Taiwan Online Film Festival UK - Rio Cinema London
The 2020 Taiwan Film Festival UK has partnered with Rio Cinema based in Dalston, London, to offer us a mix of online and socially distanced screenings of social and environmental documentaries
Above is the official festival trailer, with this years theme based on ‘Wounded yet Healed’ and features 6 feature-length documentaries that confront global issues, which include; the struggle for democracy, freedom of speech, protesting industrialisation and the climate crisis. The screenings will have introductions and Q&As. Trailers are below.
For more up to date information and tickets, available now, can be found here: https://filmtaiwan.org/taiwan-film-fe
The Age of Awakening
6th December 2020
Director: Ke Chin-yuan
UK Premiere. With pre-recorded introduction from director Ke Chin-yuan and post screen talk with environmental activists in the UK
This film re-examines major environmental movements and events in Taiwan from the 1980s to 2018, including the protest against LCY Chemical Corp in Hsinchu, anti-DuPont movement in Lukang and many more events. It is a compilation of over 30 years of documentary footage and interviews of those who took part in the protests.
TIDF Outstanding Contribution Award
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
Isle of Chair
29th November 2020
Director : Ivyy Chen
On a secluded Island, a chair has fallen down. The giant who works day after day fixing chairs which are not up straight in their expected positions. However, one day, the isle is hit by a storm and the giant encounters a fallen chair that he finds difficult to repair. If a fallen chair symbolises death, loss, damage and dysfunction, would you want to help the chair to stand again? If the chair can never stand in a way that you prefer, would you accept that? how would you face it?
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
Formosan Black Bear is Coming
6th December 2020
Director: Mai Chueh-Ming
Pre-record intro with Dir. Chueh-Ming Mai, Prod. Run Kui-Chiung and a post screening Q&A with BookClub
Decades of over development in the mountains, illegal hunting and frequent human activities, have caused the decline in Taiwan's Black Bear population. Since 2008, the experienced mountaineer/ director Mai Chueh-Ming leads his team to document Professor Mei- Shui Hwang, who is the only researcher ever to study Taiwan's Black Bears.
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
Ocean
29th November 2020
Director Ke Chin-Yuan
Pre-recorded intro from Ke Chin-Yuan
Ocean is an important observation and record of nearly 20 years of changes in the marine environment. This film continued to focus on actual situations of the marine environment and the way humans exploit marine resources. Ocean tries to provide a comprehensive representation of the various maritime features by documenting the creatures in the ocean.
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
The Price of Democracy
28th November 2020
Director Liao Jian-Hua
Pre-record introduction with Liao Jian-Hua and producer Jewel Lai.
Democratic Transformation, Social-political Movement, Civil Resistance. The film looks back at the 40-year-history of democratization in Taiwan through the life experiences of two old-timers, who are grass-root rebels. Trying to discover what causes their actions and decisions to be political activists, and what are their limitations and sacrifice. The two protagonists are TSENG, a female novelist, who got divorced because of her political idealism in the era of White Terror; and KANG, who was an energetic young person on the streets during the 80’ but now living in hardship.
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
Kim Hi (Gold Fish)
29th November 2020
Director: Fish Wang
A boy with a special talent discovers that he may never grow up. Those with power are devouring dreams so everyone else is destined to serve. Can he break the rules and free the people or will they still blindly follow?
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
The Boiling Water LAMA
12th December 2020
Director: Lu Adiong
Post screening Q&A with Ngawang Yungney
UK Premiere about a small village, Xiongtuo, situated in the Tibetan remote region. By word of mouth, there is a “boiling-water Lama” residing in the village. The Lama lives in a wooden house built by followers, which is in a mountainous area around 5,000 meters high. Every day, countless people from the major Tibetan regions travel across the mountains to visit him in order to seek the answer for their own lives. Meanwhile, the water on the stove was boiled, and the believers waited outside taking off their shirts one by one, ready to get the unique “answer”from the Lama….
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dl...
Path of Destiny
5th December 2020
Director: Yang Chun-Kai
UK premiere with pre-record introduction with Panay Mulu
Panay Mulu, who can possess gods, has felt that the gods have guided her to face her own “Path of Destiny.”
The film talks about Taiwanese indigenous shaman, Panay Mulu, how she returns to her indigenous roots from Christianity. She is also a professor of anthropology and she had to make a difficult choice to be a shaman for her tribe while this indigenous belief has almost faded.
2017 Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival – Closing Film
2018 Taipei Film Festival – Nominated in Best Documentary