Of all the film festivals in Taiwan, Alternation Film Festival (交替影展) is the most unpredictable. Four years after its inaugural edition, the festival has returned and will showcase 34 short films and animations by emerging Taiwanese filmmakers at Spring Cinema Galaxy in Ximending starting today.
Why the wait? The festival screens short films made with subsidies issued annually by the Government Information Office (GIO), and it takes years before there are enough finished movies to make a presentable festival, according to the Chinese Taipei Film Archive (國家電影資料館), the event’s organizer.
All films are shown in the original 35mm or high-definition digital format. Many of them receive limited public exposure, so the free screenings are a good chance for taxpayers to see how the GIO is spending their money.
Among the highlights at the second Alternation Film Festival:
• Lin Shu-yu’s (林書宇) The Pain of Others (海巡尖兵). Lin made this short about cruelty in the military before helming his acclaimed feature debut, Winds of September (九降風).
• Waterfront Villa Bonita (水岸麗景) by Lou Yi-an (樓一安). This short examines the absurdity of urban life through the eyes of people living on the margins of society. Audiences may find a similar sensibility in Lou’s first full-length feature, A Place of One’s Own (一席之地), which hits the big screen next month.
• Ho Wi-ding’s (何蔚庭) technically polished black-and-white Summer Afternoon (夏午). Set inside a car, this short charts the capriciousness of emotion and desire between a man and two women with five masterfully executed long takes. Ho is currently working on his feature debut, Taipei Sunday (台北星期天), a film about Filipinos in Taiwan.
WHAT: Alternation Film Festival (交替影展)
WHEN: Today to Sept. 27. The festival will tour Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung from next month to December
WHERE: Spring Cinema Galaxy (絕色影城), 9F, 52 Hanzhong St, Taipei City (台北市漢中街52號9樓)
ADMISSION: Free
ON THE NET: alternation.pixnet.net/blog
Other films worth seeing include the surreal love story A Flight to Yesterday (飛往昨天的CI006) and The Tunnel (隧道), a lyrical take on a father-son relationship.
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