Presenting Taiwan’s diversity
To curate the TFF, in 2018 Chen came back to Taiwan, where she watched more than 400 films. Ideas began to coalesce: the TFF would be a five-year project, with its headquarters in the UK, and would be staged in a different Nordic country each year. Through a thematic approach, Chen hoped that the TFF would help audiences in the UK and the Nordic countries learn more about Taiwan.
The inaugural festival explored the theme of “allergens” (i.e., politically or socially sensitive topics), and the selected films shed light on issues such as indigenous rights, homosexuality, homelessness, and Taiwan’s martial law era. Owing to their sensitive subjects, many of these films couldn’t have been produced or released elsewhere in the Chinese-speaking world. They represented the diversity of modern Taiwan, a place that celebrates freedom of speech.
Chen also collaborated with Tate Modern to create a “virtual reality cinema,” where Tsai Ming-liang’s VR film The Deserted provided a new kind of cinematic experience. During the inaugural festival, 13 filmmakers, including Tsai, Singing Chen, Wei Te-sheng, and Huang Hsin-yao, arrived to share their experiences. Taiwanese films suddenly became the talk of the town, in London as well as in Iceland.
The filmmakers featured at the festival all demonstrated Taiwan’s creative energy. Chen tells us that Taiwan and Iceland share many subtle similarities, both being small island countries. However, while Iceland provides a backdrop to famous epic movies and television dramas such as Star Wars and Game of Thrones, locally produced Icelandic films tend to be low-budget ones. In Taiwan, on the other hand, Wei Te-sheng was able to produce the magnificent Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale with a budget of NT$500 million.
For her part, Singing Chen broke stereotypes in European film criticism by proving that there are dedicated female filmmakers in Taiwan. Her documentary The Walkers tells the story of the choreographer Lin Lee-chen and Lin’s troupe, Legend Lin Dance Theatre. Ten years in the making, The Walkers bears witness to the Taiwanese filmmaker’s perseverance and tenacity.
The second edition of the TFF examined Taiwan’s “wounds,” focusing on environmental consciousness and pro-democracy movements. Aephie Chen wanted to show her audience that Taiwan, as well as Britain, was a pioneer in these two global issues. The festival coincided with the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK, but surprisingly, 70% of the tickets were sold. Collaborating with Tate Modern again that year, Chen showed films by Chen Chieh-jen and Ke Chin-yuan, enlisted Chen Chieh-jen to give masterclasses, and invited Extinction Rebellion for a Q&A session. The program also included performances by musicians Maxwell Sterling and Kenichi Iwasa, along with book discussions. In March 2020, almost immediately after Part 1 of the festival, London went into lockdown because of Covid.
TFF was founded by Taiwanese expat Aephie Chen (right). She is shown here with fellow curator Georgina Paget. (courtesy of Chiang Shou-an)
The TFF collaborated with Tate Modern a second time in 2020. Its program that year featured works by artist and filmmaker Chen Chieh-jen. (courtesy of Chiang Shou-an)