The 61st Golden Horse Awards will take place on the 23rd. On the 21st, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council revealed during a press conference that a record-breaking 276 Chinese mainland films have entered the competition, marking the highest number in recent years. Additionally, 85 mainland Chinese individuals have applied to attend the ceremony and related events in Taiwan. The council expressed a warm welcome to their participation.
This year’s Golden Horse Awards features a significant presence of Chinese films with a total of 276 entries, just one less than those from Taiwan. The growing enthusiasm is seen in the number of 85 mainland Chinese individuals seeking to join the various ceremonies and activities in Taiwan.
Vice Chairman and spokesperson Liang Wenjie recommended that attention be paid to films that are unable to be screened in China, including those depicting the COVID-19 pandemic and the extensive lockdown measures implemented in mainland China during the crisis. Liang highlighted that with the increasing number of Chinese films entering the competition from mainland China, there is a desire for a platform with freedom, to which he stated, “We welcome this wholeheartedly.”
The Golden Horse Awards, considered one of the most prestigious events in the Chinese film industry, has faced obstacles from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2019.
In 2019, the CCP’s state film bureau deliberately scheduled the mainland’s “Golden Rooster Awards” to coincide with Taiwan’s “Golden Horse Awards” and later announced on its official Weibo account the suspension of mainland films and personnel from participating in the 56th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in 2019. This move was perceived as the CCP forcing mainland filmmakers to choose sides, with the subsequent ban on participating in the Golden Horse Awards. Many mainland Chinese filmmakers withdrew their entries submitted before the deadline of July 31 due to the enforced ban.
As the spokesperson for Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, Liang Wenjie’s recommendations on films that cannot be shown in China include the independent film “An Unfinished Film” directed by Lou Ye, as reported by “China Digital Times”. The film, set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in January 2020, uses a pseudo-documentary format to narrate the story of a film crew facing the sudden city lockdown.
In May of this year, “An Unfinished Film” was selected for the “Special Screening” section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Following the film’s premiere, the audience stood up applauding for several minutes, with enthusiastic spectators praising Lou Ye as “the greatest director in China” for his courage and talent in creating the film without any censorship restrictions. Subsequently, tens of thousands of users on China’s largest film community, Douban, marked their interest in the film, yet discussions related to it on platforms like Douban and Weibo were heavily censored.
Due to its portrayal and presentation of “incorrect collective memory” during the pandemic, the film faced the impossibility of obtaining the necessary approvals for screening in mainland China.
Audiences present at the Cannes Film Festival described the film as not having a dramatic plot but rather portraying a real and authentic perspective on three years of the pandemic from ordinary people’s view, making it “more closely aligned with real history”. A Chinese film critic commented that the movie “revisits past events, causing a heart-wrenching feeling, presenting each era with its own poignant films”.
Lou Ye, regarded as one of the prominent figures of China’s Sixth Generation of Directors, focuses on the lives of the grassroots and marginalized communities in his works. Previously, several of his films such as “Suzhou River” and “Summer Palace”, which touched upon the Tiananmen Square protests, were unable to be screened in China. Lou Ye himself had also faced restrictions from the Chinese authorities on his filmmaking endeavors.