Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh’s (謝文明) animated film Night Bus (夜車) on Friday won the Short Film Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival, becoming the first Taiwanese work to win a Sundance award.
“With its deft handling of film noir sensibilities, well-rounded storytelling, suspense and deeply crafted characters, this film takes us on a ride figuratively and literally,” Sundance Festival juror Kevin Jerome Everson said when announcing the award.
The 20-minute thriller, which tells the story of a theft on a bus traveling along Taiwan’s coast and a subsequent fatal accident, won the Grand Prix of short films at Animafest Zagreb in Croatia in June last year.
Photo: Courtesy of Catchplay+
“What a big surprise. It’s definitely a great honor,” Hsieh said after being named the winner. “I would like to thank Taiwan, because Taiwan always gives me so much inspiration to make animation.”
Over one-third of the dialogue in Night Bus is in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), which the director said reflects real life in Taiwan.
“The dialect’s unique nature rhyme and sound adds emotions and charm to the animation,” he said.
Night Bus also won a Golden Horse Award in 2020, and a Special Jury Mention at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France in February last year.
The animation has also gained plaudits from renowned Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee (李安), who described Hsieh as a “one-of-a-kind Taiwanese animation talent whose works explode with artistry and eccentricity.”
The Sundance Film Festival, one of the largest independent film festivals in the world, was held from Jan. 20 to Sunday.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS