Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said yesterday that he disapproved of the withdrawal of the movie Miao Miao (渺渺) from the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Su said the withdrawal of the film had been interpreted as support for “some country or some area's” oppression of human rights.
Su was referring to China, which pulled movies made in China and Hong Kong from the festival late last month in protest at the inclusion of Australian director Jeff Daniels' film 10 Conditions of Love, a documentary on the life of World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer.
Miao Miao, co-produced by Hong Kong-based JA Movies and Taiwan Jet Tone (台灣澤東公司), a subsidiary of Hong Kong Jet Tone Film Ltd (香港澤東公司), was among the movies taken out of the festival.
In 2005, Taiwan Jet Tone received a subsidy of NT$4 million (US$123,000) to produce the film from a GIO fund designed to promote the local movie industry.
The movie is directed by Taiwanese director Cheng Hsiao-tse (程孝澤) and stars mostly Taiwanese actors.
Yesterday was not the first time Su had chosen not to name China directly when criticizing it.
In June, when asked to comment on the human rights situation in China ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Su said the government had called on “countries or areas identified as having poor human rights records to endeavor to make improvements in this regard.”
Su did not mention China.
The GIO has demanded that Taiwan Jet Tone present the documents it submitted to the festival to register Miao Miao to determine whether the company violated a standard contract it signed with the GIO.
Under the contract, if the company submits the film to a festival, it must do so under the name “Taiwan.”
Taiwan Jet Tone has yet to respond.
There are no rules in the contract on withdrawing a film from a festival.
Su said his office would revise clarify the rights and obligations to prevent similar incidents involving government-funded films.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
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
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.
RSS