Taiwanese Filmmakers Reveal Social Issues Behind their Films at Seattle International Film Festival

Taiwanese Filmmakers Reveal Social Issues Behind their Films at Seattle International Film Festival

by Michael Munoz

On Tuesday, March 14 the annual Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) hosted a Taiwan Films Roundtable in which directors, producers and distributors gave insight on their representation of Taiwan in their films. The SIFF has served as an outlet for the appreciation of films from around the globe, with many of those presented being from independent filmmakers. However, the festival has not been held for nearly two years after its cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each year, the SIFF awards the Golden Space Needle award to the most popular film of the year. Notable past winners include “Boyhood” and “Eighth Grade,” both of which went on to receive several nominations and awards from various festivals and academies.

Though the festival is historically held near downtown Seattle, it was hosted virtually this year in order to abide by COVID-19 precautions due to the ongoing pandemic. Because of this, all of this year’s events were broadcasted on Zoom or on the SIFF’s channel app itself. Events including discussions or interviews were free to the public, while any film showings required a ticket purchase to attend.

This event in particular, hosted by festival programmer Dustin Kaspar, included a panel of Taiwanese filmmakers answering questions about their films, all of which were based in Taiwan. The panel consisted of directors Chen Ming-lang and Chen-ti Kuo, who directed “The Teacher” and “Final Exam” respectively, as well as producer Yi-Sen Ko and distributor Eric Chou, who produced “Get the Hell Out.” Though each film is distinct and carries its own themes, all of them involve social commentary that relates not only to Taiwanese society, but to society as a whole.

Poster for the film “Get the Hell Out,” directed by Wang I-fan. The action film’s main characters are shown fleeing a Taiwanese government building after a zombie outbreak occurs.

For the first half of the event, each filmmaker was asked questions from the festival programmers themselves, with the second half mainly including submitted questions from the live audience. Since the event was completely virtual and free to the public, the audience consisted of general film enthusiasts, as well as those who were unable to attend previous festivals due to their location. Of the many questions submitted, several yielded interesting responses, but a few stood out and revealed the unique origins of each film.

When asked to describe the inspiration behind their films, each filmmaker responded with a description of their own creative process and touched on the social issues tackled in each of their movies. These issues span a variety of topics, from economics to sexuality in Taiwan.

The first response came from Chen-ti Kuo, director of “Final Exam.” The film follows a substitute teacher and his relationships with his grandmother, brother, and one of his students. Kuo stated that the relationship between the teacher (a white-collar worker) and his nuisance of a brother (a blue-collar worker) is symbolic of the class struggles prevalent in Taiwan. The teacher and his brother fail to communicate on several levels in the film, which is also used to represent a lack of understanding between families and workers of different income.

The producer and distributor of “Get the Hell Out” had a very different approach. The film is largely action-based, and involves a team of civilians pitted against mutant zombified government officials infected with “idiot rabies.” According to producer Eric Chou, the film began as a “zombie action movie” after seeing the popularity of the genre. Though the film comments on the current state of Taiwanese politics, the addition of government officials as zombies came later to add “Taiwanese flavor,” Chou stated.

Finally, director Chen Ming-lang described his inspiration for “The Teacher” as a reaction to local news stories about LGBTQ+ teachers who were prosecuted for being HIV-positive. The film follows a civics teacher who must fight to be accepted in his community after it is discovered that he is in a relationship with a man who is HIV-positive. Ming-lang stated that although Taiwan has changed a lot since martial law in 1987, he wanted to investigate society’s opinion towards the LGBTQ+ community. As such, shooting began shortly after the marriage equality referendum that occurred in 2018. The referendum sought to overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage, which would not occur until the following year.

Still from the film “The Teacher,” directed by Chen Ming-Lang. The scene depicts an emotional moment between the film’s protagonist and his mother offering her support.

As the event concluded, each of the filmmakers thanked the audience for their questions, with many expressing their regret for not being able to engage with their audiences since the start of the pandemic. The Seattle International Film Festival will continue to host events and film showings until April 17, with each filmmaker competing for the Golden Space Needle award at the end of the program.