Marry My Dead Body (關於我和鬼變成家人的那件事), the film Taiwan submitted to the Oscars for best international feature, has won the Audience Award at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles.
In receiving the honor on Friday last week, the film became the first ever Taiwanese movie to win an award at the film festival, beating out entries from 14 other Asian countries to achieve the milestone.
The supernatural drama/mystery film, which was an instant hit in Taiwan after its release in February, tells the story of a marriage between a living and a dead person and covers a wide range of topics, including LGBTQ+ issues and police investigations into drug dealers.
Photo: CNA
“There’s deliberate uses of stereotypes in the movie, but as you follow the characters through their journeys, you will realize that we’re trying to tear down the labels and break down the stereotypes,” the film’s director, Cheng Wei-hao (程偉豪), said at the movie’s Asian World Film Festival premiere on Nov. 9.
“We’re all equal when it comes to love,” he said.
Executive producer Jin Bai-lun (金百倫) said at the premiere that the movie aims to portray the positive sides of the LGBTQ+ community, as past Taiwanese movies usually depicted the more oppressive side of the community.
First held nine years ago, the Asian World Film Festival serves as a promotion platform for movies representing Asian countries that have been submitted for consideration in the best international feature category at the Oscars.
According to Variety, 92 international films have been submitted for consideration for the international feature of the Oscars. A shortlist of the top 15 films is to be announced on Dec. 21 and the final nominees in the category are to be named on Jan. 23 next year.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash