Since cinema is commonly accepted to be the most direct media through which to understand a region's culture, sociopolitical setting and ways of life, over the last five years, the Australian Commerce and Industry Office (ACIO) in Taipei has facilitated cultural contact between the two countries through free packages of old Aussie movies supplied by Australia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But this year, they decided to take things into their own hands and showcase some new productions.
"We selected five new feature films [three of them are Taiwan premieres] that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful so as to give local audiences the latest trend taking shape in Australian cinema," said Stephanie Tsai (蔡親儀) of ACIO's culture and media department. The films were also selected to provide something for audiences of different age groups.
Multiple award-winning film Look Both Ways and star-studded Candy are both geared to young adults. The debut of Sarah Watt, an acclaimed animation director, Look Both Ways blends live action and hand-drawn animation to tell an intelligent melodrama of three interconnected characters forced to come to terms with themselves after life-changing events that take place during a hot weekend.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY OFFICE
Taking a more sober look at life, Candy is a contemporary love story about two innocent lovers who spiral into heroin addication. The movie stars award-winning Abbie Cornish, Heath Ledger from Brokeback Mountain and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush and portrays addicts as people who's will to make something wonderful happen from apparently dull lives ends up destroying them.
Leaving the city behind, The Oyster Farmer is an idiosyncratic story about a desperate young urbanite hiding among an oyster farming community on the Hawkesbury River and winding up falling for the lifestyle through a series of encounters with a group of eccentrics. Darkly humorous, the film is also a cinematographic achievement that breathes life into Australia's stunning landscape.
Fancy a touch of magic in a familiar setting? Opal Dream, Oscar-nominated British director Peter Cattaneo's screen adaptation of the much-loved children's book Pobby and Dingan, is about a little girl and her two imaginary friends. For those interested in the life of teenagers from a typical suburban Australian family, Hating Alison Ashley is a coming-of-age flick about a young girl going through all the hardships of high school: fitting in, hating relatives, having a crush on the school bad boy and competing with the perfect girl.
Apart from the new direction in programming, ACIO has teamed up with Eslite Bookstore for the first time to provide for this mini film showcase. And according to Tsai, If the format goes down well, Tsai said, then ACIO would introduce more new Australian works in the future.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not