Selected films from an international documentary festival will be screened on a tour around Taiwan with the hope of enhancing the global perspective of Taiwanese audiences, the Ministry of Culture said on Friday.
The Taiwan International Documentary Festival Screening Tour, slated for May 10 through Aug. 31, will showcase 31 documentary films from 15 countries on topics ranging from physical and mental disabilities, politics and society to environmental change.
The films were selected from the 2012 Taiwan International Documentary Festival, a biennial event that usually features over 100 films and attracts thousands of filmmakers and viewers, the Ministry stated.
'We hope to promote world-class documentaries around Taiwan, so that audiences can become more aware of the different ways of thinking in this world,' Chu Wen-ching, head of the Ministry's Bureau of
Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, said at a press conference.
Taiwan has freedom of expression, which is a key element that makes a good documentary possible, Chu said, adding that Taiwanese documentaries are 'an important cultural and diplomatic asset.'
Lee Li-shao, director of 'Boundary Revelation,' said he hopes his film will inspire audiences to re-think Taiwan's own identity and its role in the world.
The 2012 film discusses the national identity issues of a group of Kuomintang soldiers in the mountain jungles of Thailand and Myanmar.
Chu Shih-chien, producer of the 'The Long Goodbye,' a 2011 film about dementia, said she hopes to call people's attention to the condition and motivate them to care more about the elderly.
Both films will be screened during the tour, which will cover 16 counties and cities around Taiwan.