Kuo Ming-jung (郭敏容), the new program director of the Taipei Film Festival (TFF, 台北電影節), says she doesn’t want to make her mark by introducing structural changes out of respect for the audience who have grown familiar with the annual event, now in its 16th year. It is true that when one looks at this year’s festival, which distinguishes itself by focusing on the cinema of different countries and new filmmaking talents from around the world, nothing seems to have changed. But a closer look reveals an endeavor to challenge conventions and be spontaneous and experimental.
The conventional way people view films, for example, is challenged in the section titled Captives: Watching Animals, Watching Us, which contains several non-fiction works Kuo has seen in recent years and found intriguing, but was unable to fit into the regular categorization.
“In comprehensive film festivals like the Golden Horse and TFF, few attempts are made to introduce films using a concept. P.O.P Cinema [a film showcase at Spot — Taipei Film House] used to do it, but it was for a small niche audience ... I would like to bring something experimental to the big festival. I think that audiences in Taiwan, especially in Taipei, are mature enough, and you really don’t need to rely on popular films to attract them,” Kuo told the Taipei Times.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Film Festival
The selected works all shed a different light on the relations between animals and humans. In Masked Monkey — The Evolution of Darwin’s Theory, wild monkeys are captured and taken to the slums of Jakarta to entertain. Both wearing masks during the spectacular monkey shows, the animals and their trainers seem similar in that they are all subject to exploitation as they struggle to survive on the street.
The act of looking between observers (humans) and the observed (animals) is further contested and blurred in Bestiaire by Canadian director Denis Cote, a meditative portrait of humans and non-humans at a Quebec safari park.
A DIFFERENT SENSIBILITY
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Film Festival
Cote, one of the directors in focus at this year’s festival, is another example of the new direction under Kuo’s leadership. Deemed as one of Canada’s daring auteurs, the Quebec-based director is known for using formal experimentation to create a contemplative cinematic landscape, exploring new ways of seeing through traversing the boundaries between fiction and documentary. The director’s debut feature Drifting States in 2005 already shows a distinctive aesthetic as the genre-bending work follows the voyage of a fictional character into an arctic town to weave together a compelling tale of alienation and isolation.
Wondering if the unique sensibility in Cote’s films can be understood and interpreted by a Taiwanese audience, Kuo, who studied European cinema in the UK for six years, says there is a distinct difference in preferences and tastes between the audience in Taiwan and Europe.
“As the gatekeeper, we [the curators] would more or less filter out films that we think Taiwanese audiences wouldn’t understand or feel familiar with. This is not to say that we would block them altogether. We would introduce few of such films at a time. The works I choose naturally reflect my own sensibility, and it remains to be seen if the audience will accept them or not,” Kuo says.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Film Festival
Cote will hold a question-and-answer session after the screening of Bestiaire on Tuesday.
POLISH CINEMA
This year’s national spotlight is on Poland, featuring old classics such as the digitally restored A Year of the Quiet Sun by Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda‘s Ashes and Diamonds as well as contemporary works made in the past five years. New films are chosen to reflect the recent development of Polish cinema, as Kuo tries to bring in perspectives from film professionals in Poland in terms of how they view their own films and which works and filmmakers they deem important to the development of the national cinema.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Film Festival
“If we choose films based on whether they are comprehensible to a local audience, we run the risk of the movies not reflecting that nation’s cinema ... When you try to introduce a national cinema, especially one that appears unfamiliar, you want to consider how the films are related to the country and its people,” she adds.
Suicide Room, for example, is selected not merely for its innovative combination of live action and animation to focus on a teenager seeking solace in virtual reality. Its creator, Jan Komasa, whose name keeps popping up in Kuo’s conversations with her Polish colleagues, has quickly become an important figure in the country’s film circles, especially with his upcoming epic project that takes a critical look at the Polish resistance Home Army’s attempt to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany, known as the Warsaw Uprising.
As Kuo observes, there is a resurgence of interest in the country’s national history among Polish directors. A 1941 massacre of the Jewish population in a Polish village by their Catholic neighbors forms the backstory of Aftermath, while Ida is a period drama set in 1961, during the Stalinist dictatorship , and follows the journey of two women to rediscover their Jewish roots.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Film Festival
Noted for exploring corruption, Wojciech Smarzowski’s Rose tells a love story between a former Polish army officer and a German soldier’s widow at the end of World War II.
“What is happening in Poland? Why do they now keep trying to examine their national history and to challenge the glorious past? And there is not just one director doing it, but many. This is what I find interesting,” Kuo says.
Apart from film screenings, the festival will host lectures, panel discussions and workshops by film professionals including Taiwan’s emerging auteur Midi Z (趙德胤) and Polish festival director Michal Chacinski. Filmmakers for each selected work at the international competition will meet audiences and hold question-and-answer sessions. For more information, go to the event’s Web site at www.taipeiff.org.tw.
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