A crowdfunding campaign was on Thursday launched to help finish a movie about three women incarcerated on Green Island, the first Taiwanese film to address female political prisoners during the Martial Law era.
Untold Herstory, which has finished principal photography, focuses on three fictional women incarcerated on Green Island in the 1950s. It is adapted from Tsao Chin-jung’s (曹欽榮) Bonfire Island: Untold Herstory, a collection of interviews with women who had been imprisoned on the island.
The filmmakers hope to raise NT$10 million (US$334,024) in the online fundraising campaign to cover post-production costs, promotion, and domestic and international distribution.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Film Corp via CNA
The movie stars Yu Pei-jen (余佩真), who portrays a 17-year-old high-school student; Herb Hsu (徐麗雯) as a young mother named Yan Shui-hsia (嚴水霞); and Cindy Lien (連俞涵), who plays a dancer.
Director Zero Chou (周美玲) said that the women Tsao interviewed and their willpower to survive while holding onto their values resonated with her.
She hopes the movie conveys the same grit, courage and tenacity she felt in the words of the women, Chou said.
“Hopefully, this film will become an important testament to the age of transitional justice,” she added.
The film crew spent more than a year scouting the site of the former prison on Green Island off the southeast of Taiwan, as well as talking with political prisoners and their relatives, she said.
However, all that remained of the prison were some wooden pillars, so the crew had to build a set from scratch, she said.
“The greatest challenge that the actors faced was to deliver their lines in the native dialect of the characters they portray, and use the correct terminology of the times to faithfully capture the zeitgeist of the 1950s,” the director said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at