| Short Films Feature Docs Timetable Trailers |
OPENING FILM
台灣牡蠣 THE TAIWAN OYSTER
Director：Mark Jarrett
US / 2012 / 105 min / English / Chinese subs
（Director Q&A at each screening）
台灣牡蠣 THE TAIWAN OYSTER
Director：Mark Jarrett
US / 2012 / 105 min / English / Chinese subs
（Director Q&A at each screening）
★ Competition film at 2012 SXSW Film Festival
★ “Disguised as a drunken cartwheel through expat paradise, Mark Jarrett's striking feature juggles questions of mortality along its rowdy cross-country path.” - Variety
★ A dead body and a road trip down Taiwan’s east coast
A drunken night ends in the death of a newly arrived expat ESL kindergarten teacher. When the teacher’s family cannot be reached, his buddies/coworkers steal the corpse, feeling that an anonymous cremation would be just too meaningless.They set off in a blue truck down Taiwan’s east coast, with a proper burial and Spring Scream as vague goals to their drunken quest.
Director Mark Jarrett was an English teacher in Taichung from 1999 to 2001 and drove a shuttle bus to the first ever rave in Kenting. He’s spent the last decade working in the US in commercial film and TV, notably for the TV show Friday Night Lights. The film is named for a literary magazine he published in Taiwan, The Taiwan Oyster.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/12(Thu) 7:30PM 4/15(Sun) 4:40PM
Director Mark Jarrett was an English teacher in Taichung from 1999 to 2001 and drove a shuttle bus to the first ever rave in Kenting. He’s spent the last decade working in the US in commercial film and TV, notably for the TV show Friday Night Lights. The film is named for a literary magazine he published in Taiwan, The Taiwan Oyster.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/12(Thu) 7:30PM 4/15(Sun) 4:40PM
CLOSING FILM
#推特傳記 TWITTAMENTARY
#推特傳記 TWITTAMENTARY
Director: Siok Siok Tan
Singapore / 2012 / 70 min / English / Chinese subs（Director Q&A）
★ 2012 SXSW Interactive: Official Event
★ “The success of the crowdsourcing experiment took the filmmaker and her crew on a fascinating journey, 140 characters at a time.” - The Guardian
Singaporean filmmaker Siok Siok Tan started this film by crowd-sourcing stories that came back in response to her question: “How has Twitter affected your life?” She then refined the threads into a few remarkable and tightly woven narratives, showing how social media infects, alters and in many cases brings positive change to our everyday lives. The film is will be shown in a dual screen mode,with a “live” twitter wall, so the audience can interact in real time with the cast and crew. So come ready to tweet on the hashtag #twittamentary.
Screening / Buy Tickets: 4/22 (Sun) 7PM
US / 2011 / 90min / English / Chinese subs
★ From the director of SUPERSIZE ME!
★ He’s not selling out, he’s buying in!
★ “His latest, highly entertaining picture...actually achieves his knockabout comic aim by making a $1.5m movie that pays for itself through product placement” - The Observer (UK)
Morgan Spurlock is back and this time he’s making a movie about product placement, marketing and advertising - through a film that’s completely funded by product placement, marketing and advertising. It’s socially conscious, totally transparent and funny as hell. The doc follows Spurlock into corporate meeting rooms, where he convinces sponsors to give him US$1.5 million dollars, and then he not so subtly flogs their products for the rest of the movie. The moral is about how brands use movies to sell us stuff. He even manages to entangle Ralph Nader, the father of consumer advocacy, who is lured by a certain brand of shoes, and lefty intellectual saint Noam Chomsky. This film has been a world-wide favorite at festivals. We’re pretty psyched to debut it in Taiwan.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/13 (Fri) 7:15PM 4/18 (Wed) 9PM
US / 2011 / 85min / English / Chinese subs
★ 2012 Oscar nomination for “Best Documentary”
★ 2011 Sundance Film Festival, “Best Documentary Editing” award
In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front-- a group the FBI has called America's "number one domestic terrorism threat." This is a film about the fringe of America’s environmental movement. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thrilller, it interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group and his radical ideas. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and asks: Is eco-terrorism really terrorism?
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/20 (Fri) 7:20PM 4/22 (Sun) 2:30PM
★ Certified gold in US, UK, France, Germany and Finland
49% MOTHERF**KER. 51% OF A BITCH！When the filmmakers asked Ozzy Osbourne who invented heavy metal, Ozzy replied, “It was eithr Black Sabbath or Motorhead.... I think I’d have to give it to Motorhead.” This is the ultimate rock n roll biopic, the life of Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister: the women he’s slept with, the drugs he’s done and the music he’s played. Now in his 60s, he still drinks Jack Daniels all day and, when not touring, collects war memorabelia or kills the time playing video poker in a hole-in-the wall bar in LA. See him onstage with Metallica. See Dave Grohl tripping all over himself to say how awesome Lemmy is. See the legend for yourself! LEMMY! This one most definitely goes to eleven.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 9PM 4/19 (Thu) 9:10PM
那些年，我們在這裡
WE WERE HERE
Director: David Weissman, Bill Weber
US / 2011 / 90min / English / Chinese subs
★ 2012 Independent Spirit Award (US), nominated for best documentary
★ Official selection: Berlin, Sundance
★ “Of all the cinematic explorations of the AIDS crisis, not one is more heartbreaking and inspiring” - New York Times
This is the story of the onset of a mysterious “gay cancer” in the late 1970s and 1980s as told from within San Francisco’s gay community. The city’s gay quarter, The Castro, started out as a queer utopia in the free-love 70s, but more than half its gay population would eventually be infected by AIDS and 19,000 would die. Imagine this in a neighborhood the size of Shida or Gongguan. Five survivors tell the tale with amazing tenderness and warmth, and remarkably without self-pity or mawkishness. This is also the story of how gay rights became a political movement, with queers banding together to fight the prejudice that came with AIDS, and lesbians emerging as one of the few groups willing to volunteer in hospital AIDS wards, or march with gays in the streets - in one case all the way to Washington DC.
威廉布洛斯的叛逆人生
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Director: Yony Leyser
US / 2010 / 87min / English / Chinese subs
★ Narration by Paul Weller + soundtrack by Sonic Youth
★ This film “does real justice to the Beat writer, gun nut and literary icon.” - Variety
★ 20+ International Festivals: Thessaloniki, Slamdance, Vienna, Sao Paolo and many more
William Burroughs was one of the first to cross the dangerous boundaries of queer and drug culture in the 1950s, and write about his experiences. Eventually he was hailed the godfather of the beat generation and influenced artists for generations to come. This doc features never seen before footage of Burroughs life and creates the most personal cinematic portrait to date of this revolutionary author. It examines new territory like his sexual relations with poet Allen Ginsburg and the emotional consequences of shooting his wife in the head in Mexico City in 1951, an event that haunted him and his novels the rest of his life. The story is conveyed through interviews with his closest friends and collaborators: John Waters, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Jello Biafra and many more.
金夏沙交響夢 Kinshasa Symphony
Director: Martin Baer, Claus Wischmann
Germany / 2010 / 95min / French / En/Ch subs
★ More than merely heartwarming, it’s the story of the only black symphony in Africa
★ 6 Jury Awards, 3 Best Documentary Awards, 3 Audience Choice Awards, German Film Award nomination
Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the third-largest city in Africa. Almost ten million people live here and they number among the poorest inhabitants on this planet. Yet Kinshasa is also home to Central Africa’s one and only symphony orchestra. Conductor Armand Diangienda, 46, started out about 16 years ago with four violins, a double bass and 10 amateur musicians. In 2010, his choir and orchestra performed Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and Orff's "Carmina Burana" for an audience of 3,000 at a national celebration. The film follows the musicians’ lives, offering a glimpse of daily life in an impoverished African metropolis. It also shows how music soars above the muck, hardship and decay.
Director: David Dworsky, Victor Köhler
Sweden / 2011 / 80min / English / Chinese subs
★ “We are on the verge of a new dark age. The creative world is destroyed. All we have is cacophony and self opinion.” - David Keen, author
★ Official selection SXSW 2011
★ “The success of the crowdsourcing experiment took the filmmaker and her crew on a fascinating journey, 140 characters at a time.” - The Guardian
Singaporean filmmaker Siok Siok Tan started this film by crowd-sourcing stories that came back in response to her question: “How has Twitter affected your life?” She then refined the threads into a few remarkable and tightly woven narratives, showing how social media infects, alters and in many cases brings positive change to our everyday lives. The film is will be shown in a dual screen mode,with a “live” twitter wall, so the audience can interact in real time with the cast and crew. So come ready to tweet on the hashtag #twittamentary.
Screening / Buy Tickets: 4/22 (Sun) 7PM
電影賣最大 THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD
Director: Morgan SpurlockUS / 2011 / 90min / English / Chinese subs
★ From the director of SUPERSIZE ME!
★ He’s not selling out, he’s buying in!
★ “His latest, highly entertaining picture...actually achieves his knockabout comic aim by making a $1.5m movie that pays for itself through product placement” - The Observer (UK)
Morgan Spurlock is back and this time he’s making a movie about product placement, marketing and advertising - through a film that’s completely funded by product placement, marketing and advertising. It’s socially conscious, totally transparent and funny as hell. The doc follows Spurlock into corporate meeting rooms, where he convinces sponsors to give him US$1.5 million dollars, and then he not so subtly flogs their products for the rest of the movie. The moral is about how brands use movies to sell us stuff. He even manages to entangle Ralph Nader, the father of consumer advocacy, who is lured by a certain brand of shoes, and lefty intellectual saint Noam Chomsky. This film has been a world-wide favorite at festivals. We’re pretty psyched to debut it in Taiwan.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/13 (Fri) 7:15PM 4/18 (Wed) 9PM
大樹悲歌：地球解放陣線的故事
IF A TREE FALLS：A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
Director: Marshall Curry, Sam CullmanIF A TREE FALLS：A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
US / 2011 / 85min / English / Chinese subs
★ 2012 Oscar nomination for “Best Documentary”
★ 2011 Sundance Film Festival, “Best Documentary Editing” award
In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front-- a group the FBI has called America's "number one domestic terrorism threat." This is a film about the fringe of America’s environmental movement. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thrilller, it interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group and his radical ideas. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and asks: Is eco-terrorism really terrorism?
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/20 (Fri) 7:20PM 4/22 (Sun) 2:30PM
重金屬叔藍米外傳 LEMMY
Director: Greg Olliver, Wes Orshoski
US / 2010 / 116min / English / Chinese subs
★ “Lemmy rocks!” - Variety
★ Ozzy Osbourne, Slash, Joan Jett, Metallica, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), Jarvis Cocker… and more!US / 2010 / 116min / English / Chinese subs
★ “Lemmy rocks!” - Variety
★ Certified gold in US, UK, France, Germany and Finland
49% MOTHERF**KER. 51% OF A BITCH！When the filmmakers asked Ozzy Osbourne who invented heavy metal, Ozzy replied, “It was eithr Black Sabbath or Motorhead.... I think I’d have to give it to Motorhead.” This is the ultimate rock n roll biopic, the life of Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister: the women he’s slept with, the drugs he’s done and the music he’s played. Now in his 60s, he still drinks Jack Daniels all day and, when not touring, collects war memorabelia or kills the time playing video poker in a hole-in-the wall bar in LA. See him onstage with Metallica. See Dave Grohl tripping all over himself to say how awesome Lemmy is. See the legend for yourself! LEMMY! This one most definitely goes to eleven.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 9PM 4/19 (Thu) 9:10PM
光之子：尚米榭‧巴斯奇亞
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Director: Tamra Davis
US / 2010 / 88min / English / Chinese subs
★ Official selection Sundance, SXSW
★ “In the end the art must speak for the artist; Davis wisely stands aside and lets the magical images tell their tales.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of the biggest and brightest art stars of the 1980s. He started out writing strange graffiti in New York’s Soho arts district, and within two years of his first attempt at painting in 1981, he’d become an art world celebrity hanging out with Andy Warhol at The Factory and dripping paint all over his Armani suits. Both Warhol and Basquiat are featured in rare archival footage, while new interviews come from the titans of the New York art world today: Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Tony Shafrazi, Jeffrey Deitch and others. Rapper Fab 5 Freddy also chimes in about Basquiat’s ties to hip hop culture. Basquiat, however, would not survive the 80s. Killed by fame and heroin, he was perhaps art’s greatest rock star in a decade when the sky was the limit.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 7:10PM 4/17 (Tue) 9PM
US / 2010 / 88min / English / Chinese subs
★ Official selection Sundance, SXSW
★ “In the end the art must speak for the artist; Davis wisely stands aside and lets the magical images tell their tales.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of the biggest and brightest art stars of the 1980s. He started out writing strange graffiti in New York’s Soho arts district, and within two years of his first attempt at painting in 1981, he’d become an art world celebrity hanging out with Andy Warhol at The Factory and dripping paint all over his Armani suits. Both Warhol and Basquiat are featured in rare archival footage, while new interviews come from the titans of the New York art world today: Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Tony Shafrazi, Jeffrey Deitch and others. Rapper Fab 5 Freddy also chimes in about Basquiat’s ties to hip hop culture. Basquiat, however, would not survive the 80s. Killed by fame and heroin, he was perhaps art’s greatest rock star in a decade when the sky was the limit.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 7:10PM 4/17 (Tue) 9PM
WE WERE HERE
US / 2011 / 90min / English / Chinese subs
★ 2012 Independent Spirit Award (US), nominated for best documentary
★ Official selection: Berlin, Sundance
★ “Of all the cinematic explorations of the AIDS crisis, not one is more heartbreaking and inspiring” - New York Times
This is the story of the onset of a mysterious “gay cancer” in the late 1970s and 1980s as told from within San Francisco’s gay community. The city’s gay quarter, The Castro, started out as a queer utopia in the free-love 70s, but more than half its gay population would eventually be infected by AIDS and 19,000 would die. Imagine this in a neighborhood the size of Shida or Gongguan. Five survivors tell the tale with amazing tenderness and warmth, and remarkably without self-pity or mawkishness. This is also the story of how gay rights became a political movement, with queers banding together to fight the prejudice that came with AIDS, and lesbians emerging as one of the few groups willing to volunteer in hospital AIDS wards, or march with gays in the streets - in one case all the way to Washington DC.
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
US / 2010 / 87min / English / Chinese subs
★ Narration by Paul Weller + soundtrack by Sonic Youth
★ This film “does real justice to the Beat writer, gun nut and literary icon.” - Variety
★ 20+ International Festivals: Thessaloniki, Slamdance, Vienna, Sao Paolo and many more
William Burroughs was one of the first to cross the dangerous boundaries of queer and drug culture in the 1950s, and write about his experiences. Eventually he was hailed the godfather of the beat generation and influenced artists for generations to come. This doc features never seen before footage of Burroughs life and creates the most personal cinematic portrait to date of this revolutionary author. It examines new territory like his sexual relations with poet Allen Ginsburg and the emotional consequences of shooting his wife in the head in Mexico City in 1951, an event that haunted him and his novels the rest of his life. The story is conveyed through interviews with his closest friends and collaborators: John Waters, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Jello Biafra and many more.
Germany / 2010 / 95min / French / En/Ch subs
★ More than merely heartwarming, it’s the story of the only black symphony in Africa
★ 6 Jury Awards, 3 Best Documentary Awards, 3 Audience Choice Awards, German Film Award nomination
Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the third-largest city in Africa. Almost ten million people live here and they number among the poorest inhabitants on this planet. Yet Kinshasa is also home to Central Africa’s one and only symphony orchestra. Conductor Armand Diangienda, 46, started out about 16 years ago with four violins, a double bass and 10 amateur musicians. In 2010, his choir and orchestra performed Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and Orff's "Carmina Burana" for an audience of 3,000 at a national celebration. The film follows the musicians’ lives, offering a glimpse of daily life in an impoverished African metropolis. It also shows how music soars above the muck, hardship and decay.
Director: David Dworsky, Victor Köhler
Sweden / 2011 / 80min / English / Chinese subs
★ “We are on the verge of a new dark age. The creative world is destroyed. All we have is cacophony and self opinion.” - David Keen, author
★ Official selection SXSW 2011
Does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature, or is true talent drowned out by the vast digital flood of mass culture? Are we entering an era of cultural democracy or cultural mediocrity? PressPausePlay is one of the first documentaries to admit there might be a downside to digital culture, and poses these question to some of the world’s most influential creators: musicians Moby, Robyn, Hot Chip and Lykke Li, author Seth Godin, Napster founder Sean Parker, and journalists from Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/13 (Fri) 9PM 4/17 (Tue) 7:20PM
彎刀少女大出擊 MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED
Director: Mark HartleyAustralia / 2010 / 85min / English / Chinese subs
★ “Blood and gore and bare breasts galore...wildly entertaining” - Hollywood Reporter
★ International Film Festival favorite: Toronto, Melbourne, many others
Karate-kickin' midgets! Paper-maché monsters! Busty babes with blades! Filipino genre films of the 70s and 80s had it all. And Americans had no idea this pulp fiction cinema was coming from Manila, where Hollywood directors were drawn by cheap labour, exotic scenery and non-existent health and safety regulations. Cult movie icons Roger Corman, Pam Grier, Joe Dante, John Landis, Sid Haig, Eddie Romero and many others share jaw-dropping stories about filmmaking with no budget, no scruples, no boundaries and - more often than not - no clothes.
Australian director Mark Hartley (NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD) continues his homage to B movies with this ultimate insiders' account of a faraway backlot where stunt men came cheap, plot was obsolete and the make-up guy was packin' heat!
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/16 (Mon) 7:20PM 4/21 (Sat) 9:30PM
Everyday Sunshine : The Story of Fishbone
US / 2011 / 107min / English / Chinese subs
★ “With its frantic blend of ska, punk, funk, soul and rock, Fishbone made music that was like the greatest party mix ever.” - LA Times
★ “A perceptive, plainspoken, frequently gripping documentary” - The New Yorker
Narrated by Laurence Fishburne and featuring Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Ice T, Gwen Stefani, George Clinton, Perry Farrell and many others, the film tells the story of how black music and white music came together in early 80s LA, when black kids were first bussed to schools in the (white) valley. Fishbone was one result, and they may have been the world’s best live band in the 80s and 90s. They certainly inspired plenty of bands that sold a lot more records than they ever would: the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus and Jane’s Addiction, to name a few. The film features amazing live footage, but also tells of record-label ineptitude and the love/hate dynamics within the group that eventually gave way to alcoholism, mental breakdowns, bitterness and estrangement. All told, it’s a rock ‘n roll classic.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/16 (Mon) 9:10PM 4/21 (Sat) 3:20PM
錢鬼剋星 GROWTHBUSTERS US / 2011 / 98min / English / Chinese subs
(Q&A with Wild at Heart / Taiwan Green Party)
★ “This could be the most important film ever made.” - Paul Ehrlich, biologist, author of The Population Bomb
★ GrowthBusters questions one of our most basic beliefs: that growth brings prosperity and well-being
This film tackles the myth that growth brings prosperity. Filmmaker Dave Gardner is an activist and politician in a small town in Colorodo, USA. At the local level, he shows how urban growth and uncontrolled development have in almost every case over the last 50 years created higher taxes, increased pollution and lower standards of living for communities all over America. From here, he extrapolates to the global consequences of these trends. The film mixes Gardner’s political activism and city council debates with interviews with leading anti-growth thinkers, like biologist Paul Ehrlich, whose book The Population Bomb (1968) first introduced the question: how much growth is sustainable?
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/21 (Sat) 1PM
France / 2011 / 52min / English / Chinese subs
(Q&A with Greenpeace Taiwan)
The story of the world’s most famous environmental movement
This documentary tells the incredible saga of the world's most famous NGO from the date of its creation in 1971 to today. Greenpeace was born in 1970, after money raised from a concert for hippies enabled a few radical activists to buy a ship and sail it to protest nuclear bomb tests in oceans near Alaska and French Polynesia. But they became famous because they were media savvy, sending out photos and video footage of activists chained to ships or battling “environmental criminals” on the high seas. Copycat groups sprouted all over the globe and money flooded in. Though Greenpeace has struggled at times to create a viable organization, it continues to spearhead movements against GMO crops, nuclear power, toxic waste and deforestation. Representatives of Greenpeace Taiwan will talk about local campaigns following the screening.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 3PM
綠色和平：行動40年
GREENPEACE, THE STORY
Director: Thierry de Lestrade GREENPEACE, THE STORY
France / 2011 / 52min / English / Chinese subs
(Q&A with Greenpeace Taiwan)
The story of the world’s most famous environmental movement
This documentary tells the incredible saga of the world's most famous NGO from the date of its creation in 1971 to today. Greenpeace was born in 1970, after money raised from a concert for hippies enabled a few radical activists to buy a ship and sail it to protest nuclear bomb tests in oceans near Alaska and French Polynesia. But they became famous because they were media savvy, sending out photos and video footage of activists chained to ships or battling “environmental criminals” on the high seas. Copycat groups sprouted all over the globe and money flooded in. Though Greenpeace has struggled at times to create a viable organization, it continues to spearhead movements against GMO crops, nuclear power, toxic waste and deforestation. Representatives of Greenpeace Taiwan will talk about local campaigns following the screening.
Screenings / Buy Tickets: 4/15 (Sun) 3PM
