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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

John Hsu

John HSU (1981, Taiwan) obtained his master’s degree in the department of Radio, Television and Film at Shih Hsin University. His first TV film, Real Online, was awarded Best Fiction Film at the 2005 South Taiwan Film & Video Festival. It also earned him the Best Director Award at Golden Bell Awards, the biggest television award in Taiwan. Hsu is co-founder of AFK PL@YERS, the biggest machinima production group in Taiwan. Several of his short films have previously screened at IFFR. Detention is his first feature film. Hsu has a special interest in digital culture, video games, comedy and science fiction.

Filmografie

(selection) Server #15 (2005, short), Ching teng jou hsien shih/Real Online (2005, TV), Good Evening the Horde (2006, short), Azeroth Movie Top3 (2006, short), Thrall’s Christmas Tree (2007, short), The Patchie Chronicles (2007, short), Intoxicant (2008, short), Wrath of a Couch Potato (2008, short), Major League Azeroth (2009, short), Cataclysm Millionaire (2010, short), Cataclysm on a Couch Potato (2011, short), After Dark (2011, short), Quest Busters (2011, short), Anton Pourquoi: No Reroll EP1-EP3 (2012, short), Hsiao ching hsin da bao cha/The Great Escape from Café City (2013, short), A ba de tien chi yu bao/Weather Report of the End (2015, short), Your Spiritual Temple Sucks (2017, short), Fan shiao/Detention (2019)

More info: Wikipedia, John Hsu

John Hsu at IFFR

  • Real Online

    Hilarious virtual comedy. For the screening at the festival, the Chinese pirate copy of YouTube has been removed. Entirely in the spirit of the film t

    • Cinema of the Future: Sturm und Drang

  • Intoxicant

    Imaginative political satire. Whether the source of the satire can be followed so far from Taiwan remains to be seen, but it’s stunning.

    • Spectrum Shorts

  • The Great Escape from Café City

    Airy parody of everything airy in films, commercials and games. Boy-meets-girl with coffee. Hilarious, clever and consciously a little silly.

    • Spectrum Shorts

  • Detention

    China’s occupation of Taiwan takes on nightmarish logic in this psychological horror film.

    • Rotterdämmerung

  • Weather Report of the End

    Bizarrely funny, small science-fiction film. Meteors and monsters determine the rough weather. The special effects are of an endearingly retro quality

    • As Long As It Takes: Short

  • After Dark

    The filmmaker’s muse, Hannah Lin, as an almost blind masseuse. Why doesn’t she want to be cured? What is so comforting about the dark?

    • Spectrum Shorts