The first Taiwan International Indigenous Film Festival (IIFF) — a screening tour around the country of 22 Taiwanese films and eight foreign movies that touch on indigenous topics — opened yesterday.
The festival, organized by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, seeks “to enhance the general public’s understanding of Aboriginal cultures and allow Aborigines to know more about the cultures of other indigenous peoples in the country and abroad,” the council said in a press release.
Taiwanese films shown in the festival include Ketagalan (凱達格蘭), Country to Country (獨立之前) and Once Upon a Time (泰雅千年).
Ketagalan documents the struggle of Ketagalan Aborigines — who once inhabited the Greater Taipei area, as well as parts of Taoyuan and Yilan Counties before the arrival of Han immigrants from China — against the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Taipei County’s Gongliao Township (貢寮) and to gain recognition of their tribal identity in the 1990s.
Another documentary, Country to Country, follows attempts by a group of Aborigines in 2004 to establish their own independent state in Daliao Township (大寮), Kaohsiung, after then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) defined the relationship between Aboriginal communities and the Republic of China as “states within a state.” Buildings in the short-lived State of Gaosha (高砂國) were declared illegal and were flattened by the county government.
Released in 2007, Once Upon a Time is a short drama that tells the story of Atayal migration. It is the first movie to be fully produced by Atayal.
The foreign movies are from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Micronesia, the Philippines and Brazil.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry