Fantasporto: International Film Festival of Oporto, one of the world's oldest festivals dedicated to genre cinema, celebrated its 40th anniversary from Feb. 28 to March 7, with Taiwanese commercial horror film "Detention" by director John Hsu winning the Special Jury Award.
"Detention" was the first narrative feature from Taiwan to ever be selected for competition by the Fantasporto. Nevertheless, films from Taiwan are not unfamiliar choices for audiences of the Porto, Portugal-based festival. In collaboration with the Taiwan Cinema Toolkit, Fantasporto has continually brought the innovative essence of Taiwan-made cinema from the 1960s through 1980s into its programming within three consecutive years.
Starting from classic Wuxia masterpieces to a retrospective on Taiwan director Chang Tso-chi and a review of female roles in commercial Taiwanese-language films in the 1960s, these programs successfully garnered the interest of Porto audiences. Taiwanese directors and film scholars were also interviewed by news media Público.
In celebration of Fantasporto's 40th edition, the Taiwan Cinema Toolkit and Taiwan Docs based under the Taiwan Film Institute proudly presented a Taiwan Retro program titled "The Wheel of Fortune," with a selection of classic films dating back to 1969 until modern day, both narrative features and documentaries, by the auteurs and directors of a new generation. As suggested by the name, this program consists of three different dimensions to look into people's fate, which is echoed by the cycle of the trilogy itself.
There are films which highlight the capricious nature of life and even embody the incarnation within the plots. There is also a controversial "sequel" documentary that was struck by an unplanned narrative and forcibly exposes the underlying power relations among the director, the director's subject, and the unspeakable destiny of documentary making. Furthermore, filmmakers are invited to create shorts applying the footage materials derived from Taiwan Film Institute's archives or getting inspiration from restored classics.
"Through these shorts, we believe the revival of archival footage is on its way and retro can be a new fashion," concluded TFI. Read the original press release here.