The Taiwan Pride Parade is coming up soon, but the government-sponsored LGBT Civil Rights Movement (台北同玩節) is leading the way this week with the LGBT Film Festival. The organization will hold screenings and forums on LGBT issues this weekend at the Red Playhouse (紅樓劇場) in Ximending (西門町).
Unlike the parade, which is privately funded, the LGBT event is sponsored by the Taipei City Department of Civil Affairs (台北市政府民政局) and the organizers believe it's their responsibility to address the general public, rather than the LGBT community alone.
"Since we are working within the public system, it's our duty to educate the public about civil rights and provide a forum that brings citizens closer to homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender citizens," said Wang Ping (王蘋), secretary-general of the Gender and Sexuality Rights Association in Taiwan (GSRAT, 台灣性別人權協會), the event's organizer.
Twelve movies intended to promote understanding of different lifestyles will be screened as part of the event. The organizer believes that cinema is not only an efficient tool of communication but also a universal medium accepted and enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.
The self-exploration, coming-of-age theme returns in Formula 17 (17歲的天空) and Blue Gate Crossing (藍色大門). Transgender and transgender parenting issues are brought up in Boys Don't Cry and Transamerica, while the gay family is examined in Saving Face and Bear Cub. A variety of sexual orientations is played out in Better Than Chocolate, while Kinsey takes a look at the life of an influential American scholar of human sexuality.
Taiwanese and homosexual directors Zero Chou (周美玲) and Mickey Chen (陳俊志) will hold discussion sessions after screenings of their latest works Meikou, Shuilien and Chukao (妹狗、水蓮與竹篙) and Friends Wanted Along the Coastal Line (沿海岸線徵友).
From tomorrow to Sunday, four LGBT-related issues deemed most significant in Taiwanese society will be discussed in depth among invited groups. Representatives from Gin Gin Bookstore (晶晶書庫) and Must Muster Publisher (集合出版社) will examine the discrimination inherent in censorship: a high proportion of gay publications are labeled as adult material.
Rarely receiving attention, even within the LGBT community, issues of bisexuality will be tackled by the newly founded bisexual support group Bi the Way. Meanwhile, repressed, stigmatized and concealed sexual desires will be the focus of a seminar by GSRAT and the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS) (日日春關懷互助協會).
Activities aside, this year's venue has a special meaning to the gay community. The Red Playhouse used to be a popular gay hangout in the 1970s and has been regarded as an historical landmark and part of the collective memory of the community.
"Of course, such pieces of history are omitted from the official record. By holding the event here, we subtly point out the omission," Wang said.
With its funding reduced every year - from NT$1 million eight years ago, to NT$600,000 this year - and a change in city administration, the LGBT Civil Rights Movement sees a precarious future, according to Wang.
"The subsidization was part of the gay-friendly policy implemented by Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修) [director of Taipei's Bureau of Civil Affairs during Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) administration]. As these issues are relatively unfamiliar to the new administration of Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), we do wonder how much support we can get from the city government," Wang said.
Towering high above Taiwan’s capital city at 508 meters, Taipei 101 dominates the skyline. The earthquake-proof skyscraper of steel and glass has captured the imagination of professional rock climber Alex Honnold for more than a decade. Tomorrow morning, he will climb it in his signature free solo style — without ropes or protective equipment. And Netflix will broadcast it — live. The event’s announcement has drawn both excitement and trepidation, as well as some concerns over the ethical implications of attempting such a high-risk endeavor on live broadcast. Many have questioned Honnold’s desire to continues his free-solo climbs now that he’s a
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
Lines between cop and criminal get murky in Joe Carnahan’s The Rip, a crime thriller set across one foggy Miami night, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Damon and Affleck, of course, are so closely associated with Boston — most recently they produced the 2024 heist movie The Instigators there — that a detour to South Florida puts them, a little awkwardly, in an entirely different movie landscape. This is Miami Vice territory or Elmore Leonard Land, not Southie or The Town. In The Rip, they play Miami narcotics officers who come upon a cartel stash house that Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon)
Today Taiwanese accept as legitimate government control of many aspects of land use. That legitimacy hides in plain sight the way the system of authoritarian land grabs that favored big firms in the developmentalist era has given way to a government land grab system that favors big developers in the modern democratic era. Articles 142 and 143 of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution form the basis of that control. They incorporate the thinking of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in considering the problems of land in China. Article 143 states: “All land within the territory of the Republic of China shall
RSS