David on Formosa

A group of artists joined together in Taipei today to express their support for Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS; 公共電視). The event at Freedom Square brought together film makers, musicians, writers and artists who all put their name to a petition to protest against the Legislative Yuan freezing part of PTS’s annual budget. I detailed this in my report of the 1 January rally for PTS.

A veritable who’s who of the arts community in Taiwan participated in the event. Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), director of Cape No. 7, is pictured above. Some other well known Taiwanese film makers were present including Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), Lin Jing-jie (林靖傑) and Hung Hung (鴻鴻). Musicians included Doris of ChthoniC and members of Aphasia and Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤).

Puppet master Robin Ruizendaal carried a sign that reads, “PTS loves glove puppets. Glove puppets really love PTS” (公視愛布袋戲，布袋戲好愛公視).

The event finished with the smashing of blocks of ice with shouts of “unfreeze” (解凍) referring to PTS’s frozen budget.