The Cultural Division of the Taipei and Cultural Office in Malaysia, in collaboration with the Freedom Film Fest, will host screenings of “Taste of Wild Tomatoes (野番茄),” a documentary film by Taiwan-based Malaysian director Lau Kek-huat (廖克發). The screenings will take place on Aug. 16 in Kuala Lumpur and Aug. 17 in Malacca.
“Taste of Wild Tomatoes” focuses on Taiwan’s February 28 incident, an anti-government uprising in 1947 that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang-led nationalist government. This film gently tends the deep scars of the witnesses, survivors and their descendants as an act of resistance to oblivion. Memories survive through different eras of oppression and continue to live in people’s hearts, just like the wild tomatoes grown on the land.
Lau Kek-huat is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan. His debut film “Boluomi (波蘿蜜)” was selected for competition in the New Currents section of the Busan International Film Festival and earned a Golden Horse Awards nomination for Best New Director. Both his documentary “Absent Without Leave (不即不離)” and “The Tree Remembers (還有一些樹)” still face censorship challenges today in Malaysia.
For more information, visit Freedom Film Fest’s website.
(Image credit: Kaohsiung Film Archive)