Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮)'s stark musical drama The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) won the Fipresci Award on Friday at the 55th Berlin Film Festival.
The film, starring Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) Lu Yi-ching (陸亦靜) and Chen Hsiang-chyi (陳湘琪), is Tsai's 13th movie. It was selected in the official competition section at the 55th Berlin Film Festival, and was a runner-up for the Golden Bear Award, the top honor of the festival.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF HOMEGREEN FILMS
Although not winning the Golden Bear, Tsai expressed excitement upon taking the Fipresci Award.
"I am very honored that this is my fifth Fipresci Award. If all the film festivals let the Fipresci jury be their jury, I'm sure I will take more bigger awards," Tsai said.
The Fipresci Award is also known as the International Critics Prize, which is selected by the International Federation of Film Critics.
Tsai won the Fipresci Award in 2003 for Goodbye Dragon Inn (不散) in Venice, in 1994 for Vive L'amour (愛情萬歲), and in 1998 for The Hole (洞) in Cannes.
The story of The Wayward Cloud tells about a young man accidentally becoming a rookie male porn actor, and a former porn star seeing her career falling down.
The film features a peculiar mixture of explicit sex scenes, suggestive dancing and vintage love songs of the 1930s.
The world premiere of the film in Berlin on Feb 15 had created a media sensation at the festival, with actress Chen Hsiang-chyi giving oral sex to actor Lee Kang-sheng at the very last scene.
Members of the press were asked many questions about the more sensational aspects of the film. The press conference lasted more than three hours, longer than any other press conference in the festival's history.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS