The world film festival "Festival du Cinéma du Monde" (formerly known as "Semaine des cinémas étrangers"), organized by the Forum of Foreign Cultural Institutes in Paris (FICEP), will take place from Mar. 19 to 26 at the cinema Les 3 Luxembourg in Paris.
The festival will feature award-winning films from 14 countries, including Poland, Ecuador, Canada, Germany, Kosovo, and others. To echo the central theme "Award-winning Films (Film primé)" of the film festival, Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris will present a Taiwanese animated film "On Happiness Road (幸福路上)."
Directed and written by Sung Hsin-yin (宋欣穎), "On Happiness Road" has won numerous awards, including Best Animation Feature at the 55th Golden Horse Awards, Best Animation at the 20th Taipei Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival, and Best Animation at the Seoul International Animated Film Festival. Voiced by Guey Lun-mei (桂綸鎂), Chen Bor-jeng (陳博正), Liao Hui-jen (廖慧珍), Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) and others, the story depicts the childhood of a Taiwanese girl and recalls the historical memory of Taiwan from different periods of time between 1970 and 2010. The protagonist returns to Taiwan from New York to attend her grandmother's funeral and is bombarded by fantastical memories of her past－reflections that reveal the darker side of the society that shaped her failing American dream.
Born in Taipei, Director Sung studied Film Theory in Kyoto University, later graduated from Columbia College of Chicago with a Master’s Degree in Film. As a filmmaker, Sung is interested in using different film genres to explore universal relationships among people. She has a particular interest in finding the pace of a film through editing, like composing a piece of music.
(Photo courtesy of Happiness Road Productions Co. Ltd)