This year the Taipei Film Festival will focus on the theme of cities, most
particularly the cities of Paris and Prague. But before the important
content comes on - and there are some outstanding works which Taipei
audiences might otherwise have little chance to see - the festival will
first take a look closer to home.
The Urban Community Film Festival has been instituted as part of the Taipei
Film Festival to encourage local filmmakers. And with the city government
putting up substantial prize money for the winners, many emerging and some
established directors have taken part, ensuring that this part of the
festival - which starts on Sunday - will also have a representative sample
of some of Taiwan's best films.
The total prize money of NT$1 million will be distributed among four
categories and will include animation, documentary films, feature films and
also an amateur category. Films such as Cheng Yu-chieh's(鄭有傑) Summer,
Dream(石碇的夏天), have already featured in the Golden Horse Awards, while
others probably have less chance for public screenings outside such
festivals. According to a statement by Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), he hopes
that Taiwan's filmmakers, by turning their eyes on their own city, will
create the same kind of cinematic record of Taipei as French and Czech
filmmakers have for Paris and Prague. The imported films will be screening
from March 3.
Screenings will be held on Feb. 24 to Feb. 28 at the Taipei International
Artists Village (台北國際藝術村). Screenings will be repeated between March
13 to March 15 at the Social Education Center (社教館). All screenings are
free. Schedules can be obtained from the Social Education Center or at
Chungshan Hall (中山堂). More information can be obtained by calling (02)
2395-3170.
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
For the past century, Changhua has existed in Taichung’s shadow. These days, Changhua City has a population of 223,000, compared to well over two million for the urban core of Taichung. For most of the 1684-1895 period, when Taiwan belonged to the Qing Empire, the position was reversed. Changhua County covered much of what’s now Taichung and even part of modern-day Miaoli County. This prominence is why the county seat has one of Taiwan’s most impressive Confucius temples (founded in 1726) and appeals strongly to history enthusiasts. This article looks at a trio of shrines in Changhua City that few sightseers visit.
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