Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh (TFFE) returns for its third outing of the year from Oct. 15 to 20, bringing the best of Taiwanese film to Edinburgh's key arts venues Summerhall and Everyman Cinema. After the main Film Festival in October, TFFE will tour to other locations across the highlands of Scotland, including Glasgow, Inverness and the Isle of Terry, from November onwards.
The Cultural Division of the Ministry of Culture in the UK has once again invited independent curator Liu Kuan-ping (劉官玶) to curate this year's festival. The festival's autumn list of films includes a wide range of genres including feature films, short films, animation, drama and documentaries.
The first strand "Shorts: Being Alone Together" features two shorts from Taiwan, namely the beautiful stop-motion animation "Where Am I Going (當一個人)" and "Can You Hear Me? (講話沒有在聽)." The second strand "Doc Replay: Portraits" presents two documentaries "When The Dawn Comes (黎明到來的那一天)" and "The Catch (捕鰻的人)." The third strand introduces Taiwanese filmmakers to audiences in the UK, and this year features a retrospective on the variegated career of Chen Yi-wen (陳以文), an actor, writer and director. The retrospective features a hand-picked selection of films from Chen's acting career, including "The Man From Island West (西部來的人)," "Growing Pains (少年阿堯)," "Increasing Echo (修行)" and "Treat or Trick (詭扯)." Audiences can also look forward to enjoying his seminal 2000 film "The Cabbie (運轉手之戀)," which won Chen the Grand Jury Award at the Golden Horse Awards.
Dr. Chen Pin-Chuan (陳斌全), Director of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, praised this year's TFFE for pioneering both a year-round program of events and a tour of venues across Scotland, in contrast to previous incarnations which were held only for a week in one city. TFFE's ambitions for promoting Taiwanese film cohere well with the strategies and practices of local cultural organizations in Scotland for promoting film and the arts.