Supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, the Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh will be kicking into action in an all-digital format from 18th to 27th September, allowing UK audiences to enjoy some of Taiwan’s best films whilst staying COVID-secure. The diverse programme features twenty titles, with ten of those titles making their UK premieres and available free between seven and ten days.
The twenty films are divided into seven distinctive strands – with documentary, short and feature films that delve into Taiwan’s cultural, societal and political changes over the decades, as well as the nation’s relationship with its neighbours. In the process, viewers will be able to trace Taiwan’s film history and gain a greater understanding of its development.
Chosen to chronicle the history of Taiwanese film, four strands aim at giving viewers the chance to trace its progression and gain a greater understanding of its development. “Taiwanese Hokkien-language cinema” will bring 1960s Taiwanese language classics to UK viewers, whilst “Melodrama Divas” will be devoted to the film adaptions of influential writer Chiung Yao’s romance novels from the same decade. The “A Borrowed Hong Kong, the Imagined China in Taiwan and Trans-regional Cinema” strand will focus on filmmakers who travelled to Taiwan from Hong Kong in 1970s, at the time seen as “Free China”, in their pursuit of creative freedom and financial support. “Taiwan New Cinema and Its Legacy” will introduce the innovative realism of 1980s Taiwanese cinema and its evolution through to the modern day.
In addition, the other three strands share common themes involving the cultural impact of Taiwan’s “New Immigrants” and Taiwanese identity. Through “Docs: Exploring Diversity in Pursuing the Taiwanese Identity”, audiences will hear the voices of indigenous peoples and migrants in Taiwan as they navigate Taiwanese identity. “Shorts: The unusual usual” will present a collection of short films which have been praised for their examination of the ‘normal’ and their fresh examination of social issues in modern Taiwan. Finally, attendees will be able to watch the beautifully crafted and hard-hitting work of Myanmar-born and naturalized Taiwanese director Midi Z, in the “Midi Z selection”.
The full programme of films will be published on the Festival’s website on 4th September. In collaboration with the Scottish Documentary Institute, there will also be a series of Q&As and panel discussions with featured filmmakers and film industry professionals, which will be announced in due course.
The Festival’s Chief Curator, Liu Kuan-ping said: “It has been great to witness the global surge in interest in Taiwanese cinematography over the last decade and we hope this Festival helps introduce some of the lesser-known talent to wider audiences.” Dr. Chen Pin-Chuan, Director of the Cultural Division at the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, hopes that the festival “will stimulate more conversation between Scotland and Taiwan regarding aspects of our respective cultures.”
This first-ever Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh is funded by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture with further support from Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute and Taiwan Cinema, whilst technical expertise from Toolkit Festival Scope and Shift72 made the Festival’s digital format possible.
