Leste Chen, a heavy-set kid in baggy jeans and black-rimmed glasses, looks like a typical university student. Born in 1981, he is currently working on a degree in commercial design at Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU), but has already made a number of short films and music videos for the likes of Jasmine Liang and Mayday. His first feature film was 2005's The Heirloom.

Chen has been a lifelong movie lover, but it was a film festival he attended while still in high school that really opened his eyes to the medium's possibilities. The festival's screenings of Pedro Almodovar's Todo Sobre Mi Madre and Lars von Trier's Idioterne showed him there were other ways to move audiences than Hollywood's big-budget, big-name-cast, big-effects approach to filmmaking.

Making a movie isn't nearly as hard as people imagine. Chen made his first film while preparing to retake Taiwan's university entrance exam. He shot it on digital video without the guidance of a teacher, then used the completed project to apply to the commercial design program at CYCU.

When he first started making movies, Chen viewed the medium simply as a space in which to exercise his visual creativity. Once he entered university, he began shooting short films and music videos to pick up extra cash. In his junior year, he won a NT$1 million short-film grant from the Government Information Office and shot the 72-minute Uninhibited on 16-millimeter film. The film, which dealt with life, love and death from the perspective of a group of Taiwanese young people, was a Venice Film Festival selection.

When Chen decided to collaborate with Michelle Yeh of Three Dots Entertainment on his next film, it seemed only natural--Yeh has been a fan of Chen's work from the first, and Chen had admired her company's promotion of the film Formula 17. Even so, the project required some negotiations to get off the ground. Three Dots wanted to make a genre picture, but Chen's films tend to move slowly. After some give and take, an idea began to take shape--a slow-moving ghost film that really emphasized the atmosphere. Having hit upon a concept that suited Chen's style, The Heirloom was ready to be born.

In theory, the director is the authority figure on a film set. Chen, however, was also the youngest person on The Heirloom's set. Fortunately, noted Hong Kong cinematographer Kwan Pun-leong was working on the project as well. Kwan's status and experience enabled him to lend a hand guiding the crew.

Chen's background in and eye for design showed when it came time to shoot the film. He chose Taipei's Sungshan Tobacco Factory and the old Taiwan Railway Administration dormitories as locations for the cursed family's compound, and was meticulous about the production design. As a result, his film has a wonderfully creepy atmosphere and looks great in spite of its lack of a special effects budget.

"What distinguishes one movie from another isn't whether it's arty or commercial," says Chen, "but whether you enjoy it or not." Chen himself claims not to have a favorite type of film. "I see everything," he says. But though he has attracted notice for The Heirloom and enjoys genre films, what he really wants to make movies about are the lives of people his own age.

Chen admits that he can't stand the movies of the previous generation of Taiwanese directors, complaining that they always make today's teens too dark and pessimistic. "It's as if they want young people to self-destruct!" he exclaims.

In his second film, Acappella, he took up the topic of teens himself. Financed by Flash Forward Entertainment, the film offers what Chen hopes is a fresh perspective on youth. Huang is also financing Chen's third film, a supernatural thriller called Resurrection for which he plans to raise US$4 million.