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.
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Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
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