“My mother, my sister and I left my father’s home to start a better life without him when I was ten years old. Because of this, I haven’t been able to go to school in Taiwan. The education that I did receive was mostly from work, great people I met during my upbringing, but also a lot from television. In Taiwan, we have some great cable TV channels that educate viewers. One of those channels was HBO which is where I learned my English from. Besides that I love movies. Especially Almodovar films. I learned a lot as well from watching movies. Not just knowledge, but also how movies and documentaries are structured. Ever since I had a camera -the Sony TRV 500- of my own I would film a lot of images of my family, daily life and of my mother. As from 2014 I thought it was time to call in a group of cinematographers and filmmakers to help me with a documentary that I needed to make. It is called Ri Chang Dui Hua | Small Talk (2016) and it’s about my wish to understand my mother. She was never at home, always out and about with her girlfriends instead and I always knew that she is a lesbian. The film consists of the images I filmed from 1998 to 2014 and the images from my crew film after 2014. It’s all pure coincidence how it fits all perfectly. I guess that is the magic of post-production and I’m very happy with the outcome.” – Hui-Chen Huang.
Photo and story by Feargal Agard.
“What an achievement! So many people are trying to become a filmmaker of either films or documentaries. They pay tremendous amounts of money to get into the best film schools and still struggle to make a film after graduation. But Hui-Chen Huang just did it! What a true inspiration!” – Feargal Agard.
