The 4th Taiwan Film Festival Berlin (柏林台灣影展) organized by the Impression Taiwan (映像台灣), and sponsored by the Ministry Culture and Taipei Representative Office in the Federal Republic of Germany, will select 16 pieces of work for screening from August 20 to 29 this year.
The largest scale since the festival's establishment, it will be themed around "Portraits of Taiwanese Diversity." It is hoped that by focusing on the profiling of various Taiwanese figures, it will show the diverse cultural backgrounds of Taiwan, and in turn explore the emotional attachments to the land.
Film festival curator Jaye Lin (林婕穎) expressed hope that the four major units at the festival will echo each other "to illustrate the philosophical thinking and self-exploration of Taiwanese living amongst the mountains and the seas, and to lead German audiences across geographic boundaries to understand the diverse faces and content of Taiwanese people through imageries."
Taiwan Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) wished the festival the best. "Taiwan's young people work together to make the film festival more professional, regardless of whether it is in curation, film selection or surrounding activities so that it has the potential to be the benchmark of independent film festivals in the German area."
This year's film festival will kick off with director Huang Chia-chun's "Whale Island (男人與他的海),"leading the audience to go on a journey with author Liao Hong-ji (廖鴻基) and cetacean photographer Jin Lei (金磊). Finally, director Liao Shi-han's (廖士涵) documentary "Searching for Taromak: Land of Warriors (尋找達魯瑪克)" will serve as closing film. The films will offer a glimpse into the close connection between tribal life and land, mountains, forests and crops.
The four major sections of this year's film festival selections are "Road To Freedom: Human Rights in Taiwan," "Portraits of Artists," "The Explorer and The Yearn For Travel" and the short film section "Gastarbeiter in Taiwan: Short Films collage."
There will also be four directors' seminars. On August 10, a human rights seminar will be held, in which Malaysian director Kek Huat Lau and senior German journalist Klaus Bardenhagen in Taiwan will be invited to talk about migrant workers and human rights demands.