Diamond Marine World (鑽石水族世界), a documentary about an ambitious Taiwanese man struggling to survive in Myanmar, was awarded the Grand Prize and Best Documentary awards at the Taipei Film Awards on Saturday.
The film by director Huang Hsiu-yi (黃琇怡) documents the journey of a Taiwanese shrimp farmer who plans to make a fortune by starting a venture in Myanmar, but is accused of criminal activities shortly after arriving there.
Diamond Marine World is a film about Taiwanese trying to chase prosperity in Southeast Asia, Huang said after accepting the Grand Prize, which includes NT$1 million (US$31,918) in prize money.
Photo: Hu Shun-hsiang, Taipei Times
She added that “it is a story about trust, love and forgiveness.”
The jury said Huang’s documentary showed her ability to sift through the vast amount of footage she had shot in Myanmar and condense it into an “honest and touching” work about the struggles of people with different values and cultural backgrounds.
The jury also commended Huang for her dedication to the work, highlighting that she had filmed in Myanmar for several years on an “extremely tight budget.”
Photo: Hu Shun-hsiang, Taipei Times
Huang received a grant of NT$800,000 from the government-funded National Culture and Arts Foundation in 2019 to make the documentary, government data showed, but the film’s total budget is unknown.
This year’s Best Narrative Feature Award was given to Gaga (哈勇家), a story about an Atayal tribal family struggling to cope with one unfortunate incident after another.
With an absurd local election as the backdrop, Gaga delicately presents the close bond between the members of the Atayal family and the various challenges facing them and their tribe, the jury said.
Director Laha Mebow (陳潔瑤), who is an Atayal, said in her acceptance speech that it takes a lot of passion to work in the film industry, because “there is often more agony than joy” in the filmmaking process.
Mebow said she would embrace this pain and continue making films to tell more stories about Taiwan’s indigenous people.
Saturday’s big winner was director Lin Chun-yang’s (林君陽) film Eye of the Storm (疫起), which was awarded the Best Director, Best Actor, Best Art Design, Best Visual Effects and Outstanding Artistic Contribution awards.
The movie, inspired by the 2003 SARS outbreak in Taiwan, portrays a group of young medical workers grappling with a deadly disease and tense human relationships in a hospital that has been sealed off.
The Outstanding Contributions Award went to photographer Liu Chen-hsiang (劉振祥) in recognition of his still images for movies made by award-winning directors Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) and Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏).
The Best New Talent Award was shared by Wilang Lalin (洪金輝) for his role as a father struggling with uncertain future prospects in Gaga, and Yeh Hsiao-fei (葉曉霏) for her role as a student protester in the coming-of-age film Who’ll Stop the Rain (青春並不溫柔).
The Taipei Film Awards received 292 submissions: 40 feature films, 61 documentaries, 160 short films and 31 animations. Of those, 29 films were nominated for the competition, the awards organizers said.
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said yesterday after US President Donald Trump criticized the nation’s chip dominance. Trump repeated claims on Thursday that Taiwan had taken the industry and he wanted it back in the US, saying he aimed to restore US chip manufacturing. National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) did not name Trump in a Facebook post, but referred to President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments on Friday that Taiwan would be a reliable partner in the
RSS