Chung’s Soul to open Taipei Film Festival
with Bridge Over Troubled Water and Taipei Factory as closing films.
Loving the last addition to International New Talent Competition
Taipei Film Festival has announced its opening and closing films today, and all three are from Taiwan. Soul, the latest film from Chung Mong-Hong, will kick start the 15th Taipei Film Festival on June 28th. Soul is a suspense thriller starring Joseph Chang and Jimmy Wang, also featuring a cameo appearance from Leon Dai. Famous for his role in 60s Hong Kong martial art films Wang plays a father, with Chang as his possessed son.
Chung’s debut Parking was selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2008 and his follow up feature The Fourth Portrait won the Best Narrative Feature at Taipei Film Festival, and also Best Director at Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.
A regular face at Taipei Film Festival, documentary director Yang Li-Chou comes back with Bridge Over Troubled Water. Yang turns his attention to a town in Kaohsiung, badly hit by Typhoon Morakot, and shows how the people pull themselves together and rebuild their homes. The screenings of Soul and Bridge Over Troubled Water at Taipei Film Festival are both world premieres.
Taipei Factory, an omnibus feature which premieres in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes next week, will hold its Asia Premiere at the Taipei Film Festival. A Taipei Film Commission production, the film pairs 4 international new directors with 4 emerging Taiwanese directors, each creating a short film around the theme of Taipei. Taipei Factory includes ‘The Pig’ by Singing Chen, Jéro Yun, ‘Silent Asylum’ by Midi Z and Joana Preiss, ‘A Nice Travel’ by Shen Ko-shang and Luis Cifuentes, and ‘Mr. Chang’s New Address’ by Chang Jung-chi and Alireza Khatami.
The festival’s International New Talent Competition also announces its last addition, Loving. This will be the film’s Asian Premiere. A second feature by Polish director, Sławomir Fabicki, whose short film The Man Thing was nominated for Best Short, Live Action at the Academy Awards, is about a couple's marriage breakdown following the wife's tragic encounter with her obsessed boss.
The 15th Taipei Film Festival will be held from June 28th to July 20th.