Hey Taiwan, Get Ready for Urban Nomad 2015!

We are happy to announce Urban Nomad's dates and events for 2015. The festival has expanded to a longer format. Instead of an all too quick 10 days in the theater, this year events will cover a full month. We will kick off on April 17 with a special event, with special events every weekend until we finally occupy the comfortable seats of Ximen's LUX Cinema from May 8 to 17.

Highlights include our annual opening party on Saturday, April 18, which has grown to a stand-alone full-day music festival, with 8 bands, 5 DJs and the surprises the Urban Nomad Party is known for. But basically we are doing this because we believe alternative environments are extremely valuable and make for great events. Not only are they better for socializing, they also allow more experimental events and hybrid events, such as films together with live performances, or.... there are announcements coming soon, and they will be exciting.

The films will be the same high standard of international documentary and indie film you have grown accustomed to, as well as the best of Taiwan. The international section will feature more than 20 Taiwan premiers. The competition section is for the first time open to feature films, and we will host several world premiers of feature films. Submissions of short films and music videos numbered around 300, including lots of outstanding work. The jury will include an international curator from a top US film festival, which will not only bring a new set of eyes to evaluate Taiwanese films, it will also provide the potential for screening outside Taiwan.

The basic info is below. We look forward to seeing you all at the 2015 Urban Nomad Film Fest!


2015 URBAN NOMAD EVENT INFO：

Warm-up Events: every weekend from April 17

Party: 4/18 (Sat) 2pm to midnight
Party Location: Tiger Mountain (台北虎山), #186-1, Lane 221, Fude St, Xinyi District, Taipei (台北市信義區福德街221巷186-1號）
Party Tickets: www.indievox.com

Film Fest: May 8 - 17 
Film Fest Location: LUX Cinema in Ximen, #85, Sec 2, Wuchang St, Taipei (台北市萬華區武昌街二段85號）
Film Line-up Announcement: coming in early April, tickets through www.books.com.tw

Film Submissions Are Closed ~ and yes! Don't worry! We will watch your film!

Film submissions for the 2015 Urban Nomad Film Festival is now officially closed. Around 300 shorts, features and music videos were submitted from Taiwan and all corners of the world. Our film selection committee is hard at work enjoying and appraising your creations. Thank you so much for participating!

Please click the following links to check the complete submission lists to make sure we got your films:

Short/ Feature Film Submission list: http://goo.gl/eXEMjo
Music Video Submission list: http://goo.gl/RQeNyw

Our screening committee will begin the selection process soon. Official Selections to the festival will be announced in early April! Thank you again for your patience, and please keep following our news for this the Urban Nomad Film Fest at this blog.

Music Video Sessions competition announced!

We're happy to announce our second annual MUSIC VIDEO SESSIONS competition section. Last year's first edition was fantastic, and MTV has stepped in to help us give even more exposure to videos in the competition, and we think that's a great way to help support indie bands!

Urban Nomad's "Best Indie Music Video" prize was created to support Taiwan's local indie music scene. Once the 2015 nominees are announced in April, MTV will show the nominees as part of normal programming, with videos identified onscreen as “Urban Nomad Top 10 MV of 2015”. MVs will be screened at the festival before music-themed feature films and directors and bands will be invited for Q&As.

Music Videos (MVs) can be 1) by Taiwanese bands or artists, 2) by Taiwanese directors, or 3) by directors or musicians living in Taiwan. In case there are questions of eligibility, Urban Nomad has the right to decide the eligibility any submitted MV. You must apply online, and please note, the Music Video Form is different from the Film Application Form!

Go to the: Music Video Submissions Form

See more on competition rules and suggestions by clicking on the link below.

DEADLINE: March 2, 2015
(no submission fee is required)

SHORT FILM APPLICATION FORM
MUSIC VIDEO APPLICATION FORM

Urban Nomad’s annual competition is for Taiwanese films and music videos, with total prizes in 2015 of at least $50,000. We also have non-competition sections for international films, including both features and shorts.

In 2015, Urban Nomad is opening its main prize to Taiwanese films of any length. Previously, the competition was limited to Taiwanese short films only, but since we receive submissions of several feature-length films every year, we have decided to make narrative features and documentary features eligible for the main prize.

Internet videos can count as short films! We would also like to emphasize that the competition is open to Internet-based videos, including those created for YouTube, Vimeo or other platforms. Internet films will be considered as short films and are welcome to join the competition.

We are also looking for Taiwanese feature films that can be considered as an opening or closing film for our festival. To be considered, your film must be a Taiwan premier.

I want to read more about:

SHORT FILMS
MUSIC VIDEOS
FEATURE FILMS
INTERNATIONAL FILMS
COMPETITION PRIZES
WHAT DO I GET IF MY FILM IS ACCEPTED
COMPETITION RULES & ELIGIBILITY

2014 Closing Film: JALANAN director Daniel Ziv with the audience.

The 2014 Urban Nomad Taiwanese Short Film Awards concluded Sunday night, May 18, 2014. In all, this year's competition drew more than 300 submissions, including 66 submissions in a new category for Taiwanese Independent Music Videos. The festival featured eight programs of shorts, including 28 short films, 33 animated films and 10 music videos. Congratulations and thanks to all of the participating directors. From the story of how the black metal band Chthonic learned martial arts for their music video "Supreme Pain for the Tyrant" to John Hsu's parody of "micro-film" marketing campaigns in "The Great Escape from Cafe City", there were plenty of great moments. 

Jurors for the 2014 Urban Nomad Awards included indie singer (formerly signed to Sony Music Taiwan) Desserts Chang (張懸), Bark Magazine editor Guo Xin-xin (郭心芯), and film producer Roger Cheng (黃江豐).

2014 Big Nomad Prize winner Ella Raidel (center).

「大遊牧獎」The Big Nomad Prize

Prize: $20,000

Film: Cinema Isn't I See, It's I FlyDirectors: Ella Raidel (日得艾蘭)
Award presented by: Anjalika Wang (王耿瑜), chairperson of the Taiwan Original Filmmakers Union (TOFU) and David Frazier, Urban Nomad Festival Director
Film info: 2013 / Taiwan, Austria / 1 minute / no dialogue

Synopsis: An old man in a Taiwanese nightmarket stall watches a television, which shows a man skydiving. The depiction of this simple short scene quickly becomes a metaphor for cinema itself, and the liberation one can experience in the face of moving images.

Juror's Statement: Due to its Intense visual style and the poignant editing of the narrative, the film is very brief, but very hard to forget.

Yes, there are still tickets left for the Burning Man Movie!

There are at least 60 tickets still available for SPARK: A BURNING MAN STORY on May 10 at 7:25pm, including Q&A with Steve Brown. Tickets can be purchased at the theater from noon Saturday.

Urban Nomad's online advance tickets are only sold until about 36 hours before each film. If our ticketing website, www.books.com.tw, says there are no tickets left, this does not mean that screenings are sold it. It just means the system has stopped selling tickets. In the event of sold-out screenings, we will post the information at the top of the left-hand column of this blog.

The reason for this is that the ticketing system, books.com.tw, allows users to place an order online, and then reserves the tickets for 24 hours, giving users time to go to 7-Eleven to pay and collect the tickets. In order to have a correct count of tickets available at the door, we have to stop advance sales early. We apologize if this is any inconvenience.

There are still tickets left for all showings this weekend. Please refer to this blog as the official word on sold out tickets. This year we have moved to a larger theater to allow more people to see the films.

Before the screening of SPARK, there will be a pre-party from 4:20pm at the nearby venue Custard Cream. Entry is free and please keep the burner spirit alive and bring a bottle or two to contribute to the open-share bar.

Spark director Steve Brown

SPARK: A BURNING MAN STORY -- PREMIERE PRE-PARTY

WHEN：5/10 (Sat) 4:20-7:00pm
WHERE：Custard Cream 卡市達創業加油站- 武昌街二段122-1號
Wuchang Rd Sec 2, No 122-1 3F
MORE INFO: Please see the Facebook event

Steve will also be part of a panel discussion on Sunday, where he will introduce his new film project, Occupy The Farm. The panel discussion will also include directors of 99% The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites, and Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Lee Jia-hua.

PANEL DISCUSSION: OCCUPY, PROTEST, DOCUMENT

WHEN: 5/11 (Sun) 4pm
WHERE：Custard Cream 卡市達創業加油站- 武昌街二段122-1號
Wuchang Rd Sec 2, No 122-1 3F
MORE INFO: Here

2014 Urban Nomad Opens May 9 with 22 feature film premiers, 50+ short films, parties and of course... beer!

We are this psyched! DJ Peanut Butter Wolf in the hip hop doc Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton.

Opening on Friday, May 9, the Urban Nomad Film Fest continues to grow as Taiwan’s largest independent film festival, featuring 30 film programs, more than two dozen Taiwan film premiers, four international director visits, more than 60 local filmmakers as well as panel discussions, parties and related events. International feature documentaries explore art, music, extreme sports, queer culture and other topics. Local filmmakers are featured in seven programs of short films and animation as well as Taiwan’s first music video showcase at a film festival. Urban Nomad will take place at the LUX Cinema, a theater in the heart of Taipei’s movie street from May 9 to 18.

This year, Urban Nomad’s opening film is 99% The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film (2013), a look at the US grass-roots protest movement against corporate greed. Directors Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites will be in attendance, and they will also present an earlier film on Norway’s extreme heavy metal scene, Until the Light Takes Us (2008), to Taiwanese audiences for the first time.

Opening Film: 99% The Occupy Wall Street
Collaborative Film. Directors will be in attendance.

Other visiting directors include Steve Brown, CEO of the Ignite Channel, who will present his film, Spark: A Burning Man Story, and Daniel Ziv, a Canadian filmmaker, writer and photographer living in Indonesia. Ziv’s film Jalanan won the prize for Best Documentary at the 2013 Pusan Film Festival and is just beginning its tour of international film festivals. Jalanan is a portrait of three street musicians living in the margins of Jakarta.

As Taiwan has recently experienced its own “occupy movement”, Urban Nomad has invited visiting filmmakers Ewell, Aites and Brown to meet local filmmakers at a panel discussion (Sun, May 11) and discuss protests and what it means to document them. Taiwanese filmmakers Lee Jia-hua is head of a collaborative project -- it has some similarities to Ewell and Aite’s recent film -- that aims to document the Sunflower Movement. Brown is now working on a film project called Occupy The Farm, which is a post-Occupy Wall Street movement now taking place near San Francisco. Other panels will look at the start of Taiwan’s anti-China protests, how to become famous as a YouTube filmmaker and techniques in animation. Panels are free to attend and advance registration can be completed online.

The 23 feature films in the program include 22 Taiwan premiers. Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton premiered at last fall’s LA Film Festival and features Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Quest Love and numerous other hip hop artists, who discuss the influence of LA’s independent hip hop label Stones Throw Records. Doc of the Dead just saw its world premier in March at SXSW and looks at zombie culture, interviewing George Romero, Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness) and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, as well as lots of zombies. Murder of Couriers is a film about Vancouver bicycle couriers that has won the interest of Taiwan’s fixed gear cycling clubs. More than 30 clubs have come together to support the film’s screening on Friday, May 16, which will be preceded by raffles and followed by a huge group ride.

Doc of the Dead

Monk with a Camera tells the life story of Nicholas Vreeland, the grandson of famed Vogue editor Diana Vreeland who spurned the jet-setting life to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Unhung Hero is a US production partially filmed in Taipei. A comic romp, it visits Taipei's Snake Alley and a local kung fu sect that hangs weights from their male members, while asking the question, does size really matter? A Skate Man by Taiwanese director Jaco Yu looks at Taiwanese skateboarder Wu Meng-long's attempt to break the world record for the greatest distance covered on a longboard in one day -- more than 400km!

Tickets are available at the theater for most screenings. Advance tickets are available through books.com.tw at this link:
http://tickets.books.com.tw/progshow/01040001011286

Event: Urban Nomad Film Fest
Time: May 9 to 18
Place: Lux Cinema, #85, Sec 2, Wuchang St, Taipei (Ximen)
Tickets: $230 at the cinema / $200 in advance
Web: http://2014.urbannomad.tw

Drinks on hand at the festival include: Peroni, Grolsch, Erdinger, Hitachino (craft beer from Japan), Chilean red wine, Red Bull and various soft drinks.

Monk with a Camera

2014 Short Film Lineup

The 2014 Urban Nomad Film Fest will again feature local Taiwanese filmmakers in its short films section, . This year more than 300 films applied to the festival, including 10 feature films, 160 short films, 65 animated shorts and 66 music videos. From these applications, we have put together eight short film programs. These include five programs for short films (28 films), two programs for animation (33 films), and the debut of Music Video Sessions, a special program where local bands and music video directors can come together to introduce their works to an audience.

There will be five prizes given to short films, with prize money totalling NT$60,000. The Big Nomad Prize $20,000) will go to the best overall short film. There will also be a Jury Prize (NT$10,000), Best Animation ($10,000), Best Music Video (NT$10,000) and Audience Choice Award ($10,000).

There are special pages for Shorts & Animation and Music Videos, here:

Shorts & Animation: http://2014.urbannomad.tw/index.php?route=product/category&path=65

Music Videos: http://www.gigguide.tw/mv2014/

And the complete list is as follows:

Opening Party in an Original Red Envelope Club

Urban Nomad is returning to Ximending for the first time in 5 years. This party will pay homage to the neighborhood, mixing a crazy retro vibe with future modern performances. The venue is unique to Ximending, a 60s-style night club. Some of the club’s old-Shanghai-style singers will perform classic songs in satin dresses, then we’ll move on to weird rock, half-naked Japanese avant-garde electronic musicians, and bands and DJs that bridge the gap between the future and the past. The host for the evening will be who else? The ultimate electronic tai-ke showman, Xiao-ying (of the film Cape No. 7) and his band, The Clippers.

Red Envelope Clubs came to Taiwan in 1960s, trying to recreate the glamour of Shanghai nightlife. Now, there are only three such clubs left in Taiwan. They are called Red Envelope Clubs, because customers give red envelopes containing tips to the singers. If you are a good enough tipper, maybe a beautiful Shanghai Rose will share a few drinks with you at your table, or maybe something more.

We will invite several of the original Red Envelope Club singers to perform early in the evening. But this won’t be completely old school. The sound system will be our own, and after 11pm, the music will turn to electronic and avant-garde. So get a taste of old Taiwan, then party like you mean it!

Time：5/10 (六/Sat) 8pm - late
Place：Fenghuang Night Club 鳳凰大歌廳
Add：5F #159 Xining S Rd (台北市西寧南路159號5樓)
Ticket： $600 (Early Bird till 4/20) / $700 (Pre Sale) / $900 (At Door) 1 drink included
Online Ticket Sales: www.indievox.com

★★★★ GROUP A (JP) 樂團介紹 ★★★★

Group A are a japanese avant-garde noise music and visual arts group from Tokyo that were formed in 2012. The group comprises Tommi Tokyo (vocal/synthesizer/beat) and Sayaka Botanic (violin/keyboard). Since the group played their first gig at an art gallery opening party in Tokyo, they have been playing gigs non-stop. Their shows consist of avant-garde blow out noise, electronic beats and performance art, such as live painting that is notoriously half-naked.

Official: http://groupAband.com/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/me.groupA
Video: https://vimeo.com/user17417143

★★★★ 夾子電動大樂隊 CLIPPERS ★★★★

The Clippers have always been about showmanship. Led by the comedian, performer and actor Xiao-ying (from the film Cape No. 7), they are one of Taiwan’s first bands to self-consciously bring retro-styles into rock. Here, Xiao-ying will prepare a special comedic set of music and comedy. He will also invite one of the regular singers from the Fenghuang Night Club to perform with the band.

Urban Nomad Warmup Block Party on Saturday -- It's free ya'll!!!

Date: 4/26 (Sat)
Time: 5-10pm
Place: LUX Cinema ( No.85, Sec. 2, Wuchang St., Ximen)
FREE ENTRY

Bring some drinks, coz this is a block party!

For this year's Urban Nomad, we want to kick off things with a free outdoor film screening and DJ block party. The film is produced by the Red Bull Music Academy and features Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Erykah Badu, Richie Hawtin, Q-Tip, Lee Scratch Perry and more than 70 other artists talking about musical creativity. Before the film, we invite DJs Zephec and Question Mark to play some music, then Marcus Aurelius will play after. Zephec was part of the the 2007 Red Bull Music Academy in Toronto, and will give an introduction to the film, talking about his experiences. Everybody come and have some fun!

Event Schedule
17:00 - 18:15pm DJ Zephec
18:15 - 19:30pm DJ Question Mark
19:30 - 21:00pm 電影 Film screening
21:00 - 22:00pm DJ Marcus Aurelius

FILM: What Difference Does it Make?
Ralph Schmerberg / 2014 / US, Germany/ 95min/ English/ Chinese subtitles

Featuring Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Erykah Badu, Richie Hawtin, Q-Tip, Lee Scratch Perry and more than 70 other artists, What Difference Does It Make? A Film About Making Music marks the 15th anniversary of the Red Bull Music Academy -- Red Bull's longest running cultural program -- and captures the energy of the 2013 edition in New York. Every year, the academy invites musicians from around the world, allowing accomplished artists to share their experiences with younger counterparts. This film gets to the heart of what it takes to be a musician and, in the process, deals with some of the basic questions of life itself.