Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan and Taiwan actress Guei Lun-mei [Photo: Xinhua]
Taiwanese actors only claimed two major prizes at last weekend's Golden Horse Awards, lagging far behind Hong Kong and mainland China, which together swept all the 19 other key trophies up for grabs.
Although the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was quick in criticizing the outcome as violating the event's main purpose — promoting the local film sector — our movie industry should still see some merit in the results.
After all, the jury did not give any special favors to productions from Taiwan, meaning that fairness and impartiality have remained at the core of the Golden Horse Awards — an authority in Mandarin-language filmmaking circles.
If we want the organizing community to keep this integrity in the future, however, we should not only make sure that professionalism always outweighs nationalism, but also that there are people standing up and complaining about the current lack of diversity and opportunity in Asia (as most countries subsidize heavily their own sector).
If we fail to protect Taiwan's “cultural diversity,” local movies will look like any other from the Chinese-speaking world, full of the dull songs and dances from Hong Kong, South Korea or mainland China blockbusters, bombarding audiences with CGI monsters.
In order to address these challenges, we should first express our support for young producers, directors and actors in their fight against this perverse system that pitches film sectors from Asia, Europe and the United States against each other. Dozens of locally produced films have already emerged as box office hits in recent years, suggesting that a new generation of directors has kick-started a creative renaissance in the filmmaking industry.
Last year, Taiwan-made movies took a 17.5-percent share of receipts for all films shown in Taipei, the biggest in a decade. In addition to confidence, we see an encouraging atmosphere in the air in that Taiwanese are finally willing to go to see local films again after years of empty theaters.
Local filmmakers have long been squeezed between big budget movies well-supported by TV networks and the small-budget art films supported by government subsidies. The problem, however, is that the gap between these two poles has been growing, polarizing the image we get of Taiwanese cinema into two clear-cut alternatives: the entertainment and the artistic, often dubbed as “local.”
The above-mentioned directors know that filmmaking is not only about entertaining the audience, but also injecting their thoughts and emotions through storytelling in an entertaining style. Like France, Taiwan must remain the last bastion in Asia where cinema is still considered a true art form.
For sure, French authorities imposed their national agenda onto other European Union members without their consent by rallying against cultural imperialism, although the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain oppose the restrictions (Britain sets local-content rules for terrestrial television, but not for satellite and cable channels).
Taiwan should not only focus on encouraging its filmmakers to hone their skills to produce films with inspiring and enjoyable content, but also make sure that the production of foreign films does not overwhelm the local industry. Otherwise, it will be too late to care about how many awards domestically produced films bag during next year's Golden Horse Awards.