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.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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