Sonic Youth. Brutal backyard wrestling matches in suburban Southern California. American Indians getting kicked off their land — in the 21st century. Documentaries on these subjects are among the highlights of Urban Nomad Film Fest (城市游牧影展), which runs through May 9 at Taipei Artist Village, Paris Night Club and Nanhai Gallery.
Urban Nomad is an annual festival for experimental and digital film founded in 2002 by Taipei-based journalists David Frazier and Sean Scanlan. Much of the content is light-hearted shorts submitted by Taiwanese directors, while a significant portion of the international documentaries treat social and political topics. Each evening has two programs: a series of (mostly) Taiwanese shorts, and one international feature.
Last year more than 2,000 people attended Urban Nomad-related events, says Frazier, and the fest is becoming an important forum for young Taiwanese filmmakers, much as Spring Scream (春天吶喊) established itself as a rite of passage for up-and-coming bands, according to Tony Wu (吳俊輝), an experimental filmmaker and professor at Shi Hsin University.
“What young Taiwanese filmmakers do now is often very experimental,” says Wu, whose films have screened at each Urban Nomad since 2002 and more recently has helped produce festival segments. “Urban Nomad attracts young directors because most film festivals in Taiwan, such as Golden Horse and Taipei Film Festival, focus on narrative films and feature documentaries.”
One of the biggest draws this year is Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake, a 2008 documentary about indie-music legends Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon shot by a group of high school students given complete access to a concert in Reno, Nevada. It will show on May 2 at Taipei Artist Village, followed by a concert with Golden Horse nominees KbN (凱比鳥), and again on May 8 at Nanhai Gallery.
Tonight’s program at Taipei Artist Village begins at 7:30pm with Here Comes Greatness (2009), made by a couple of directors who spent seven years filming amateur backyard wrestling leagues in the Los Angeles area, where teenagers throw each other against barbed wire in makeshift rings littered with broken fluorescent lightbulbs and thumbtacks, and the blood and pile-drives are real.
Tomorrow’s program combines the serious (political documentaries from Singapore, China and Hong Kong and a panel on how Asian filmmakers hope to effect change, from 2pm at Taipei Artist Village) with the strange (Heavy Metal Jr, a documentary about a preteen Scottish metal band and their parents, then a party headlined by “Mississippi delta punk blues” one-man band Bob Log III, at Paris Night Club from 7:30pm and 10pm, respectively).
On Sunday at Taipei Artist Village, Wholphin editor-in-chief Brent Hoff will talk about what he looks for in short films and how his DVD magazine is creating a market for them. Hoff’s talk is at 3pm and will be followed by a viewing of American Outrage, which tells the story of elderly Shoshone sisters who have been fighting the US government and gold mining corporations over attempts to expropriate land from their ranch.
Also this Sunday: a Q&A with Hong Kong’s Fredie Chan (陳浩倫) and a screening of his film about a group of citizen journalists detained by Japanese authorities en route to protest the 2008 G8 Summit. Rounding out the evening will be a nightcap of eight shorts.
And that’s just the beginning. Check the Web site at urbannomadfilmfest.blogspot.com for comprehensive information in English and Chinese about the movies, bands and other events. All films at Urban Nomad are subtitled for English and Chinese speakers.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist