More than a dozen feature-length and short films selected for this year’s Sundance Film Festival are being screened at the festival’s Asian edition, which opened in Taipei yesterday.
The event, which runs through Sunday, is to feature 14 panel discussions and workshops, with people who have worked on Hollywood blockbusters expected to share their experiences and engage with local filmmakers in Taiwan.
At a news conference in Taipei on Tuesday, Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Kevin Lin (林士斌), one of the founders of G2Go Entertainment, described the Sundance Film Festival Asia in Taipei — an extension of the US’ largest independent film festival — as an “independent film celebration.”
Photo: CNA
Lin, who is best known for cofounding the livestreaming service Twitch, created G2Go Entertainment with friends to organize the film event in Taiwan.
Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani said the event would enable audiences to “discover their voices, entertain the stories and take part in conversations.”
The Sundance Institute — a nonprofit organization established by Hollywood star Robert Redford to organize the annual film festival in Park City, Utah — was dedicated to supporting independent storytellers and showing their work to audiences worldwide.
Yutani, who would also be one of the panelists, added that she is “thrilled to be engaged with local audiences [and] the film community here on the ground.”
Also joining the panels are Alan Taylor, director of Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, and Lawrence Sher, nominated for an Academy Award in cinematography for Joker, the organizer said.
Ten feature films and five short films selected for this year’s Sundance Film Festival would be shown at SPOT-Huashan Cinema in Taipei over the next five days, including Taiwanese-American director Sean Wang’s (王湘聖) debut feature movie Didi (弟弟).
Didi, which won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble and the Audience Award: US Dramatic at the main festival in January, is a coming-of-age drama about an angsty teenager from an immigrant family trying to navigate increasingly tense family and interpersonal relationships.
A New Kind of Wilderness and Porcelain War, which won World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary and US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary respectively, would also be screened at the Taipei event.
A New Kind of Wilderness documents a family living in on a farm in a forest who are forced to make significant changes to their life following a tragic event, while Porcelain War documents three Ukrainian artists striving to preserve their culture while defending their homeland against a brutal invasion by Russia.
SCENARIOS: A potential conflict with Beijing would not be similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China would target energy and food supplies, a researcher said China is likely to continue using economic and cyberoperations against Taiwan to force it to capitulate without resorting to a military attack, Fox News reported yesterday, citing the outcome of a tabletop exercise. Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) earlier this month held a tabletop exercise in Taipei focusing on Beijing’s use of economic and cybercoercion against Taiwan. The FDD mentioned an “anaconda strategy,” in which Beijing would likely use cyberwarfare and disinformation campaigns followed by a blockade or other measures to strangulate Taiwan, rather than attempting an invasion, the report said. A large-scale cyberattack would be
China sent 50 military planes and vessels to the vicinity of Taiwan in the 24 hours starting at 6am on Friday, while President William Lai (賴清德) was visiting Kinmen for the first time since taking office in May to mark the 66th anniversary of the 823 Artillery Bombardment. Flight paths released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense showed that 38 military aircraft were detected in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the highest number recorded in recent weeks. The figure included 32 that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or its extension. Of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft
HSINCHU CASES: Five people among 35 who were reported being sick were still in hospital after eating at a vendor in a market in Jhubei, the local health agency said Thirty-five people have sought medical treatment for acute symptoms after allegedly eating banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from a vendor in Jhubei City (竹北), the Hsinchu County Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that since Saturday, it has received several reports of suspected food poisoning from hospitals. The vendor has been ordered to temporarily suspend its business, it said, adding that tests were being conducted to determine whether the people had food poisoning, with results expected in about two weeks. A preliminary investigation showed that the people who sought treatment had recently eaten banh mi at a vendor at a retail market
GOOD MODEL: Speaking at his book launch, Law said that Taiwan is the most democratic Chinese-speaking country, which is why Hong Kongers relocated here China has suffocated Hong Kong’s civil society and its next target could be Taiwan, Nathan Law (羅冠聰), cofounder of the disbanded pro-democracy Hong Kong political party Demosisto, said in Taipei yesterday. Law made the remarks at a launch in Taipei for his book When the Wind Blows — the Struggles for Freedom of Hong Kong (時代推著我們前行:羅冠聰的香港備忘錄). Law has been living in the UK since he fled Hong Kong in 2020, and the book is about his fighting for the cause of freedom in the area. He was granted political asylum in 2021. “Fleeing is a long and distressing process, but it also