The success of the French film industry is largely due to the generous support of the French government, a rare benefit seen in Taiwan, said a Taiwanese filmmaker yesterday at a literary symposium held in Taipei.
Isaac Lee (李志薔), the maker of the domestic movie The Road in the Air, lamented the waning market for Taiwanese films during an exchange with the Chinese-French author and director Dai Sijie (戴思杰), who was a guest speaker at the annual Lire en Fete, or French Culture Feast, sponsored by the French Institute in Taipei.
"Domestically produced films only cover 2 percent of the entire Taiwanese movie box office sale, that means 98 percent of the movie goers in Taiwan watch only foreign made films, which are mostly Hollywood movies," Lee said.
Filmmaking in Taiwan is so unprofitable that some directors are forced to take out a second mortgage, he said, adding that the mother of one of his fellow directors sold her house to cover her son's film production expenses.
"Unfathomable," said Dai when he heard the financial plights of some Taiwanese directors.
He jokingly said that besides passion and talent, Taiwanese directors also need to have an understanding mother.
Dai has received multiple Golden Globe nominations for his work in films. His latest movie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was adapted from his New York Times best-selling book bearing the same title.
Born in 1954 in Sichuan Province, Dai was sent to re-education camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In 1984 he was selected to study filmmaking in France in a special subsidy program created by the French government aimed at cultivating budding movie talents.
"Unlike other European countries such as Italy or the United Kingdom, 50 percent of movies shown in France are French-made films. The people and the government are very eager to protect their domestic film industry," Dai said.
Dai said the French government deducts 1 euro every time a movie is shown in the theater. The money then goes to a collective fund used to sponsor the three-year program for aspiring moviemakers.
Despite the market hardship, one benefit of being a moviemaker in Taiwan is the collegial comradeship shared among the filmmakers, Lee said
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