The LAB KILL LAB project concept aims to “permit a well-defined working lab the possibility to be renewed, substituted, replaced, regenerated and retired as time progresses”. The concept is exemplified and laid out as five “work stations” at C-LAB in Taipei from the week of December 14 to December 20, 2020 Read More
New Bloom's Brian Hioe spoke with obese.dogma777, rEmPiT g0dDe$$, and Lumi about Eastern Margins' recent Road 2 Redline tour of Southeast Asia, collaborating with artists that previously worked on their Redline Legends album, released in 2021. The tour included stops in Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Bangkok, Bandung, and Saigon Read More
Dear Chrysanthemums, by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, is a well-crafted set of stories set during various points in modern Chinese history Read More
This past weekend, over 200 participants came to see the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights’ (TAPCPR) "看見跨性別藝文展 100 Ways to See Transgender" exhibition at 二空間 SPACE TWO. Since their first Transgender Film Festival in 2020, TAPCPR has made it a tradition to do larger scale public engagement programming around transgender issues every year in the month of November. Last year was the second Transgender Film Festival, and this year is the 100 Ways to See Transgender exhibition Read More
Cannabis decriminalization advocates held a demonstration and fair on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building today. Organizers claimed 2,000 were in attendance. While the demonstration was to mark 420, the rally took place instead today because of the weekend. This is the fifth time such a demonstration has been held in Taiwan, with last year’s demonstration called off due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic Read More
Mickey on the Road has the makings of a great film, but fails to live up to its promises. Consequently, it represents much wasted potential for what could have otherwise been a strong entry in the road movie genre Read More
The documentary "Singing in the Wilderness" is a look at a church chorus thrust into China's national stage after fame from participating in a televised singing competition. What makes this chorus especially interesting is that all its members are Miao—one of China's officially recognized ethnic minorities. Unlike the Muslim Uyghurs and Hui or Buddhist Tibetans, the Miao receive little international focus, which makes this documentary especially notable Read More
Director Chang Yi-ching's (張伊青) new documentary, 《做自己的條件》Be Myself, made its world premiere last night at the 25th annual Taipei Film Festival. Be Myself documents video editor Hsin-yu’s (欣嶼) journey through gender affirming surgeries and changing his legal gender from female to male. Chang’s new full-length documentary, running at 138 minutes, is the first of its kind, providing viewers with a detailed portrayal of female-to-male (FTM) transition and achieving new heights in FTM transgender representation in Taiwan. However, Be Myself suffers from a severe lack of sensitivity and accountability on the part of the director, as well as a narrative arc that ultimately centers Hsin-yu’s family members rather than himself and inadvertently perpetuates subtle forms of transphobia Read More
A recent petition by Code Pink sees fit to ventriloquize the people of Taiwan, claiming that the people of Taiwan do not want war with China–certainly true–but then claiming that the people of Taiwan do not hope for support for the US against China. The petition goes on to cite polling by Academia Sinica Read More
Although there have been several short fiction films about the 2019 Hong Kong protests, such as “Night is Young” and “Lost Pearl,” May You Stay Forever Young (少年) is perhaps the first full-length fiction film to address this tumultuous time in recent Hong Kong history. Given increasing censorship in Hong Kong, as with protest documentary Revolution of Our Times, May You Stay Forever Young could only see nationwide theatrical release in Taiwan. The film was in the running for "Best New Director" and "Best Editing" at the 58th Golden Horse Awards. Though it won neither, it did win the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema award at the Golden Horse Film Festival in 2021 Read More
Archiving Time, an hour-long documentary on Taiwanese film preservation currently available on Taiwan+, is a well-executed take on what could be a rather cut-and-dry subject. Namely, the film proves an argument for the importance of film preservation, as well as a documentary film that details the process Read More
Brian Hioe spoke with Arthur Bray from Hong Kong-based Yeti Out on how Yeti Out began, its successes to date, and what comes next for the platform Read More