I Am Greta is a documentary film about climate activist Greta Thunberg, the central figure of the 2018 climate strike movement. Thunberg, a high school student, started protesting the inaction of the government in regards to climate change by skipping school and going on strike on Fridays. This simple act of rebellion, at first done only by Thunberg herself, slowly caught the attention of other students, and eventually grew into a global climate strike movement, participated by students around the world. Thunberg’s reputation was catapulted to celebrity status by the media, and as a result, she was invited to many UN climate meetings Read More
Temple festivals in Taiwan often seem to be a mixture of the sacred and the profane. Sure, temples are places of worship—but temple festivities often have elements of what would otherwise be considered “low” culture incorporated into them Read More
2010 tragicomedy "Seven Days in Heaven" explores a working-class family’s mourning rites amidst a southern Taiwanese backdrop Read More
In Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, he used a metaphor to describe how a Prince should look at political situations: “For just as those who sketch landscapes place themselves down in the plain to consider the nature of mountains and high places to consider the nature of low places place themselves high atop mountains…” Read More
The Kaohsiung Film Festival is known for its fantasy-oriented selections of films, but in the last few years, it has sought to spotlight VR films. Apart from that the festival initiated a competition for VR films, it funds and supports Taiwanese VR projects and productions. It also opened the very first VR theatre in Taiwan—the Kaohsiung VR FILM LAB—bringing the latest and various VR films to the local audiences all year round Read More
Brian Hioe spoke to the members of Batavia Collective about how they formed as a band, their current projects, and future plans Read More
This past weekend, BDSM Company hosted four performances of “Kinky Community Musical 2.0" at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park. Written by Della Wang and directed by Hsiao-I Lu, "Kinky Community Musical 2.0” is a revised version of Wang’s first “Kinky Community Musical,” which debuted in late April 2019 just weeks before the legalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Featuring mesmerizing rope-binding scenes, catchy tunes in the form of twelve original songs, and gripping script writing, the play tells an intertwined love story of four main characters that pushes the boundaries of tongzhi politics to further incorporate Taiwan’s BDSM, asexual, and polyamory communities Read More
Swingin’ aims to be a charmful, cute, and playful story, even as it touches on contemporary social issues still debated in Taiwanese society. The short film tells the story of eleven-year-old elementary schooler Qiu Qiu, who has two gay fathers, one of which is his biological father. However, the film focuses more on Qiu Qiu’s relation with his non-biological father, Wu Jia-hao. Read More
New Bloom/No Man is an Island editor Brian Hioe spoke to writer Charles Yu about his recent book, Interior Chinatown, which recently won the National Book Award Read More
Reminiscent of Tsai Ming-liang’s "Stray Dogs", "In the Morning of La Petite Mort" follows the lives of three working class individuals at the edges of Taiwanese society Read More
The jokes started in 2018 after legislator Apollo Chen and then-chair Wu Den-yih appeared in a publicity photo together, awkwardly posing with their fists. If this wasn’t bad enough their pants went all the way above their waists, in a grandfatherly fashion. The image sparked a seemingly endless number of memes Read More
“Shunyata” sets high ambitions, with a frame narrative suggesting religious or spiritual undertones. Likewise, the film aims to dazzle through sound and image. Consequently, it demands concentration in order to mine out meaning Read More