This year’s festival shines the spotlight on the surging international enthusiasm for fantasy cinema that deals with the weird, subversive, erotic and fantastical. This category includes major winners at Europe’s most prestigious fantasy film festival, Spain’s Festival de Cine de Sitges, such as Surveillance, Eden Lake, Let the Right One In and Chaser.
As there is no international animation film festival in Taiwan this year, the Golden Horse has expanded its animation program by featuring Russia’s animation luminary Aleksandr Petrov, as well as changing its popular international digital short competition to a digital animation competition, which selected and will screen 21 shorts out of 183 entries from around the world.
Having made five shorts (all will be screened at the festival) during his 20-year career to date, internationally acclaimed Petrov is best known for his paint-on-glass animation, a technique that requires delicate artistry and meticulous procedure. Petrov seeks inspiration from literary greats such as Ernest Hemingway, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev. Amalgamating the classical ethos with stupendous imagination and visual splendor, his sublime art leaves an indelible impression on viewers.
The reclusive Petrov is scheduled to discuss his works in person.
For festival regulars and film buffs, Golden Horse is screening the latest works by Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Ermanno Olmi and Philippe Garrel.
World cinema films in the festival lineup include Tunisian-born director Abdel Kechiche’s award-winning The Secret of the Grain, which stands out for its handheld cinematography and tells a cross-cultural story of a Franco-Arabic family, and Cannes-winning Gomorra, a violent adaptation of the book of the same title by Italian journalist Roberto Saviano, who is threatened by mafia godfathers and granted a permanent police escort for uncovering the Camorra’s machinations in Naples and Caserta.
The first French production to walk home with the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 20 years, The Class utilizes a unique storytelling approach. Entirely set behind the school gate, the film explores the state of public education in France through a high school teacher’s struggle with his students of mixed cultural and social backgrounds. Director Laurent Cantet is scheduled to hold a question-and-answer session at the festival.
Fifty screenings have already sold out and advanced ticket sales exceeded a record-breaking NT$10 million two weeks ahead of the festival.
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