Another wave of film festivals
Taipei Times, Taiwan
29 Oct. 2004
The South Taiwan Film and Video Festival, and the second anniversary
film festival of SPOT — Taipei Film House are coming up
By Yu Sen-lun
STAFF REPORTER
The South Taiwan Film and Video Festival is quenching the thirst of
South Taiwan movie-goers for art-house movies.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TAINAN ARTS UNIVERSITY
November is autumn and the start of Taiwan’s movie season. Raising the
curtain for a string of movie events is The South Taiwan Film and Video
Festival («n¤è¼v®i), and the second anniversary film festival for SPOT
— Taipei Film House (¥úÂI¥x¥_).
Later this month, Nov. 24, there is the annual Taipei Golden Horse Film
Festival (¥x¥_ª÷°¨¼v®i), the biggest film festival of Taiwan. In
December it is the Golden Horse Awards (ª÷°¨¼ú).
The South Taiwan Film and Video Festival starts next Tuesday in
Kaohsiung and is a festival aiming to balance the fact that most
art-house films are from Taipei.
Fifty feature-length films will be touring three south Taiwan cities —
Kaohsiung, Tainan and Chiayi. It can be seen as the largest film event
in Southern Taiwan.
The main feature this year at the festival is its collection of Chinese
independent movies made by young filmmakers, directors even younger
than the so-called Gen Z filmmakers.
Incense (»¤õ) by Ning Hao (¹ç¯E) tells about a young monk’s journey
raising money in the city to repair an old and damaged Buddha
statue.Good Morning Beijing (¦¦w¥_¨Ê) by Pan Jianlin (¼ï¼CªL) is about
an abduction one night in the back alleys of Beijing. Tang Poetry
(ð¸Ö) tells about a thief’s personal transition after finding out he
suffers from muscular dystrophy and is forced to change his
“profession.” Raw quality and low budgets are the main features of
these Chinese independent movies.
The South Taiwan Film Festival will screen documentaries that have
recently made headlines. Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s Arayat, a
drama looking at the historical truth of the Armenian genocide, and
Blackboard, a humorous story about the deficit of education in Iran’s
mountain area, will both come back to the silver screen for southern
Taiwanese movie fans.
Meanwhile, in Taipei, next Tuesday is also the opening day for a film
festival — the My Camera Film Festival (·í§Ú³Û¥X¶}³Á©Ô), celebrating
the two-year anniversary of SPOT — Taipei Film House.
The first feature of the festival is a mini retro screening of director
Cheng Wen-tang’s (¾G¤å°ó) films. Cheng is a filmmaker who gained fame
along with the growth of SPOT in the past two years.
His Venice film festival award-winning dramaSomewhere Over the
Dreamland (¹Ú¤Û³¡¸¨) was premiered at SPOT two years ago. The mini
retro will showcase Cheng’s previous works, when he was a documentary
maker in the 1980s and 1990s focusing on political issues and
environmental protection.
The Days Without the Government (¨S¦³¬F©²ªº¤é¤l, 1987) tells about a
200-day long protest by employees of a chemical factory banding
together because of the dumping of chemical waste into the nearby
river. The Contract with Tso-shui River (¿B¤ô·Ëªº«´¬ù, 1999) is a
documentary dwelling on the past glory days of Taiwan longest river.
Another theme of the festival is to show the winning films of past
winners at Taipei film festivals. Taipei Film Festival serves to
discover talents among Taiwanese filmmakers.
The Taipei Film Awards have in the past two years become a dream award
of young filmmakers seeking recognition apart from the more mainstream
Golden Horse Awards.
But after winning the awards, most filmmakers find it difficult to
screen their films because Taiwan is short of art-house movie theaters.
SPOT, as Taiwan’s first arts movie theater, offers the opportunity for
moviegoers to appreciate the independent spirit of the winning films.
Tickets for both the South Taiwan Film Festival and the My Camera Film
Festival are available from the Web site:
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress