The 25th edition of the Taipei Film Festival opened on Thursday evening with the premiere of writer-cum-director Giddens Ko’s (九把刀) new romantic comedy, Miss Shampoo (請問，還有哪裡需要加強).
Speaking with reporters, Ko said he was thrilled that his latest movie, an adaptation of his 2010 novel Precisely Out of Control (精準的失控), premiered at the Taipei Zhongshan Hall, where he made his directorial debut in 2011 with You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年，我們ㄧ起追的女孩).
Miss Shampoo tells a romantic story between an aspiring apprentice hairdresser, played by Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), and a passionate gang leader, played by Hung Yu-hung (洪瑜鴻), who is better known as a member of Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹).
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Film Festival via CNA
Another movie that premiered last night at the festival was One Second Ahead, One Second Behind, a Japanese adaptation of the 2020 Golden Horse Best Feature Film winner My Missing Valentine (消失的情人節).
The film’s director, Nobuhiro Yamashita, and lead actor, Masaki Okada, were to attend the premier last night and interact with movie fans after the showing.
As part of the festival’s “Filmmaker in Focus” program, five movies by German writer-director Angela Schanelec are to be shown, including I Was at Home, But..., which bagged the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019.
Four movies by Belgian director Bas Devos will be screened under the same program, including Ghost Tropic and Hellhole.
The two-week festival will be followed by the Taipei Film Awards ceremony on the evening of July 8, when the grand prize, featuring a trophy and NT$1 million (US$32,342) in prize money, is to be presented to a Taiwanese film nominated for best feature film, best documentary, best short film or best animation.
Eye of the Storm (疫起), director Lin Chun-yang’s (林君陽) movie inspired by the 2003 SARS outbreak in Taiwan, leads this year’s awards with 13 nominations, including best feature film, best director and best screenplay.
Other movies that are up for best feature film are last year’s Golden Horse Awards Best Feature winner Coo-Coo 043 (一家子兒咕咕叫), as well as Gaga (哈勇家), The Abandoned (查無此心) and Bad Education (黑的教育).
Lin, known for his TV series Wave Makers (人選之人—造浪者) and The World Between Us (我們與惡的距離), is also competing for best director alongside documentary filmmaker Tsai Tsung-Lung (蔡崇隆) and Laha Mebow (陳潔瑤), who won at last year’s Golden Horse Awards for Gaga, among others.
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