While mainland China’s Golden Rooster Awards crowed all over social media about the star power of its attendees, the more modest Golden Horses in Taiwan this year had to make do with a red carpet full of relative unknowns and sponsors that had fled the coop.
The two events collided in the wake of a pro-Taiwanese independence acceptance speech at the Golden Horses last year. That prompted Beijing to ban mainland industry players from attending this year’s ceremony in Taiwan and to turn its own biennial Golden Rooster awards into an annual event to be held directly across the Taiwan Strait in Xiamen.
The procession outside of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall beneath the shadow of the towering Taipei 101 skyscraper attracted only a thin crowd of passers-by who remained oddly silent for most of its duration, as there were few known faces amongst the many newcomer nominees to scream over. A few Japanese attendees such as Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Shoplifters”) and actor Masatoshi Nagase added a sprinkle of international glamour.
This year also marked the first time that the award ceremony had no host — a role that has in past iterations been filled by big names like Jackie Chan or even Huang Bo, who in 2012 became the first mainlander to take on the mantle.
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“This year the Oscars don’t have a host either, so luckily it looks like we’re just following suit,” laughed a Taiwanese industry player close to the matter, implying that it hadn’t been by choice.
Meanwhile, Jackie Chan, director Zhang Yimou, and what Chinese reports called “hundreds” of other A-listers strutted their stuff in Xiamen. (The coastal city is just a half hour’s ferry away from the Taiwan’s Jinmen, one of the two small frontline islands once viewed as a bulwark against China, from which the Golden Horse festival derives its Chinese name.)
But for those who value creative freedoms, the celebrity wattage at the Golden Roosters was merely lipstick on the pig of an event that critics say still holds adherence to Communist party-approved messaging above artistic merit.
Golden Horse onlooker Luo Yuanyou, a 27-year-old Taiwanese civil engineer, couldn’t think of a single mainland film he’d seen in recent years, and said that most Taiwan locals only really regretted the loss of the big Hong Kong movie stars who had chosen to lie low rather than risk their China careers by attending. But even that was a worthwhile price to pay to uphold the Golden Horse festival as a place where people could freely speak their mind.
“Of course, it’s nice to see a star you recognize, but this isn’t really about the stars. We think that what’s unique about Taiwanese cinema is that we can express things they cannot in the mainland,” he said.
But it’s not just locals who share such values. Two dozen or so super-cinephiles from the mainland were such die-hard supporters of the festival that they found ways to defy Beijing’s travel ban on individuals visiting Taiwan. One, who asked to go by the surname Kim for fear of personal repercussions, paid in actual blood. Unable to obtain an individual tourist visa, he applied for a $142 (RMB1,000)-more expensive medical visa that allowed him the freedom to catch the films he would be unable to see back in Beijing, but required proof of an actual medical check-up that included a blood test, in order to avoid a hefty fine. “It was really important to be here this year of all years to symbolically show my support,” he said.
Taiwan’s freedom of speech was clearly on display. Two winners made direct statements of support for the ongoing Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in their acceptance speeches.
Taiwanese director Wang Dengyu won best animated short for “Gold Fish,” which tells the story of a boy who must free people from authorities who are devouring their dreams so that they’re willing to be controlled.
“I originally thought this work was a parable. I didn’t expect it would become a reality, and that reality surpassed the imaginative possibility of animation; it’s really absurd,” he said, nervously reading from a note card as he clarified: “The current situation in Hong Kong makes one feel deep sorrow.”
Accepting the prize for best original film song in “Detention,” Taiwanese composer Lu Luming said that he wished to gift his song to “everyone in Hong Kong who insists on their ideals. I hope you can live peacefully and freely.”
“Hope only comes from surviving, because only then will people in the future know how difficult this all was,” he said, echoing a line from the film. Both comments were met with deafening applause, but they decrease the odds of a reconciliation between the Golden Horse festival and mainland China authorities next year.
In her acceptance speech for best feature, “A Sun” producer Ye Rufen choked up in the final comment of the night over a subtle reference to the potential troubles ahead for the Golden Horse Awards. She reaffirmed the festival’s commitment to its core value of celebrating cinema, before saying: “No matter the past, the present or the future… no matter the dark night, no matter the shadows, the sun will always come out.”
But the tensest moment of the ceremony actually came after the show was over, when a foreign news outlet asked director Ang Lee, the festival’s executive committee chairman, about China.
Democratically-governed Taiwan has ranked the top or second best country in Asia for press freedom for the past decade, in sharp contrast to China, which is always one of the lowest ranked in the world. But when a journalist asked whether China’s boycott marked a loss for the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwanese journalists and festival affiliates banded together to try to block the query.
“I think your question is extremely out of line,” hissed the Golden Horse executive committee’s executive director Wen Tianxiang, the master of ceremonies who had opened the press conference by baldly telling those present not to discuss politics.
A journalist from Taiwan’s Liberty Times tried to come to the rescue by shouting that he couldn’t understand the English-language question, and jury head, Golden Horse Lifetime achievement award-winning director Wang Toon, followed suit, trying to brush it aside.
After an uncomfortable minute, Lee delivered a poised response that carefully avoided offending either side. He called for kinship and intimacy between artists irrespective of politics, and emphasized the Golden Horse awards as an unofficial, nongovernmental event that has generated much goodwill over so many years.
“Of course it’s a loss. When it comes to overall numbers, of course there were fewer [works] than usual,” he said of the boycott’s impact. “But our arms are always open — as long as you’re a Chinese-speaking film or director, we welcome you to attend. We can’t control the outside world, but as filmmakers, we are part of a big, loving family that we really cherish.”
The Taiwanese journalist explained to Variety that, though fluent in English, he intervened to try and protect Lee and the festival. “There’s a Chinese saying that goes, ‘the more you say, the more wrong you can do.’ The best thing for us at the moment is to say nothing (so as not to) poke the wound” of topics that would encourage Beijing to keep up its boycott, he explained.
A continued rift would threaten the Golden Horses’ status as the highest honor in Chinese cinema by shrinking the pool of contenders. The fear that participating films would be cut off from the world’s second-largest film market in retaliation would likely also imperil investors’ willingness to finance new Taiwanese productions, leaving local directors weakened.
It was worth sacrificing press freedoms for the sake of safeguarding cinematic ones, his colleague reasoned. “It’s very clear that the awards this year have been affected by the boycott, and we don’t want that impact to grow. Asking the question does nothing to help,” she said. “If one day the Golden Horse Awards disappear, there won’t ever be another free, open Chinese language film award to take its place.”