Washington--In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards, the Freer Gallery of Art is hosting a mini film festival from Nov. 15 to 24. Four winning films will be presented in Mandarin with English subtitles. Admission is free.
The four Golden Horse Award winning films are The Terrorizers (1986) directed by Edward Yang, Vive L’Amour (1994) directed by Tsai Ming-liang, No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (2009) directed by Leon Dai, and GF*BF (2012) directed by Yang Ya-Che. The Terrorizers and Vive L’Amour return to the silver screen with digitally restored versions.
Importance of the Awards
Tom Vick, curator of film at the Freer and Sackler Gallery of Art, selected the four to showcase the style and range of Taiwanese films and to salute the 50th anniversary of the Golden Horse Awards.
At the reception on the opening night of the film festival, he said, “I think it means a lot for Taiwanese cinema and Chinese language cinema in general. Golden Horse Awards is an awards festival that really launches people’s careers like Tsai Ming-liang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Ang Lee. All of those people have really got their start from winning awards at the Golden Horse… So it’s an important festival. It’s a great celebration!”
He explained his selection of the four films: “The first two films are kind of classic films. … The first one No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti won four awards of Golden Horse. So, it’s another case of younger director whose career was sort of just beginning, thanks to the awards he just won there. The final film GF*BF is just really fun movie, a great example of new Taiwanese cinema. .... It kind of gives a sample of the range of Taiwanese cinema, by showing these films that have all won big awards at Golden Horse.”
Vick plans to meet with more Taiwanese filmmakers and hopefully bring more Taiwanese movies and filmmakers to future film festivals at the Freer Gallery of Art.
He said, “My mission is to go to the night markets and eat all night long!”
50-Year-Old Brand
Vick shares his thoughts on why that the Golden Horse Awards has lasted 50 years and is still going strong:
“I think it has developed a reputation both for being an important event for filmmakers and being a very entertaining one that draws many stars, and many famous people come. It is very glamorous. I think it has just managed to maintain that reputation over the years… It’s one of the longer running film festivals in the world. A lot of them don’t last that long. It’s quite impressive.”
Andrew J.C. Kao, Deputy Representative at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. (TECRO), a co-sponsor of the film festival at Freer, considered the Golden Horse Awards very special to Taiwan.
Professor Teng Chung-chian at the Department of Diplomacy at the National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taiwan thought that all Chinese should cherish the Golden Horse Awards. Even though the Awards received support from the Taiwan government, devoted filmmakers in Taiwan were really the driving force. He said, “Establishing a brand is not easy. We should all cherish and support this brand.”
Local Audience Appreciates Taiwanese Films
John Kozak from the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) came to see The Terrorizers on Nov. 15. He said, “The films are always excellent; the Freer Gallery does a good job. It’s nice to see how they tell a story in another culture… Freer is the only institution [in the area] that does bring all of these wonderful foreign films to see. Otherwise, I would never have the opportunity.”
Kozak liked The Wedding Banquet the Gallery showcased last year. As for the style of Taiwanese movies, he thought, “They seem to put more emphasis on good story-telling and acting as opposed to special effects and animation, which is so typical of what you see in Western films these days. It’s hard to see a movie that tells a really good story based on the actors, the acting. You see that [in Taiwanese movies] more so than Western.”
Marx Chen, a law school student from Georgetown University, said that he missed last year’s films. This time, he came to see The Terrorizers, a classic. “I think the preciousness of Taiwanese films is that they reflect the structure and change of the Taiwan society. Films are recounts of events. We can enjoy the arrangements of stories in movies.”
Taiwanese Movies Expanding
According to Vick, Taiwanese movies have obtained international attention since the 1990s. While the old generation of filmmakers, such as Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, focused more on film festivals and international audience, the younger generation pays more attention to local audience while trying to appeal to a broader audience at the same time. The industry in Taiwan has also shifted from director based to more producer based.
New film distribution channels have also opened up additional dimensions for filmmaking. Commercial release is not the only way any more. The film audiences are also becoming more fragmented with Netflix and Hulu.
“I think Taiwanese cinema is being recognized throughout the world. Younger generations of filmmakers are making different kind of films, maybe for a broader audience. I think those are starting to make an impact. Taiwanese cinema definitely has a chance of expanding,” Vick said.
He thought that each Asian country has its specialty in filmmaking. “Taiwanese films seem to be more about relationships, about how Taiwanese culture is changing.”
Close to 400 people attended the opening night reception. The theater was practically full of people watching the first film The Terrorizers.
Vick wasn’t surprised by the turnout. He said, “There’s a lot of reasons for that. One is of course that the world is shrinking; we all have to be knowledgeable about the rest of the world. … People have always loved Chinese art. Our whole museum has a great gallery devoted to it. Chinese language films have always been popular with the Kung-Fu movies, action movies, or art films. So, I think there’s a bigger interest these days; and that spreads out to a wider parts of the culture.”
Terri Wu contributed to this report.
