The full schedule for the 26th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (
The sister event of the film festival, The Golden Horse Awards (
PHOTO COURTESY OF GOLDEN HORSE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
To welcome the coming of the Golden Horse, 40 films will be selected for screening in Taichung between Nov. 26 and Dec 5 as a mini version of the Taipei festival.
In Taipei, films will be screened at Warner Village Cinemas in the Xinyi District. The Taichung screenings will take place at the city's Warner Village.
As expected, movie fans have already bought up the special package tickets. The 3,000 limited-edition Rainbow Packages went on sale last Saturday and sold out two days ago. With interest in the festival soaring, organizers expect viewer numbers to reach 100,000.
This year's festival is divided into nine sections: Masterpieces, Panorama, Windows to Asia, Made in Germany, Contemporary Chinese Films, Short Films and Animation, Filmmakers in Focus, 5th International Digital Shorts Competition and a program of the Chinese-language films nominated for the 41st Golden Horse Awards.
This year's Filmmakers in Focus section will pay tribute to Japanese cameraman Noboru Shinoda, Hungarian director Bela Tarr and Hong Kong director Chor Yuen (楚原) for his adaptations of Ku Lung's (古龍) martial arts novels.
Japanese cameraman Noboru Shinoda died because of liver failure in June this year, at the age of 52. Shinoda was an innovator who worked in close partnership with some of Japan's best directors at the height of their careers, notably Shunji Iwai and Shinji Somai. The festival presents Shinoda's most recent collaboration with Iwai, Hana & Alice, a film of extraordinary visual poetry.
Shinoda's first feature film, Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World, topped Japan's box office charts and has grossed over US$75 million there. The film will be released in Taipei on Nov. 12.
Bela Tarr was born in Hungary in 1955 and began shooting films while still at school. He made his directorial debut, Family Nest (1977), at 22. It was an important film that helped form the movement known as "documentary fiction."
Tarr is still active as a filmmaker and is currently in production on his 10th film, The Man From London.
The opening film of the festival is the French flick Dogora. Director Patrice Leconte and his composer Etienne Peruchon will pay a visit to Taipei as special guests. The festival closes with Olivier Assayas' Clean, starring acclaimed Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung (
International guests confirmed to date included Yoichi Higashi (The Crying Wind) and Yuji Nakae (Shirayuri Club Goes to Tokyo) from Japan; Quark Henares (Keka) from the Philippines; Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou (Genesis: The Very Beginning) from France; August Diehl (Love in Thoughts, Distant Light) from Germany; Jorgen Leth (The Five Obstructions) from Denmark; and Andrzej Jakimowski (Squint Your Eyes) from Poland.
Single ticket sales are available to the general public on Nov. 13. Individual tickets cost NT$220, or NT$190 for students.
To avoid difficulty buying tickets, obtain a program booklet of the film festival (already available) at Era Ticketing outlets, Eslite bookstores, FNAC branches and Kingstone Bookstores. For schedules for Taichung screenings, booklets will be available starting from mid November at Taichung Eliste bookstores.
For a full list of films in both Chinese and English, visit the festival Web site: http://www.goldenhorse.org.tw.
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