Taiwan will be represented by three up-and-coming directors at this year's Marseille International Film Festival (FID), with director Wang Chun-hong's (王君弘) debut film included in the festival's official selection and international competition.
"Double Reflection," Wang's first film, has the feel of stark fiction. In this sensitive cartography of Taipei, a crumpled picture acts as a bridge to the true language of the city — an echo system in which luck plays second fiddle to symbols and a certain fatalism.
The 40-minute film was previously nominated for best short film at the 21st Taipei Film Festival and best student film at this year's Golden Harvest Awards. Wang, who is currently enrolled in Shin Hsin University's Department of Radio, Television and Film, expressed amazement at "Double Reflection" being the sole Chinese-language film shortlisted by Marseille's First Film Award this year.
Taiwan directors Wang Bo-an (王伯安) and Wu Tzu-an (吳梓安) have also been invited to join Marseille's FIDCampus, a workshop for international students from cinema and art schools and young directors around the world.
They were chosen on the basis of their previous films — "Home Abroad" by Wang Bo-an, who captures the identity crisis experienced by many Taiwanese youths upon exploring the world for the first time, and "Stargazing" by Wu, who made nightly recordings of the starry skies as a self-reflective photographic journal.
The intense training program will not only provide guidance and critique in scriptwriting, storytelling, and aural accompaniment, but will also serve as an important platform for networking and exchanges among young creative professionals.
Previous Taiwanese participants of the FIDCampus include Chiang Wei-liang (曾威量), director of "Anchorage Prohibited"; Rina Tsou (鄒隆娜), director of "Arnie"; and Su Hung-en (蘇弘恩), director of "The Mountain."
Recent Taiwanese screenings at the Marseille film festival include "TPE-Tics," a documentary on an idiosyncratic Taiwanese sound/performance artist lauded as a "walking Wikipedia of music"; and "Time Splits in the River," in which four directors invite their fathers to star in a film set during Taiwan's martial law era, only to see them become entangled in their own past as the plot advances.
This year marks the third year of collaboration between the Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris and Marseille International Film Festival.