Image Museum in Hsinchu

Last weekend I finally checked out the Image Museum in Hsinchu. It is a very small film and photo museum, with a theater that has daily showings. The museum had a very small photo exhibit, some old photo and film equipment, an antique theater air-conditioning system, and some film memorabilia. Not much to get excited about, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the theater has daily showings of a variety of international films. Because the theater was in connection with the museum, I had always imagined that the theater would show only classic Chinese or Taiwanese films, inevitably without English subtitles. However, the theater has a variety of themed film festivals in progress, with contemporary movies from around the world. Judging by the theater's brochure, most or all of the movies are not actually projected from film, but are shown from DVDs, but with an admission price of NT$20, you can't complain. For registered Hsinchu residents, admission to regular film festivals is free.

Currently, the website for the museum is not being updated, but information on the upcoming showings is available at the Bureau of Cultural Affairs website. When I access the website of Taiwanese organizations, I usually try the English pages first, but like a choose-your-own adventure story, I often run into a dead end and have to start over, this time from the Chinese version, where the useful information is kept. If you download the Word file showing the detailed information on each themed film exhibition, you can see the English names of most of the movies. Or you can just pick up brochures at the museum.