Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai met with Myanmar-born Taiwanese director Midi Z to congratulate him after he won an award each from two international film festivals within a week. The Minister presented a cash prize to Midi Z for being crowned Best Director at the Love and Peace Festival in Sweden and winning the Award for Best International Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai:
I am quite moved that Chinese culture serves as a “river of culture.” The most important thing for all of us is still the power of tolerance, inclusiveness, generosity, and expansibility. It makes the children born in this culture yearn to return after their travels. So I think us Taiwanese people have to show the world that we provide the opportunities for people like Midi Z to reach their full potential. This is the power of Taiwan.
Film director Midi Z:
I believe it was all because of Taiwan. If I didn’t come back to Taiwan or had not been nurtured here, I would have remained lost and listless in Myanmar.
I am not just being polite by saying nice things. If you’ve been to Myanmar and known my life in the past and what I have been doing until now, you would probably know why I have been deeply influenced and nurtured by the power of freedom and democracy in Taiwan.
Taiwan team filming in Myanmar
“Ice Poison” portrays the stories of separations and reunions of ethnic Chinese people living on the border of China and Myanmar through the social issue of drugs. Hailed as a grand breakthrough for Asian films by the international film community, Midi Z’s third feature film touches on politics and social issues from a more critical point of view.