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'As We Like It' selected to premiere in Big Screen Competition of International Film Festival Rotterdam

  • Date:2020-12-23
'As We Like It' selected to premiere in Big Screen Competition of International Film Festival Rotterdam

"As We Like It (揭大歡喜)," a feature film by Taiwanese directors Wei Ying-chuan (魏瑛娟) and Chen Hung-i (陳宏一), is among the 15 films selected to premiere in the Big Screen Competition of the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

"As We Like It" drew inspiration from Shakespeare's play "As You Like It." The reworking of Shakespeare's play opted for an entirely female cast, referencing Shakespeare's era when women were banned from the stage and all roles were played by men. Sheldon Kraicer, one of the jury who made the selection, said that he was impressed by the creativity.

The plot follows the lives of Rosalin (Puff Kuo) and Orlando (Aggie Hsieh) who fell in love with each other at first sight. To test whether Orlando's love was genuine, Rosalin started to disguise as a man by cutting her hair short, wearing a suit and tie and changing her name to "Roosevelt." The film intends to explore subjects such as gender politics, role-playing and human desire in the future.

"As We Like It" is the only Taiwanese feature film selected for IFFR 2021, and Wei is the only female director from the Mandarin-speaking world whose film was selected for the Big Screen Competition. Fifteen films vie for the VPRO Big Screen Award this year. IFFR and the Dutch broadcast organization VPRO will jointly present a cash prize to the winner of the VPRO Big Screen Award. The production team and the distributor who decides to buy the film will each receive half of the cash prize of €30,000 (approx. 1 million NTD).

In addition, the films selected for the Big Screen Competition are presented to an audience jury composed of five film lovers. Together they determine which film they think deserves to be shown in film houses across the Netherlands and broadcast on television on NPO2 after the festival.

The actors starred in "As We Like It" include Aggie Hsieh (謝沛恩), Puff Kuo (郭雪芙), Camile Chalons (夏朧), Joelle Lu (陸明君), Helena Hsu (許乃涵), Esther Huang (黃瀞怡), Tsao Lan (曹蘭) , Chung Hsin-Ling (鍾欣凌).

Director Wei holds a Master's degree in educational theater from New York University and founded the Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group (莎士比亞的妹妹們的劇團) in Taiwan.

Director Chen received recognition for the film "The Last Painting (自畫像)," which was premiered at IFFR in 2017 and later brought into further global spotlight after winning the Golden Alhambra Award for Best Feature Film at Cines del Sur.

"As We Like It" will be screened for the first time in early February 2021 at IFFR, and is set for release in Taiwan in March 2021.