After the Kaohsiung Film Festival (高雄電影節) changed tack to focus on wacky genre flicks and B movies three years ago, audience numbers jumped from 11,000 in 2007 to 23,000 in 2009, according to program director Huang Hao-jie (黃皓傑), who estimates that 20 percent of last year’s festivalgoers traveled from Taipei to attend the annual event.
In April this year, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (台北金馬影展) jumped on the bandwagon by launching a segment that also focuses on genre flicks, B movies and cult films.
Clearly the Kaohsiung Film Festival, now in its 10th year, is on to a winner.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KAOHSIUNG FILM FESTIVAL
This edition boasts an expanded lineup of more than 100 feature, animation, documentary and short films grouped into 15 sections, and focuses on erotic cinema, a genre not frequently found on Taiwan’s festival circuit.
Huang said the program is designed to challenge audiences.
On the more risque end of the spectrum is Destricted (2006), a compilation of short films made by seven provocative artists, including the whimsical multimedia artist Matthew Barney, screened in the festival’s Love and Eros section. The film’s scenes of unsimulated sex cross the line between art and pornography.
The festival is also screening Serbian films that explore the dark side of humanity.
As for the festival’s future direction, Huang envisions it as home to an international short film competition not unlike the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, an internationally recognized short film competition whose winning works automatically qualify for Academy Awards nominations.
But whether or not an international competition gets off the drawing board is up to the Kaohsiung City Government, which funds the festival and scrutinizes the program, Huang said.
After last year’s screenings of The 10 Conditions of Love, a documentary about exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, drew criticism from Beijing, the official attitude toward the festival is not as relaxed as in previous years.
“Controversial topics are good to talk about,” said Huang. “But government officials may come under pressure.”
The program director says official intervention is an inevitable burden that the film festival has to shoulder as it expands and attracts more attention.
“As the event grows, we are not simply curating a film festival. We need to start taking into account political factors ... The festival program is necessarily subject to negotiations between the different parties involved,” Huang said.
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