When the Urban Nomad Film Fest (城市游牧影展) started out as a party among friends in 2002, few would expect it to last. Fifteen years after, the annual festival has grown to become an important cultural event, where people come to share, engage and have fun through a series of film screenings, discussions and parties.
As in the past, this year’s festival features some of the most hilarious and thought-provoking indie films, covering topics ranging from art and youth subcultures to activism and social justice.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM
Photo courtesy of Urban Nomad Film Festival
US-based Chinese director Wang Nanfu’s (王男?) Hooligan Sparrow exposes government surveillance and corruption in China.
Following the screening on May 21, Wang will discuss the difficulties human rights activists in China face — government interrogation, harassment, imprisonment — as well as her own run-ins with authorities.
Act and activism go hand in hand in Art War, which follows four young Egyptian graffiti artists and musicians as they take part in the peaceful revolution during and after the 2011 Arab Spring.
Photo courtesy of Urban Nomad Film Festival
The documentary makes an engaging exploration of arts as a powerful means of resistance and conveying personal politics.
The film’s director Marco Wilms will attend the festival and discuss his work in post-screening Q&A sessions.
MUSIC FOR THE MASSES
Photos courtesy of Urban Nomad Film Festival
Activism aside, music enthusiasts also have plenty to choose from the festival’s lineup of over 60 feature, documentary, short and music video works from France, Germany, Canada, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US.
Rubble Kings, for example, brings the audience back to the streets of New York under gang control in the late 1960s and early 1970s and tells the long forgotten story of how gang members decided to stop bloodshed by throwing block parties, which gave birth to hip-hop culture.
Fans of Motorhead, Rammstein, Anvil and the likes may want to check out Wacken: the Movie, which delivers an exciting portrait of Wacken Open Air, the biggest heavy-metal festival in the world.
Meanwhile, Mad Tiger zooms in on New York-based Peelander-Z, which describes itself as a “Japanese action comic punk band hailing from the Z area of Planet Peelander.”
On Sunday, several filmmakers and musicians from Germany, Taiwan and the UK will discuss the issue of documenting music.
Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 Over a breakfast of soymilk and fried dough costing less than NT$400, seven officials and engineers agreed on a NT$400 million plan — unaware that it would mark the beginning of Taiwan’s semiconductor empire. It was a cold February morning in 1974. Gathered at the unassuming shop were Economics minister Sun Yun-hsuan (孫運璿), director-general of Transportation and Communications Kao Yu-shu (高玉樹), Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) president Wang Chao-chen (王兆振), Telecommunications Laboratories director Kang Pao-huang (康寶煌), Executive Yuan secretary-general Fei Hua (費驊), director-general of Telecommunications Fang Hsien-chi (方賢齊) and Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Laboratories director Pan
The consensus on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair race is that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) ran a populist, ideological back-to-basics campaign and soundly defeated former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the candidate backed by the big institutional players. Cheng tapped into a wave of popular enthusiasm within the KMT, while the institutional players’ get-out-the-vote abilities fell flat, suggesting their power has weakened significantly. Yet, a closer look at the race paints a more complicated picture, raising questions about some analysts’ conclusions, including my own. TURNOUT Here is a surprising statistic: Turnout was 130,678, or 39.46 percent of the 331,145 eligible party
The classic warmth of a good old-fashioned izakaya beckons you in, all cozy nooks and dark wood finishes, as tables order a third round and waiters sling tapas-sized bites and assorted — sometimes unidentifiable — skewered meats. But there’s a romantic hush about this Ximending (西門町) hotspot, with cocktails savored, plating elegant and never rushed and daters and diners lit by candlelight and chandelier. Each chair is mismatched and the assorted tables appear to be the fanciest picks from a nearby flea market. A naked sewing mannequin stands in a dimly lit corner, adorned with antique mirrors and draped foliage
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