narrative development and pacing that one would never suspect that. It's an autobiographical teen coming of age story set in Taiwan in the 1990s. Michelle portrays Shen Chia-yi, an exemplary high school student who becomes the focal point of the attention of several young male co-students.

Michelle received a well-deserved Star Asia Rising Star Award at the Sunday, July 1st screening which was packed, as was yesterday's screening which took place right after our talk. The final screening will be next Monday, July 9th at 12;30 PM, and as of now, some tickets are still available.

While neither Giddens nor Michelle will be at that screening, just seeing the film is well worth your time. First because it's a sweet, touching teen rom-com that Giddens intended as an apology to a girlfriend to whom he never said "Sorry." Secondly, it also happens to have been wildly successful in several major Asian markets, and if you see it you'll understand why.

Further info about the film and a link to order tickets can be found here.

I'm hoping that the full interview will be run soon as a special podcast at VCinema. If that doesn't work out, I'll be posting a transcription here at AsianCineFest. Stay tuned.