Chichester Cinema at New Park
Spider Lilies
Ci Qing
CHICHESTER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
(A 22nd London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Tour Presentation)
Zero Chou (Corners - LLGFF 2004) returns to the Festival with this offbeat romance. Shifting between past and present, the imagined and the real, ‘Spider Lilies’ sets traditional themes of family obligation and fate in a candy coloured world of internet chatrooms and tattoo parlours.
‘Webgirl’ Jade literally creates fantasy in a soft-core chatroom. Her interest in a particular tattoo, designed by gentle artist Takeko, is the catalyst for change in both women’s lives, unearthing past secrets and awakening hidden desires. Winner of the 2007 Berlinale Teddy Award, Chou is a distinctive young voice in lesbian cinema.
Li Min, orphaned by an earthquake, has an affinity with flowers and granted the chance to study with a renowned botanist, she moves to the home he shares with his daughter, Chan An. Hidden in the seclusion of the botanical garden the young women fall tentatively and tenderly in love but they cannot be openly together and plans for a shared future put their fragile existence under threat.
Set in the early nineties in rural China, this tragic story was inspired by real events, but in the end it is the loveliness of the gardens and the enduring nature of the women’s love that lingers. (Subtitles)
(Tickets £7)
Taiwan · 2007 · Zero Chou · 94min
