In 1949, the Nationalist government retreated from Mainland China to Taiwan, bringing along an army of 60,000 people. My father was one of them. They thought they would be returning to the Mainland before long. But it was not for another forty years before cross-strait talks are reopened. Unable to return home, these people are lost in their special way. A silver hairpin belonging to my grandmother allowed me to walk into my father's world, and to discover the deep reminiscence of these old veterans.

Grandma's Hairpin

Richly illustrated with film clips and interviews, OUR TIME, OUR STORY tells the still-evolving story of the Taiwanese "new wave," from its rise in the early 1980s, as the island was democratizing after decades under martial law, through growing international recognition and domestic debate in the 1990s. Spearheaded in its early years by such filmmakers as Edward Yang, Ko I-cheng, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wan Jen, the movement revitalized Taiwan cinema through low-budget experiments that emphasized personal stories, political reflection and stylistic invention. Said filmmakers, writers and actors like Wu Nien-jen and Sylvia Chang, even "second wave" directors Tsai Ming-liang and Lin Cheng-sheng provide fond reminiscences and retrospective insights in this compelling account of one of the most distinctive national cinemas of the last quarter-century.