1987 was a critical year for Taiwan. After being ruled by martial law for forty years, Taiwan was finally released from its constraints and pushed its society toward democratic development. In 1996, the President of Taiwan was elected directly by citizens. In 2000, for the first time, the political regime shifted from Kuomintang (KMT) to Democratic Progress Party (DPP), which advocated the independence of Taiwan.
In the 1990s, Taiwan faced not only the political change in national governance but also the growth of democratic awareness among the general public, who sought to transform the society. Many social issues which had been suppressed until then were brought to light and are continuously discussed today. The issues include, but are not limited to, those affecting women and LGBTQ people, aboriginal and other ethnicities, labor, environment, and children. Marginalized people sought to bring attention to their own voices and rights, and activists sought to prioritize issues that had been ignored since KMT governed Taiwan.
In the wake of these social changes, film became a cultural symbol and a discursive tool to promote these movements. Various film festivals have become a forum for discourses around specific political issues, and more importantly, expanded the identity on certain issues among the public through film. Some of these film festivals firmly emerged as a result of Taiwan’s democratic process and social movements and later formed their own unique strategies for social advocacy. By understanding the political possibilities of film festivals and the ways in which they were founded, we can regard the film festival platform as one possible method for confronting our social issues today. In thinking about how the principles of Third Cinema apply to contemporary Taiwanese film culture and social movements, we can look to the ways that Third Cinema proposes alternative forms of not only making films but showing and distributing them.
Before describing some of these distribution methods, I would like to briefly give a bigger picture of Taiwan’s democratic development from 1949–the year that KMT retreated to Taiwan–to the present day.
Democracy before and after martial law in Taiwan
In 1945, with their defeat in WWII, the Japanese government officially left Taiwan after 50 years of colonial rule. KMT, the only official government of China at the time, took over Taiwan. However, under the pressure of civil war with the Communist Party in China, KMT deprived Taiwan of resources to support their own military needs and placed new strain on Taiwanese lives. On February 28th, 1947, a police officer, who represented the KMT government, hurt a Taiwanese woman who didn’t get official approval to sell cigarettes caused the public anger. The chaos of this incident made the police killed a bystander accidentally. This event triggered outrage among Taiwanese people, and the KMT responded with military violence. A significant number of intellectuals, workers and peasants were imprisoned and killed. Meanwhile, KMT declared martial law in Taiwan to control people’s activities and thoughts. Since then, Taiwanese people have lost faith in KMT and held a deep antagonism toward them.
From the 1950s to 1991, Taiwan was ruled under the “White Terror.” Any uncensored publications or illegal gatherings, any intents to overthrow the government, and even any indication of progressive thought could cause people to be imprisoned or executed clandestinely. For example, Free China journal’s publication in the 1950s and the “Formosa magazine” incident in 1979 caused some members, who later became important politicians in Taiwan, to be imprisoned for over a decade. In 1971, Taiwan officially withdrew from the United Nations and later severed diplomatic relations with the US in 1979, following their respective formal recognition of the People’s Republic of China (Communist China). Taiwan became isolated among the international community. This situation urged the President Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-shek’s son) to promote the “Ten Major Construction Projects” to develop the domestic economy so as to restore faith among the Taiwanese people. During this period, the growth in economic development under the KMT’s governance, a dictated regime, and the pursuit of democracy contradicted and interplayed.
Gradually, the demand for democracy grew rapidly among the public. After 1980, many radical magazines emerged in the society. And by 1986, under social pressure, a new political party—Democratic Progressive Party—was formed, which ended the one-party situation. It also led to the end of martial law after thirty-eight years, thus Taiwan finally had a chance to become a democratic entity.
At the beginning of the 1990s, social movements proliferated in Taiwan. The Wild Lily Student Movement played a critical role in urging the government to transform Taiwan’s political praxis substantially. Through a series of Constitutional amendments and the rescission of laws curtailing speech, these changes paved the way for the foundation of Taiwan’s democracy.
Social movements and related film festivals
With the development of democracy, many social issues attracted the society’s attention. Around the time the DPP was established, women’s rights, the aboriginal identity, environmental pollution problems, and labor rights emerged in public discourse.
At the same time, since the 1990s, film festivals have become increasingly popular as cultural events. One of the reasons is that it has received support from the government as a forum for promoting discourse and cultural representation. Taipei’s city government has used cultural events to create and reinforce local identity and imagery. This strategy was then adopted by other issue-oriented organizations and academics. From the mid-90s on, some of these organizations started to run small, independent social-themed film festivals to cultivate viewers and to disseminate their philosophies.
These festivals are usually not formed to advocate for specific social reforms but rather to echo the claims of and speak to various interest groups. Through panel discussions, post-screening talks, or film programs that connect diverse issues, they build up a platform to gather people from various fields to focus on particular concerns. These festivals are not only spaces where films are shown but also a space for advocacy relating to specific social issues.
Gender and Sexuality
Influenced by international feminist movements and the increasing number of women entering the working population, Lu Hsiu-lien proposed the notion of “neo-feminism,” which could be seen as the origin of the feminism in Taiwan in the 1970s. She argued for building an equal-gender society, in which women could be economically and politically independent. She thus criticized the discrimination and prejudice against women in traditional perspectives which valued men over women. However, Lu was imprisoned in 1979 due to the incident of “Formosa magazine”, several members of the Formosa magazine press that publicly distributed the thought against the martial law caused many intellectuals being arrested, which impeded the neo-feminism development.
At the beginning of the 1980s, several female activists influenced by Lu established Awakening magazine trying to raise feminist consciousness in the society. After the martial law ended, Awakening transformed into a non-profit organization and continuously promoted policy change, such as Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act, Domestic Violence Prevention Act. In the early 90s, feminism in Taiwan focused on the legalization of female protection but seldom addressed other issues related to gender until 1997, when Taipei City government attempted to abolish the legal brothel in Taipei, which raised a series of working right issues in prostitution. After that, feminism in Taiwan diversified into different discursive positions.
LGBT rights also first became part of public discourse in the 1980s. Initially, LGBT groups mainly disseminated the discourse and the knowledge through broadcast and other media. Since 1987 Chi Chia-wei was the first person who declared his homosexual identity publicly and tried to marry legally but was denied by the government. This opened up the LGBT movement in Taiwan. In 1990, the significant lesbian group “Between Us” was founded. During the 1990s, LGBT knowledge and discourse was spread through publications, LGBT student clubs, and BBS (Bulletin board system). While those virtual communities created alternative spaces for people who lived in the closet, many physical spaces for LGBT people were broken up abruptly by police, which aroused public anger. In the late 1990s, people started to strive for visibility in public. The “LGBT Civil Rights Alliance” made a declaration and held a fair in Taipei New Park, which was a popular gathering place among gay people in early times. Since 2000, the annual gay pride parade has become a significant iconic event in Taiwan, or even in Asia.
Women Make Waves Film Festival Taiwan 台灣國際女性影展
Established in 1993, Women Make Waves Film Festival is a well-known festival that focuses on a wide range of genres, issues, and representations of women in the cinematic arts. They also provide filmmaking training for the general public.
Taiwan International Queer Film Festival 台灣國際酷兒影展
Taiwan International Queer Film Festival is a very young festival compared to others, founded in 2014. As LGBTQ rights became an important issue (some NGOs have actively promoted the gay marriage legalization since 2014), this festival has received strong support from the government and corporations since its inception.
Ethnicity
As a post-colonial society, there are differences and conflicts among ethnic groups in Taiwan. The Aboriginals, who have suffered invasions and exploitations by rulers and have been stigmatized for hundreds of years, are deemed as one of the most vulnerable ethnic groups in Taiwan. Even though they were the first ethnic groups who lived on this land, they have never had their rights recognized. In 1983, the first aboriginal-related publication Kaoshanching magazine started advocating for the consciousness and self-determination of Taiwanese indigenous peoples. After a year, urban indigenous intellectuals formed the “Taiwan Indigenous-Rights Promoting Association” and closely collaborated with people who were involved in the “Tangwai (Non-KMT groups) movement.” They then published the “Indigenous Rights Declaration” to declare indigenous human rights and ways to fight and reform. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, they organized four “Constitutional movements” to amend the official name of Taiwan aboriginals from “Shanbow” to “Yuanzhumin”; three “aboriginal land movements” to claim the rights for traditional territories, and other protests in response to historical events. Under their efforts, the government finally established several acts for aboriginal rights and autonomy.
Even among Taiwanese/the Han people, there is still a division between Haklo Taiwanese and Hakka Taiwanese. In the Japanese-ruled period, officials distinguished Haklo Taiwanese as the dominant group because they emigrated from China to Taiwan earlier than Hakka Taiwanese. After KMT retreated to Taiwan, some new Hakkas from southern China diminished the identity of Hakka Taiwanese. This influenced original Hakka Taiwanese to form their own ethnic identity. In 2000, the central government enacted the “Hakka basic act,” which could be considered a first step to promote Hakka Taiwanese culture.
Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival 台灣國際民族誌影展
Founded in 2001, this is the first film festival focusing on ethnographic films in Taiwan. It collaborates with Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s prime academic institution, to present various perspectives in visual ethnography. One of the major aspects of the festival is presenting Taiwanese aboriginal-themed films.
New Narratives Film Festival 當代敘事影展
Organized by Taipei Hakka Culture Foundation, New Narratives Film Festival does not directly address Hakka culture but interprets their subjectivity as a diasporic identity. Therefore, the themes center more on the politics of minority.
South Taiwan Film Festival 南方影展
In order to highlight the uneven cultural resources between the south and the north in Taiwan, this festival is trying to introduce independent films from all over the world to southern Taiwan. Meanwhile, the festival could provide a platform to emerging directors to screen their works.
Labors
Taiwan’s labor movement is deeply connected to the development of the DPP and the Tangwai movement. Before 1987, under martial law, most of the worker unions had no substantial influence. In 1984, a group of workers, lawyers, scholars, and politicians founded “Legal Supporting Association for Taiwan Laborers” (LSATL) to provide legal consulting service. They also published The Labour magazine to promote the idea of the union autonomy. After four years, LSATL changed its name as “Supporting Association for Taiwan Labor Movement” to anchor their goal in organizing worker unions and activated series of strikes and protests. In 1992, they expanded their goals and missions again in labor rights and changed their name to the “Taiwan Labour Front.” However, in this developmental process, some members worked in LSATL had different opinions which led them to withdraw from the association and form several other groups afterward. In general, Taiwan’s labor movement from 1987 is closely related to negotiating and lobbying in policy-making. It is much more embedded in political praxis and antagonism against the government, which, in the 2000s, has achieved plenty of policy changes, such as the Act for Protecting Worker of Occupational Accidents, the Employment Insurance Act, the Act for Worker Protection of Mass Redundancy and so on.
Taiwan International Labor Film Festival 勞工影展
This is an irregular film festival. Unlike other film festivals, it’s usually spontaneously organized by different groups each time. In 2017, the festival was sponsored by Taipei city government and organized by Youth Labor Union 95. In 2011, it was held in Hsinchu by another organization.
Environment
In Taiwan, environmental movements could be roughly divided into four categories: anti-pollution, anti-nuclear, eco-conservationism, and environmental education. During the 1950s to the 1980s, industrialization fostered economic development but also damaged the environment. Many chemical material manufacturers constructed their factories in mid-Taiwan due to cheap land and labor. However, the waste produced by the factories polluted the agriculture and also affected residents’ health.
This stimulated intellectuals to be concerned about public contamination and eco-conservation. In 1985, an incident in which villagers, who protested against a pesticide manufacturing factory construction in Taichung, broke into a construction site could be seen as a big step in the course of the movement. Soon after, protests around various environmental issues occurred all over Taiwan. These issues included golf course development, petrol-industrial development, forest logging, cement mining, issues of nuclear power and its waste, and so on. In fact, some of these issues are still very critical in Taiwan society to the present day. The environmental movements of the 1980s deeply interplayed with underground groups and the Tangwai movement, which had also accelerated Taiwan’s democratization.
Environmental Online Film Festival 環境線上影展
This is an online film festival. Organized by Taiwan Environmental Information Center, it is a quite small platform but provides various environmental-oriented films for people to view online. However, due to the regional copyright issue, the films they show can only be watched in Taiwan.
This is a very new film festival, organized by Green Citizens’ Action Alliance. In recent years, the organization’s focus on Taiwan’s nuclear power and electricity usage issues propelled them to found this festival.
Children
Compared to other social issues, children’s rights developed late in Taiwan. In 1989, the United Nations passed the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” to ensure children’s rights in economic, political, cultural and social spheres. It also declared that international society would make efforts to protect children from violence and to give every child the equal opportunity for their future lives.
Although Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, children’s rights is a global trend that has urged Taiwan to develop related policy. In the wake of policy lobbying by “Taiwan NGOs for CRC,” which includes thirteen organizations dedicated to the care of children and social work, Taiwan passed the “Implementation Act of the Convention on the Rights of the Child” in 2014 to guide the development of children’s affairs. Although the concern for children’s rights is not directly related to Taiwan’s democratization, it still furthers Taiwan’s aims as a democratized country and demonstrates its determination in connecting to the global community.
Taiwan International Children’s Film Festival 台灣國際兒童影展
This festival focuses on films made for children. The first TICFF was founded in 2004 by Public Television Service. In this festival, they also provide filmmaking workshops for children to participate and give them a chance to screen their works in the festival, giving children the potential to stimulate their creativity and aesthetics.
Baby Car Theater in Fuzhong 15 府中15 嬰兒車電影院
Although it is not a film festival, this monthly event held in Fuzhong 15 Theater in New Taipei City is also noteworthy. To ease the inconvenience for moviegoers who have babies, Fuzhong 15 Theater creates a space for parents to park their strollers outside of the theater. Also, it allows parents and their children to walk, eat and talk inside. The theater also adjusts the volume and the indoor lighting to fit children’s needs. It provides five films per month for parents.