At the closing ceremony of the Taipei Film Festival (TFF) last night, winners in the competition categories of the festival were announced and awarded their prizes. The main categories included local commercial releases, local independent releases, the Citizen Film and Video Competition and the Golden Lion International Student Film Festival.
The main event of the evening was the award of substantial cash prizes for the best achievements in independent film making -- films made without studio assistance and without commercial release. The Grand Prize of NT$1 million went to Birdland (
On receiving the prize, Huang told Taipei Times he would use the prize money to help repay debts accrued in the making of the NT$1.7 million feature about an illegal immigrant from China who first finds himself mistaken for another man and then finds an old lover while wandering about in Taipei.
Winners in other categories were awarded a cash prize of NT$200,000. Among the winners were Chen Hsin-yi (
And she wasn't (
In the commercial release category, the Best Film award went to Mirror Image (
The other winner of Most Promising Director this year was Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄) for his debut Sunny Doll (晴天娃), a film about high school life. Chen's most recent achievement was the script for Chang Chih-yung's (張志勇) Lament of Sand River (沙河悲歌), which was one of the dark horses to emerge from the Golden Horse this year.
The Citizen Film and Video Competition (
The Golden Lion Award for international student films went to Photographer by Alexander Kott, from Russia. The silver and bronze lion awards went to Night Course by Bui Thac Chuyen from Vietnam and The Magic Bell by Auriel Klimt from the Chech Republic, respectively.
Since their leader Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and others were jailed as part of several ongoing bribery investigations, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has risen in the polls. Additionally, despite all the many and varied allegations against Ko and most of the top people in the party, it has held together with only a tiny number of minor figures exiting. The TPP has taken some damage, but vastly less than the New Power Party (NPP) did after it was caught up in a bribery scandal in 2020. The TPP has for years registered favorability in the thirties, and a Formosa poll
Chiayi County is blessed with several worthwhile upland trails, not all of which I’ve hiked. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to tackling Tanghu Historic Trail (塘湖古道), a short but unusually steep route in Jhuci Township (竹崎). According to the Web site of the Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區), the path climbs from 308m above sea level to an elevation of 770m in just 1.58km, an average gradient of 29 percent. And unless you arrange for someone to bring you to the starting point and collect you at the other end, there’s no way to avoid a significant amount
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While global attention is finally being focused on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gray zone aggression against Philippine territory in the South China Sea, at the other end of the PRC’s infamous 9 dash line map, PRC vessels are conducting an identical campaign against Indonesia, most importantly in the Natuna Islands. The Natunas fall into a gray area: do the dashes at the end of the PRC “cow’s tongue” map include the islands? It’s not clear. Less well known is that they also fall into another gray area. Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim and continental shelf claim are not