David on Formosa

Back in January 2009 I attended a screening of the documentary “Voices from the South: Kaohsiung’s Independent Music Scene” at The Wall in Taipei. The documentary, directed by Don Quan, was about the indie music scene in Kaohsiung. The film followed the fortunes five Kaohsiung bands and four of these bands (KoOk, Orange Doll (橘娃娃), Shy [...]

Smangus: A Year in the Clouds, a documentary about the Atayal community of Smangus, will screen on Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS) tonight (30 June). The documentary had its premiere in Smangus on Tuesday night. It is a co-production between PTS and British documentary makers Dean Johnson and Frank Smith. The team filmed various aspects of the [...]

Voices in the Clouds (眾族同聲) had its Taiwan premiere at the closing of the Urban Nomad Film Festival in Taipei on Sunday night. The documentary is a moving and personal story of a man’s search for identity and belonging. Tony Coolidge was born in Taiwan, but moved to the United States of America with his [...]

2010 saw a number of interesting Taiwanese films released. I saw and reviewed a good cross section of them on this blog. The gangster film Monga (艋舺) was the year’s big hit raking in over NT$250 million at the box office. Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北) and Taipei Exchanges (第36個故事) were two enjoyable films that showed a certain [...]

Michael Turton has posted an excellent interview with Dr Bruno Walther about biodiversity in Taiwan. Dr Walther is a visiting professor at Taipei Medical University and also works at the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute. In the interview he discusses some of the key challenges Taiwan faces to protect its biodiversity. Dr Walther and Klaus [...]

The Fourth Portrait (第四張畫) paints a wonderful picture of the life of a young boy, Xiang played by Bi Xiao-hai (畢曉海), who struggles to find his place in a world of poverty and domestic violence. It is the second film for director Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏) who made his directorial debut with Parking in 2008. The story begins [...]