A Hong Kong distributor has withdrawn a Chinese-made film from Taiwan's annual Golden Horse Film Festival, a Taiwanese official said on Tuesday, apparently under pressure from mainland officials.
A festival official said he was informed by the Hong Kong office of film distributor Fortissimo that Chinese authorities did not want the film The Go Master (吳清源) to be shown at the event.
Chang Chen (張震), who plays the strategy game master in the film, was nominated last month for best actor at the festival and was considered a front-runner for the award.
PHOTOS: AP
Beijing routinely bans Chinese films from the Taiwan-hosted Mandarin-language movie festival because of its long-standing political feud with the island.
Organizers and government officials officially launched Tuesday in Taipei the final 10-day countdown to the 2006 Taipei TV and Film Festival (TTF), the largest TV and film festival in Asia.
The annual festival, which will be from Thursday through next Saturday, includes three major events — the Taipei International TV, Film and Digital Contents Exhibition (TFCOM), the Taipei International Digital TV, Broadcasting and Film Forum and the Taiwan Film and TV Project Promotion.
"In only its third year, the festival has surpassed three major TV festivals in China and established a leading position in Asia, " said Lai Kuo-chou (賴國洲), chairman and CEO of Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV), the main organizer.
There will be more than 650 booths set up by 75 companies from 10 countries at the TFCOM, to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center, Lai said.
Licensing deals signed this year are expected to surpass NT$157.5 million, up from last year's US$3.5 million, according to Government Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦).
The festival has been integrated by the GIO with the Golden Horse Awards and the Golden Bell Awards, into the Taiwan International Film and TV Expo, which runs Nov. 8 through Nov. 25.
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie said she accepted a role in the movie, A Mighty Heart, now shooting in western Indian city Mumbai, because she felt there should be dialogue between different cultures and faiths, news reports said.
"We are all from different backgrounds, even people on the panel and characters in the film," which is based on the life of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Jolie told news agency IANS.
Jolie, who is playing Mariane Pearl, Daniel's wife in the film, flew into the city last week after over a month of shooting in Pune city, about 150km south-east of western Maharashtra state's capital Mumbai, where her bodyguards hogged the limelight by allegedly threatening and manhandling press photographers.
The actress and her partner Hollywood actor Brad Pitt and their three children have been under intense media scrutiny ever since they landed in India early last month.
The film A Mighty Heart is based on the book written by Mariane, deals with her husband who worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and was abducted and killed in Pakistan four years ago.
Oscar-winning actor-director Warren Beatty will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at next year's Golden Globes, organizers announced Wednesday.
Beatty, 69, will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award in recognition of a glittering movie career that has seen him direct or star in several classics including Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Reds and Heaven Can Wait.
Previous winners of the award, which is decided by a vote of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), include Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson.
Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson has agreed to .a deal to make a film about his life, the movie industry daily Variety reported Wednesday.
Wilson, the lead songwriter of the legendary California-based 1960s supergroup, has signed an agreement with producer Mark Gordon for a biopic, according to Variety.
"I love the idea of there being a movie on my life, and I can't wait to see the script," Wilson was quoted by Variety as saying.
Wilson was responsible for some of the seminal songs of American rock music in the 1960s, including Surfin' USA, Good Vibrations and Help Me Rhonda. The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is regularly cited as one of the most influential American albums ever.
Wilson had a turbulent life. Deaf in one ear and bullied by an abusive father, he eventually suffered from depression, drug addiction and a nervous breakdown.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located