Film Screening of The Receptionist with Q&A with Director Jenny Lu

Jenny Lu

Synopsis

THE RECEPTIONIST is a drama based on an illegal massage parlour in London, and follows the lives of the employees and clients as seen through the eyes of a Taiwanese graduate employed as a receptionist.

Unable to find a job, Tina, a Taiwanese recent graduate living in London, starts working in an illegal massage parlour as a receptionist. As she gradually comes to know the women in this most dysfunctional of artificial families, where sex lies at the core of everything, she sees how they struggle to find a way to make their lives work, with an undercurrent of violence and danger always lurking.

Speaker Bio

Jenny Lu has written and directed ‘The Man who Walked on the Moon' (2014) (Winner of Best Fantasy Award for Amsterdam International Film Festival 2015, selected for London Short Film Festival 2015, Reykjavik International Film Festival 2014, Kaohsiung International Film Festival 2014 and TCIF3 International Film Festival 2014). Her feature film script, ‘The Receptionist’, won the Best Screenplay Award in Taiwan in 2014. The film ‘The Receptionist’ had its international screening in Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017. The film has been nominated for ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Actress’ for Milan International Film Awards and ‘Best Feature film’ for Salento International Film Festival 2017. Jenny Lu was the winner of ‘Best Emerging Director, Narrative Fiction’ award at the 40th Asian American International Film Festival, New York in 2017. The film has also been screening in Durban International Film Festival, Raindance and London East Asian Film Festival this year. ‘The Receptionist has just won Best Film Award in 2017 Sochi International Film Festival & Awards in Russia.

All SOAS CTS events and free and open to members of the public without prior registration. You simply need to sign in at reception on the day and they will direct you to the venue.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: lr27@soas.ac.uk