The Kaohsiung City Government was bombarded with criticism yesterday after it rescheduled the screening of a documentary on exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer to separate it from the rest of next month’s Kaohsiung Film Festival (KFF).
The city announced on Saturday night that it would screen The 10 Conditions of Love tomorrow and Wednesday.
In addition, tickets to the screenings cannot be purchased through the festival’s ticketing system and will not be included in the festival’s ticket packages.
The decision to reschedule the screenings followed complaints from the city’s tourism industry that Chinese tour groups were canceling bookings in retaliation for the documentary being screened there.
Beijing calls Kadeer a separatist and a terrorist.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said the screening dates were changed in a bid to eliminate the controversy over the film as soon as possible.
The decision upset many people, including the festival organizers.
“After the controversy erupted, we were hopeful that the city government would make a wise decision. The outcome, however, is against the norms of any film festival and is not one that we would want to see,” the organizers said in a statement yesterday.
“Although we, the organizers, are not in the position to make the final decision, we would still like to offer our apologies to the audience and the maker of the documentary” they said.
Film critic Ryan Cheng (鄭秉泓), a member of the organizing team, said in an open letter to Chen that the decision was both disappointing and confusing to him and many Kaohsiung residents.
He said the decision was a humiliation for Kaohsiung, the scene of the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident — a key event in Taiwan’s struggle for democracy — especially because Chen was a leader in the protests against the authoritarian Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime of the time.
“Despite protests from China, [the] Melbourne [International Festival] showed The 10 Conditions of Love as planned without any changes and defended the bottom line of a progressive and democratic country,” Cheng said. “How will Kaohsiung explain to festivalgoers who planned to see the documentary at the scheduled date and time?”
“The decision not only concerns the image and perspective of the Kaohsiung Film Festival and Kaohsiung, but also of Taiwan as a democratic country,” said Cheng, who launched an online petition campaign yesterday to get the city to reverse the decision.
A source told the Taipei Times that during talks with the city government, film director and festival president Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂) was unhappy about the decision and plans to announce publicly that he did not agree with it.
Cheng Wen-tang proposed several compromises, including showing the documentary in advance, but still allowing tickets to be bought through the festival ticketing system but the proposals were rejected by the mayor, sources said.
He could not be reached for comment by press time.
Kaohsiung’s Government Information Office began the film festival in 2001 and has contracted out the organizing to others.
China warned Kaohsiung yesterday “not stir up trouble” by showing the documentary.
“We believe Taiwan compatriots, including citizens in Kaohsiung, can see the truth of this issue, and urge the concerned parties of Kaohsiung City not to stir up troubles in cross-strait relations,” a spokesperson with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
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