At the closing ceremony of the Taipei Film Festival (TFF) last night, winners in the competition categories of the festival were announced and awarded their prizes. The main categories included local commercial releases, local independent releases, the Citizen Film and Video Competition and the Golden Lion International Student Film Festival.
The main event of the evening was the award of substantial cash prizes for the best achievements in independent film making -- films made without studio assistance and without commercial release. The Grand Prize of NT$1 million went to Birdland (
On receiving the prize, Huang told Taipei Times he would use the prize money to help repay debts accrued in the making of the NT$1.7 million feature about an illegal immigrant from China who first finds himself mistaken for another man and then finds an old lover while wandering about in Taipei.
Winners in other categories were awarded a cash prize of NT$200,000. Among the winners were Chen Hsin-yi (
And she wasn't (
In the commercial release category, the Best Film award went to Mirror Image (
The other winner of Most Promising Director this year was Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄) for his debut Sunny Doll (晴天娃), a film about high school life. Chen's most recent achievement was the script for Chang Chih-yung's (張志勇) Lament of Sand River (沙河悲歌), which was one of the dark horses to emerge from the Golden Horse this year.
The Citizen Film and Video Competition (
The Golden Lion Award for international student films went to Photographer by Alexander Kott, from Russia. The silver and bronze lion awards went to Night Course by Bui Thac Chuyen from Vietnam and The Magic Bell by Auriel Klimt from the Chech Republic, respectively.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
It sounded innocuous enough. On the morning of March 12, a group of Taichung political powerbrokers held a press conference in support of Deputy Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang’s (江啟臣) bid to win the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) primary in the Taichung mayoral race. Big deal, right? It was a big deal, one with national impact and likely sent shivers down the spine of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文). Who attended, who did not, the timing and the messaging were all very carefully calibrated for maximum impact — a masterclass in political messaging. In October last year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
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