The “Golden Horse” returns to challenge Beijing’s dominance in the cinematic field

The “Golden Horse” Film Festival in Taiwan will return tomorrow, with a variety of works, most notably a thriller from Hong Kong, in a turning point for the “Chinese-speaking Oscars”, which has become a bulwark in the face of Beijing’s control in this. the field.

The 59th session of the prestigious festival will start with seven works from Hong Kong competing with each other, which are five feature films and two documentaries, which constitutes “the best production in five years” for Hong Kong, according to the organizers of the event.

For the fourth year in a row, the festival is missing the participation of any Chinese film due to the tensions between Beijing and Taipei.

Most of the stars of Chinese and Hong Kong descent, who usually participated in the festival, refrained from attending the event since a Taiwanese director expressed his support for the independence of the island in a statement he made in 2018. This year, the thriller “Limbo” from Hong Kong received the largest number of nominations. Nominations With 14 nominations, he is competing for the best film award with “The Sunny Side of the Street”, a work from Hong Kong as well, and three Taiwanese films.

Among the works in competition are five independent Chinese films.

A few days before the names of the nominated films were announced last September, the Hong Kong Film Sector Federation urged its members to “think carefully” before participating in the Taiwanese festival, noting that the festival “is gradually taking a political turn.”

Chinese actress Sia Liu, nominated for the Best Actress category for her role in “Limbo”, announced through her agency that she would not attend the festival without addressing the reasons, and Sua Shang, nominated for the Best Director category, refused to inform Agence France-Presse of any comment. However, the festival will also feature Taiwanese-American actor Mason Lee. The son of Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee is a prominent supporter of the festival and regularly chairs its jury. This task will be taken over by director Ann Hui, who hails from Hong Kong, in the upcoming festival.

The Golden Horse festival has become a bulwark against Beijing’s growing dominance of Chinese-language films, by constantly showing works that are not sanctioned by censors in China and Hong Kong.

In the previous festival, “Revolution of Our Times,” directed by Qui Chow from Hong Kong, won the Best Documentary Award. The film deals with the violent pro-democracy protests that broke out in 2019 in Hong Kong, where this work cannot be shown.