This year’s Taiwan Film Festival in Australia is scheduled to run from July 25 to Sept. 14, and is to feature movies ranging from blockbusters to arthouse cinema, as well as Taiwanese indigenous works for the first time, event organizers said.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase Taiwanese indigenous cultures and highlight their values and voices, which are crucial to Taiwanese identity,” festival director Benson Wu (吳耀祖) said, adding that he expects the scenes of Taiwan’s landscape to impress audiences.
The movie Old Fox, directed by Hsiao Ya-chuan (蕭雅全) and produced by renowned Taiwanese directer Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), is to open this year’s festival, as it makes its Australian premiere.
Photo courtesy of the festival via CNA
Set in 1980s Taiwan, the award-winning film depicts the nostalgia of the era’s economic optimism and explores the balance between the pursuit of wealth and happiness in Taiwan’s working class.
The film won four Golden Horse Awards last year: Best Director, Best Original Film Score, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Makeup and Costume Design.
Hsiao is also to attend the premiere and an additional behind-the-scenes book talk at Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya on July 26.
Meanwhile, indigenous works include The Woman Carrying the Prey, a documentary by Truku director Rngrang Hungul, which follows the journey of Heydi Mijung, a Truku woman who is the only female hunter in her tribe.
The other indigenous films explore the cultures of the Atayal, Bunun, Puyuma and Paiwan peoples.
There would also be a script pitching competition, another first in festival history, which gives aspiring filmmakers an opportunity for international coproductions.
Participants can choose from five Taiwanese literary works previously promoted at the festival’s “Taiwanese Bookshelves” event, which showcases Taiwanese literature to Australian audiences, and adapt them into short film scripts.
The competition aims to inspire more outstanding Taiwanese literary film and television works, and those selected are to receive a cash prize of A$5,000 (US$3,343) to start the production of their adaptations, event organizers said.
So far, the selected books include The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-yi (吳明益) and Dailygreen’s (每日青菜) comics Day Off.
The film festival is to span six cities: Sydney (July 25 to Sept. 14), Canberra (Aug. 2 to 4), Brisbane (Aug. 10 to 11), Hobart (Aug. 23 to 25), Melbourne (Sept. 5 to 12) and, for the first time, Adelaide (Aug. 30 to Sept. 1).
“The Taiwan Film Festival in Australia is an annual film festival event to provide a professional showcase platform for Taiwanese and Asian Australian filmmakers to promote their works in Australia,” the event’s Web site says.
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