The Taiwan International Human Rights Film Festival opened in Taipei last week to mark the 30th anniversary of the lifting of Martial Law and encourage reflection on human rights issues.
Two Taiwanese and nine foreign films are to be screened at 18 locations nationwide during the seven-week festival organized by the Preparatory Office of the National Human Rights Museum.
“There was a time when Taiwan believed in collectivism and believed that economic prosperity would bring happiness,” Deputy Minister of Culture Ting Hsiao-ching (丁曉菁) said at the opening of the festival on Saturday last week.
Photo: CNA
“The fact is, authoritarian rule allowed the state machinery to cause a lot of collective harm in certain periods,” Ting said.
She said some people are still unwilling to face the past and might think that it had nothing to do with them.
“But if we cannot bravely face the real reasons that caused these tragedies, it will be hard for us to begin our transitional justice process,” Ting said.
She said her ministry worked with the festival’s organizers to select the films in the hope that audiences would be inspired to think about how to prevent such tragedies in the future.
The festival started at the in89 Cinemax movie theater in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) with the documentary The Gatekeepers, by Israeli director Dror Moreh, which tells the story of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, from the perspective of six of its former leaders.
In the film, the former Shin Bet leaders reflect on their decisions and take a new look at their enemies at the time, said Angelika Wang (王耿瑜), director of the Taiwan Original Filmmakers Union and curator of the film festival.
“The film is about how people should open their hearts and talk to each other, so that there can be peace and prosperity, because hate only invites more hate, Wang said.
Two of other films to be screened, Art War and Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock & Roll, both tell the story of artists in a troubled nation, Wang said.
Art War by German documentary maker Marco Wilms is about young Egyptian artists using graffiti, music and art to keep the revolution that started during the Arab Spring alive.
John Pirozzi’s Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten explores the vibrant Cambodian rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s, before the rise of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime and the Cambodian genocide.
The two Taiwanese films to be screened are The Last Insurrection (末代叛亂犯) and The White Prince (白色王子).
The first is about the 1991 Taiwan Independence Association incident, when four people, including a student, were arrested and accused of organizing pro-independence activities.
The White Prince portrays the life of former political prisoner Tsai Kun-lin (蔡焜霖), who was imprisoned in the 1950s during the White Terror period for joining a book club.
Tsai, who attended the festival on Saturday last week, said Taiwan has made huge progress since the 1950s, when doctors, professors and even innocent children were brutally suppressed, imprisoned or killed.
Now, former political prisoners, government officials and academics can sit down together to watch a human rights film and think about transitional justice, Tsai said.
“I cherish this moment very much,” he said.
Martial law was imposed in Taiwan on May 19, 1949, and lifted by then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) on July 15, 1987.
During the martial law era, people were not allowed to form political parties and there was no right of assembly, free speech or publication.
The White Terror era describes the period from the 228 Incident in 1947 until martial law was lifted in 1987. During that period, many people were killed and an estimated 140,000 to 200,000 — many of which were intellectuals and members of the social elite — were imprisoned.
The touring film festival runs until Nov. 29.
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