My New Friends

My New Friends

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Jan 1, 1995

Runtime

0h 56m

Genres

Documentary, TV Movie

Original Title

我新认识的朋友

Director

Tsai Ming-liang

Description

Tsai interrupted his pre-production for The River to make this pioneering documentary for Taiwan's nascent AIDS-awareness campaign. Ignoring instructions to 'play down the gay angle', he centres the film on his own very candid conversations with two HIV+ young men. Sadly the identities of the interviewees have to be concealed, and so the freewheeling camerawork focuses most often on Tsai himself; but the sense of rapport between the director and his 'new friends' is palpable and very moving, even to Western viewers already only too familiar with these issues.