Kaohsiung-set movies give southern flavor to KFF

2015/10/23

Locally set movies showcasing the potential of Kaohsiung City as a regional hub for cinematic production are headlining the port metropolis’s biggest film festival set to kick off Oct. 23 at Dadong Arts Center.

Featuring more than 200 celluloid offerings by directors from home and abroad, Kaohsiung Film Festival offers an exciting lineup spanning the genres of action, animation, comedy, documentary, horror, romance, silent and suspense.

KFF highlights include the opener “White Lies, Black Lies” by homegrown director Lou Yi-an, winner of best short script at the 2010 Golden Harvest Awards. The thriller involves a hair salon owner suspected of murdering his wife in cold blood and fleeing with his lover.

“The film was made in the old western district of Kaohsiung,” Lou said. “The area’s narrow, winding alleys and historic buildings provide a perfect backdrop for the twisted tale of betrayal, deceit, lust and violence.”

Other Taiwan productions taking advantage of the city’s historic sites and modern buildings include “Maverick,” “We Are Family” and host of documentaries.

Of equal interest are special screenings of signature pieces by such luminaries as Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, David Lynch and Lotte Reiniger, with spotlights on the works of James Cunningham, Michel Gondry and Veit Helmer.

Another must for lovers of cinema is the International Short Film Competition, attracting 2,000 submissions from 84 countries and territories. Some of the favorites are “My Body is an Air Quality Monitoring Station” from Taiwan, “Waves ‘98” from Lebanon and “Dissonance” from Germany.

“Waves ‘98” is a Golden Palm winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, while “Dissonance” earned a European Film Awards nomination at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.

An added bonus for KFF-goers is the Cloud Cinema app enabling all submissions in the shorts competition to be viewed 24/7 on handheld devices.

In addition to Dadong, other venues screening movies during KFF’s 17-day run are Kaohsiung Film Archive and Kaohsiung Main Public Library.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=238126&ctNode=2194&mp=9)