A record number of Taiwanese virtual reality (VR) films are being shown at this year’s Venice Film Festival, with seven entries in the Venice Virtual Reality section, and one selected as one of the VR story projects.
Bodyless (失身記), by Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健), a new media artist and professor at National Chengchi University, is one of the seven entered into the interactive category of the Venice Visual Reality section.
Bodyless was based on his memories of Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was still under martial law.
Photo: CNA
The 15-minute To the Moon (登月), the latest in a long line of Huang’s collaborations with US singer-songwriter-avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, was selected for the out-of-competition section.
The film allows viewers to “walk on the moon surface” and “glide through space debris,” the festival’s Web site says.
Tech giant HTC has several coproductions in the festival. HTC has been commissioning original VR content production under HTC Vive Originals, as well as the 5×1 initiative, a partnership with the Golden Horse Film Academy founded by renowned filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) that focuses on VR films.
From the 5×1 intiative are Qiu Yang’s (邱陽) O, which was entered in the “Best VR Immersive Work” category, Chiang Wei-liang’s (曾威量) Only the Mountain Remains (山行) is in the linear section of the VR competition, while Myanmar-born director Midi Z’s (趙德胤) The Making of (幕後) is in the out-of-competition section.
Jorge Tereso and Fernando Maldonado’s Gloomy Eyes is a coproduction between HTC Vive Originals and French animation studio Atlas V. It is to compete in the linear section, while another HTC Vive Original, Inori, by Japanese contemporary artist Mita Komatsu and singer-songwriter-producer Kay Huang (黃韻玲), was nominated for “Best VR Immersive Experience for interactive content.”
John Hsu’s (徐漢強) comedy Great Hoax (星際大騙局) was selected as one of the 12 VR Immersive Reality Story projects.
Taiwan has quickly assumed the leading role in VR content development largely because the nation has the freest environment for creation in Asia, former Deputy Minister of Culture Ting Hsiao-ching (丁曉菁), who now heads of the newly established Taiwan Cultural Content Agency, told a news conference in Venice on Friday.
Representative to Italy Lee Sing-ying (李新穎) told the news conference that the cultural strength of these outstanding works would help Taiwan boost its international visibility.
The 76th annual Venice Film Festival opened on Wednesday and runs through Saturday.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift