Asian-American International Film Festival ‘05

BUTTERFLY (Wu Die)

Friday, July 29 at 9:30pm, Sunday, July 31 at 9pm

From Taiwan, a beautiful and erotic coming-of-age story about a young mother coming to grips with her lesbian identity. Filmmaker Yan Yan Mak based this beautiful and erotic film on Taiwanese Chen Hsuah’s short story The Mark of the Butterfly. At age 30 school teacher Flavia (Josie Ho) leads a happily settled family life: she loves her husband and young child. Then impulsively she saves a stunning young woman from being caught shoplifting. Her sensuous beauty reawakens long suppressed memories of her passionate college love affair with a beautiful young woman. Flavia is powerfully drawn to Yip, a free-spirited singer who is comfortable with her lesbian identity. Flavia has to come to terms with her passionate desire for Yip, played by Tian Yuan, a mainland Chinese singer-songwriter making her film acting debut, and the stable life as wife and mother. Like the developing butterfly, Flavia seeks to leave the confines of the cocoon for the freedom to be herself.

(Hong Kong | 2004 | 124min | Cantonese w/English subtitles | dir. Yan Yan Mak)