More than a dozen feature-length and short films selected for this year’s Sundance Film Festival are being screened at the festival’s Asian edition, which opened in Taipei yesterday.
The event, which runs through Sunday, is to feature 14 panel discussions and workshops, with people who have worked on Hollywood blockbusters expected to share their experiences and engage with local filmmakers in Taiwan.
At a news conference in Taipei on Tuesday, Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Kevin Lin (林士斌), one of the founders of G2Go Entertainment, described the Sundance Film Festival Asia in Taipei — an extension of the US’ largest independent film festival — as an “independent film celebration.”
Photo: CNA
Lin, who is best known for cofounding the livestreaming service Twitch, created G2Go Entertainment with friends to organize the film event in Taiwan.
Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani said the event would enable audiences to “discover their voices, entertain the stories and take part in conversations.”
The Sundance Institute — a nonprofit organization established by Hollywood star Robert Redford to organize the annual film festival in Park City, Utah — was dedicated to supporting independent storytellers and showing their work to audiences worldwide.
Yutani, who would also be one of the panelists, added that she is “thrilled to be engaged with local audiences [and] the film community here on the ground.”
Also joining the panels are Alan Taylor, director of Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, and Lawrence Sher, nominated for an Academy Award in cinematography for Joker, the organizer said.
Ten feature films and five short films selected for this year’s Sundance Film Festival would be shown at SPOT-Huashan Cinema in Taipei over the next five days, including Taiwanese-American director Sean Wang’s (王湘聖) debut feature movie Didi (弟弟).
Didi, which won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble and the Audience Award: US Dramatic at the main festival in January, is a coming-of-age drama about an angsty teenager from an immigrant family trying to navigate increasingly tense family and interpersonal relationships.
A New Kind of Wilderness and Porcelain War, which won World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary and US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary respectively, would also be screened at the Taipei event.
A New Kind of Wilderness documents a family living in on a farm in a forest who are forced to make significant changes to their life following a tragic event, while Porcelain War documents three Ukrainian artists striving to preserve their culture while defending their homeland against a brutal invasion by Russia.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS