The government will cancel a subsidy of NT$10 million (US$306,600) to a film company if it registers its film Prince of Tears (?l) at the 81st Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, as coming from Hong Kong, Frank Chen (陳志寬), director of the Government Information Office’s (GIO) Department of Motion Pictures, said yesterday.
On Tuesday, the Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong nominated Hong Kong-based director Yon Fan’s (楊凡) film Prince of Tears to represent the territory as its candidate for the best foreign-language film award at the Academy Awards.
The movie company would rather give up the subsidy than the chance to win recognition for the movie, Yon said recently in a press statement.
Director Leon Dai’s (戴立忍) No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (不能沒有你, “I can’t live without you”) was chosen by the GIO to represent Taiwan in the best foreign-language film competition at the Academy Awards.
Prince of Tears, co-produced by two film corporations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, lost to No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti in the GIO’s review contest last month.
Makers of the Prince of Tears were required to sign a contract with the GIO within nine months of receiving a GIO subsidy in July.
“If Prince of Tears represents Hong Kong at the event, the GIO will not sign the contract with the company as subsidy recipients are required to register international competitions under the joint name of Taiwan and the producer of the film,” Chen said.
Prince of Tears tells the story of the Sun family living in a military-dependent village in southern Taiwan during the White Terror era.
The White Terror era refers to the period of martial law imposed after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) retreated to Taiwan from China. Martial law and a strict one-party dictatorship were imposed in 1949, and in subsequent years tens of thousands of political dissidents were imprisoned, tortured and killed.
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