Face (臉), the latest work by director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), which premiered on Tuesday night, is the first Taiwanese movie funded by the EU and a prime example of cultural cooperation between the EU and Taiwan, Europe’s top envoy to Taiwan said recently.
The film is not only the first Chinese-language movie to receive funding from the European Commission’s MEDIA program, but is also the biggest EU-Taiwan cooperative film venture ever, Guy Ledoux said in an interview.
“The fact that cultural cooperation between Taiwan and the EU at such a level is possible is because Taiwan has a very dynamic and advanced cultural industry,” Ledoux said.
“Taiwan has a comparative advantage in the field of culture and the freedom of expression that exists in Taiwan has enabled Taiwan’s cultural industry to flourish and become very attractive,” he said.
Describing Face as “a very beautiful project” because it intertwines scenes in Europe and Taiwan and features iconic actors from both places, Ledoux said he hoped there will be more culturally oriented cooperation projects between the EU and Taiwan.
Face is a narrative feature film commissioned by the Louvre in Paris and directed by Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based Tsai. The production, which features noted French stars Laetitia Casta, Fanny Ardant and Jean-Pierre Leaud, as well as Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) and Lu Yi-ching (陸奕靜), will be the first movie that the Louvre will add to its collection of some of the world’s finest art.
Known as Visage in French, it is described as a film within a film, telling the story of a Chinese filmmaker who heads to the Louvre to shoot a film revolving around the myth of Salome and her request to her father Herod that St John the Baptist be beheaded.
The film cost NT$178.6 million (US$5.5 million) to make and in addition to funds from Taiwan, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, the EU’s MEDIA program contributed 50,000 euros (US$73,000) to help with production.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
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Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
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