The government yesterday said it has demanded a correction after Venice Film Festival organizers listed two films representing the nation as being from “Chinese Taipei,” allegedly under pressure from Beijing.
Director Tsai Ming-liang’s (蔡明亮) documentary The Night (良夜不能久留) and Chung Mong-hong’s (鍾孟宏) drama The Falls (瀑布) were submitted under the name Taiwan.
However, organizers changed the name on the festival’s official Web site “due to China’s protest,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The Taipei Representative Office in Italy has requested an immediate correction and was yet to receive a reply, Department of European Affairs Deputy Director-General Kendra Chen (陳詠韶) said.
“We will continue to communicate with organizers and demand the correction through multiple channels to make sure that our films will not face unreasonable suppression and our sovereignty will not be dwarfed,” she told a virtual news briefing.
Films by Jane Campion, Pedro Almodovar and Paolo Sorrentino are among those competing at the 78th edition of the festival next month.
Agence France-Presse has contacted the film festival organizers for comment.
Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based Tsai is one of Taiwan’s most internationally acclaimed directors.
His 1994 feature film Vive L’Amour (愛情萬歲) won the coveted Golden Lion at Venice and Stray Dogs (郊遊) received the Grand Jury Prize in 2013.
Howver, Taiwanese artists often find themselves frozen out of international events, or made to enter under names that Beijing finds acceptable.
Taiwanese athletes also must compete under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
China has ramped up diplomatic, military and economic pressure on Taiwan since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), as she rejects its stance that the Taiwan is part of “one China.”
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