Taiwan Cinema Toolkit an online platform for enhancing the international profile of local movies was launched by the Ministry of Culture (MOC) of the Republic of China in Taipei City on April 28. The “Toolkit” is a website that includes English and Mandarin information on 70 Taiwanese films which are categorized under nine themes: youth the city cultural conflict gender literature history society indigenous peoples and the environment.
Minister of MOC Ying Tai Lung added that it can play an invaluable role in further promoting the depth of local culture to the international community.
She said an important goal of the “Toolkit” is to allow foreign teachers who might not know much about Taiwan to easily organize festivals focusing on Taiwan’s films culture or art.
Entering a Treasure Chest of Taiwanese Films The Chinese Taipei Film Archive is the only organization in Taiwan with the specific responsibility for collecting restoring preserving and researching on films made in Taiwan and has made every effort with regards to the collecting sorting and preserving film culture heritage for many years. It has 13853 ancient Taiwanese films in its collection including newsreels documentaries and features made by Taiwan Film Culture Company newsreels documentaries and features made by China Film Studio and Taiwanese language features made by various private companies. The Chinese Taipei Film Archive preserves abundant content of Taiwanese films and the “Toolkit” elaborately selects the content according to subjects from archives allowing users to extensively witness the trend and trace of the social development in Taiwan.  Among the 70 films several films are made by prominent Taiwanese directors such as Lee Ang (李安) Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) Edward Yang (楊德昌) and Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮). Award-winning features and documentaries Taiwanese language films and films dating back to the 1950s and 1960s are also included. All of the films have been subtitled in English.
To fully display the films ancient audio files are first digitally restored to return to their original appearances. Films including the Taiwanese language film Back to Anping Harbor starred by Yang Li-hua the melodrama Where the Sea Gull Flies starred by Chen Chen and The Wheel of Life jointly directed by Lee Hsing King Hu Pai Ching-jui are recorded inside. Moreover regarding the new-wave films receiving the most praise by the international community from 1980s the “Toolkit” collects Dust in the Wind and The Time to Live and the Time to Die by Hou Hsiao-hsien The Terrorizers by Edward Yang Vive L'amour and Rebels of the Neon God by Tsai Ming-liang and Pushing Hands by Lee Ang allowing overseas audience to see various appearances of Taiwanese artistic films.
Philippe Wieber the deputy director of French Institute in Taipei believes that the Taiwan Cinema Toolkit could further enhance Taiwan-France ties since local directors such as Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien are familiar with culture aficionados in the Gallic nation.
“The Taiwan Cinema Toolkit” is an ongoing project promoted every year. It will adopt more Taiwanese films in the future allowing the cultural toolkit to act as a medium for outreaching overseas culture introduce the platform to users and initiate more multicultural values and meanings through discovering exploring interacting and sharing.
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