Do you know the connection between your mobile phone and the ongoing civil war in Congo? Or are you aware that half of the food produced worldwide ends up in garbage bins?
If not, then the Best of INPUT 2011, which is hosted by the Public Television Service (公共電視台, PTS), will be an enlightening experience as this year’s edition of the annual showcase features 10 public television programs selected for their challenging viewpoints and daring explorations from eight countries,.
The Best of INPUT event is part of the activities organized by the International Public Television (INPUT) organization, which PTS is partnered with. Initiated in 1977 by a group of program-makers in Europe as an international voluntary body that supports television as a public service, INPUT organizes many activities throughout the year, the most important of which is an influential screening conference that aims to encourage new and courageous television program-making. Some 80 works selected from about 300 entries are screened at the conference each year, and are also made available to INPUT partners who want to hold Mini INPUT or Best of INPUT events in their own countries.
Photo courtesy of PTS
“Being the only one of its kind, INPUT does not select the best productions. We want to show works worth debating and discussing in terms of innovation, the issues presented and television program-making methods and techniques,” said director of PTS’ international department Lin Le-chun (林樂群), who served on INPUT’s selection committee from 2004 to 2006.
A good example of innovative broadcasting is veteran Polish director Andrzej Fidyk’s Yodok Stories, a revealing documentary about life in Yodok, one of the biggest concentration camps in North Korea. Since no camera crew has ever been allowed to film in Yodok, where people are routinely subjected to torture, rape and starvation, Fidyk tracks down the very few North Korean defectors who have escaped from the camp and inspires them to create a Broadway-style musical that tells their stories.
Another authoritarian regime is unmasked and examined in Love, Hate and Propaganda. Produced by Jim Williamson from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the documentary reveals how Adolf Hitler and his regime successfully mobilized the German population for war through propaganda, including the Nazi-controlled press, which portrayed the invasion of Poland as a defensive war, and through films such as The Eternal Jew (1940), which viciously derides Jews as vermin.
Photo courtesy of PTS
For his investigative documentary work Blood in the Mobile, Frank Piasecki Poulsen of Denmark embarks on a life-threatening journey to Congo, where he witnesses the brutal working conditions in the country’s largest tin mine, which is controlled by various armed groups. Working for next to nothing, children are seen toiling in mine tunnels digging out the minerals that end up in cellphones that are sold around the world.
In Fresh From the Trash, German director Valentin Thurn travels through Western Europe and the US to show us why bananas grown in Cameroon are transported thousands of kilometers to Paris and thrown away before they reach supermarket shelves, and how the merchants’ strict rules regarding the size, shape and even color of vegetables lead to the waste of massive amounts of food.
As a self-reflexive experiment, The Game of Death by Thomas Bornot from France sets out to explore television as an authoritative figure in today’s world by re-enacting the 1960s Milgram experiment in the form of a reality game show.
Photo courtesy of PTS
Meanwhile, humanity is quietly meditated on in the slow-paced, beautifully crafted Village Without Women, by Srdjan Sarenac. With nine years of filmmaking experience in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia under his belt, Sarenac follows three Serbian bachelor brothers living in the village of Zabrdje, which is devoid of females. The oldest brother decides to find a bride in Albania, despite the fact that the three brothers once fought against the country.
The Best of INPUT 2011 is being held in Kaohsiung this weekend and will move to Taipei in two weeks. Directors Sarenac and Thurn will attend question-and-answer sessions after screenings in Kaohsiung, while filmmakers Bornot and Williamson will discuss their works with audiences in Taipei.
Admission to the event is free. Tickets are handed out 30 minutes before each screening. For more information, visit the event’s bilingual Web site at 2011bestinput.pts.org.tw.
Photo courtesy of PTS
Photo courtesy of PTS
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
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located