Girls' School

Director: Lee Mi-mi

1982 / 91min / DCP

Best friends Chih-ting and Chia-lin (Tien Niu and Jean Shen), classmates at an all-girls high school, find themselves the subjects of unwanted scrutiny when a rumor begins making the rounds that the inseparable duo are in fact a couple in this, the final installment of Lee’s Taiwanese Urban Women trilogy, a film that appeared when even the mention of homosexuality was all but taboo in the national cinema. A nimbly directed portrait of a community gradually poisoned by blind prejudice and a relationship passing through a trial by fire that owes not a little to Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, from a major figure in Taiwanese cinema who has yet to receive her due credit as a pioneer.