When Urban Nomad Film Festival first launched in 2002, fledging filmmakers submitted their work on VHS tapes and audience members sat on scavenged carpet and chairs in a warehouse at Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914) (then known as Huashan Arts District, 華山藝文特區).
Now Urban Nomad is host to the Taiwanese premiere of Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, which will screen this evening at the Armed Forces Cultural Center (國軍文藝活動中心). The festival closes on May 8 with The Shock Doctrine, based on the book of the same name by Naomi Klein and directed by Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom.
But the festival remains true to its roots. In addition to an international lineup of documentaries, several nights of short film, most by young Taiwanese filmmakers, will be screened.
“We wanted to show films other festivals wouldn’t show. That hasn’t changed, we still do that now. For local filmmakers, we want to give them a chance to see their films on screen,” says Sean Scanlan, who, along with David Frazier, founded Urban Nomad in 2002.
In 2007, Urban Nomad shifted from a weekend film festival to a weeklong event and launched its current format, which mixes feature films and documentaries from around the world with short films by local filmmakers each night in a double feature.
The awards program for short films is run with the Taiwan Original Filmmakers Union (TOFU, 電影創作聯盟); from more than 200 submissions, the festival picked eight nominees. These include a documentary, short fictional films and what Frazier describes as a “52-minute mash-up of horror films and techno music” called Abbadon.
“We tell the jurors when they’re choosing the prize winner that what we’re looking for is creativity and new energy. Technical achievement is not the number one criteria,” says Frazier.
Since its launch, the Urban Nomad Film Festival has run the topical gamut. Films shown in previous years ranged from the hardcore “sci-fi porn” I.K.U. by Taiwanese American filmmaker Shu-lea Cheang (鄭淑麗) to documentaries about backyard wrestling and the band Sonic Youth. Most of the festival’s documentaries have focused on social issues, however, and this year is no exception. Several documentaries, including The Cove, Sharkwater and The Shock Doctrine, will be shown with Chinese subtitles for the first time.
“In the last 10 years since we started this festival, the documentary genre has just exploded. There are more people making documentaries, there are documentaries made on more topics and because they are cheaper to produce, they are coming from more different points of view,” says Frazier.
This year’s schedule includes documentaries on music sampling and copyright issues (Copyright Criminals), the Gaza Strip (To Shoot an Elephant) and Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva (Bullshit).
Three documentaries focus on ocean conservation. Urban Nomad teamed up with Flash Forward, a film distribution company that bought the Taiwanese rights to The Cove and Sharkwater, a documentary about shark hunting. The Cove, about dolphin hunting in Japan, will be shown with Taiwan’s Critically Endangered Dolphins, a nine-minute short by the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association (蠻野心足生態協會) that will be subtitled in Chinese for the first time.
A panel discussion tomorrow will feature guest speakers from Wild at Heart, the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST, 動物社會研究會) and Matsu’s Fish Conservation Union (媽祖魚保育聯盟), as well as nature photographer and filmmaker Ke Jin-yuan (柯金源). Frazier and Scanlon say one of the reasons they chose conservation as a theme for this year’s festival is because the Asia-Pacific Green Network (APGN, a federation of environmental groups) will hold its annual conference in Taipei starting today.
“This year the environmental issue is very, very big after the [UN Climate Change Conference last December], the hopes leading up to it and the letdown after it,” says Frazier. “Suddenly we had these films available to us and we knew activist groups that were really involved in these issues in Taiwan, so we thought this makes a good theme.”
“We want movie-watching to be more of a social experience,” he adds. “We’re happy to bring audiences in contact with these kinds of groups, so it’s not just watching a movie but seeing what you can do to make your little corner of the world better.”
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
Eric Finkelstein is a world record junkie. The American’s Guinness World Records include the largest flag mosaic made from table tennis balls, the longest table tennis serve and eating at the most Michelin-starred restaurants in 24 hours in New York. Many would probably share the opinion of Finkelstein’s sister when talking about his records: “You’re a lunatic.” But that’s not stopping him from his next big feat, and this time he is teaming up with his wife, Taiwanese native Jackie Cheng (鄭佳祺): visit and purchase a
April 7 to April 13 After spending over two years with the Republic of China (ROC) Army, A-Mei (阿美) boarded a ship in April 1947 bound for Taiwan. But instead of walking on board with his comrades, his roughly 5-tonne body was lifted using a cargo net. He wasn’t the only elephant; A-Lan (阿蘭) and A-Pei (阿沛) were also on board. The trio had been through hell since they’d been captured by the Japanese Army in Myanmar to transport supplies during World War II. The pachyderms were seized by the ROC New 1st Army’s 30th Division in January 1945, serving
Mother Nature gives and Mother Nature takes away. When it comes to scenic beauty, Hualien was dealt a winning hand. But one year ago today, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake wrecked the county’s number-one tourist attraction, Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. Then, in the second half of last year, two typhoons inflicted further damage and disruption. Not surprisingly, for Hualien’s tourist-focused businesses, the twelve months since the earthquake have been more than dismal. Among those who experienced a precipitous drop in customer count are Sofia Chiu (邱心怡) and Monica Lin (林宸伶), co-founders of Karenko Kitchen, which they describe as a space where they
RSS