Days (日子), a new film by Taiwan-based Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), has been selected for the upcoming New York Film Festival, the festival’s organizers said on Thursday.
The festival, which runs from Sept. 17 to Oct. 11, released a statement announcing its lineup of 25 feature films from 19 countries.
Days follows the daily lives of two solitary men — played by Tsai’s long-time muse Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) and first-time actor Anong Houngheuangsy, a young Laotian immigrant to Thailand — whose lives converge in a brief romantic encounter, according to the festival Web site.
The film ranks among “the most cathartic” of Tsai’s works, and is “constructed with the director’s customary brilliance at visual composition and shot through with profound empathy,” the festival said.
Days premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where it received a Teddy Award, which honors films with an LGBT focus.
The film’s US premiere, scheduled in April at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, was ultimately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In light of the crowd-size restrictions, the festival’s screenings would be held either in drive-in theaters or virtually, the statement said.
Following the announcement, Tsai on Facebook thanked the MoMA for allowing Days to premiere at the festival, adding that “each film has its own destiny.”
The noncompetitive New York Film Festival is held annually at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
In addition to between 20 and 30 feature-length films, the festival also includes documentaries, experimental movies and holds retrospectives.
Days is Tsai’s fifth film to be shown at the festival, following What Time is it There? in 2001, Goodbye, Dragon Inn in 2003, Stray Dogs in 2013 and Your Face in 2018.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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