NEWS: Taiwan’s 41st Golden Harvest Awards & Short Film Festival Announces Nominated Films2 min read
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The 41st Golden Harvest Awards and Short Film Festival announced its list of finalists last Friday, 28 December 2018. A total of 265 entries were received, of which 234 films were eligible for award nominations. The jury panel for this year’s awards was brought together by well-known film critic, marketer and curator Li Ya-Mei 李亞梅. The jury panel includes many Taiwan film industry professionals from a wide range of backgrounds such as film director Shen Keshang, writer/producer/director Laha Mebow, film director Fu Tian Yu, art director Lee Tian-jue, Kaohsiung International Film Festival film curator Huang Hao-jie, and film music composer Ke Zhi-Hao. A total of 54 films were nominated to compete for a total prize value of 5.35 million New Taiwanese Dollars.
One of the jury members remarked: “I especially like this year’s animation work as it displayed the creator’s creativity and personality. The open and student category live-action films provided a glimpse of the daily relatable emotions, courage and maturity. The Golden Harvest Awards’ films improve year on year, with the films showing topics relevant to the state of the society.”
This year’s Golden Harvest Awards also invited actress Vera Yen (who was nominated for Best Leading Actress at the Taiwan Golden Bell Awards) and Wu Nien-Hsuan (who was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the Golden Horse Awards) as the ambassadors for this year. Vera Yen was also awarded Best Actress in the 39th edition of the Golden Harvest Awards.
The nominated works are divided into Open Category and Student Category, with films displaying strong creativity, faring as strongly as nominated films in the Golden Bell and Golden Horse Awards. Many of the filmmakers began to explore topics such as interpersonal relationships, political and economic societal issues, migrant work, and long-term caretaking. An increasing number of films are also exploring more styles such as western, fantasy and realism. At the same time, there are more nominated works submitted from Malaysian students studying in Taiwanese schools. This further displays the Golden Harvest Awards as a film award that is inclusive and recognises creative film talents in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
The 41st Golden Harvest Awards & Short Film Festival will be held from 23 March to 31 March 2019 at the SPOT Huashan Cinema and the Fuzhong 15 – New Taipei City Documentary Cinema. The films will also be screened around the country from the 1 April to 12 May. The Golden Harvest Awards Ceremony, which is hailed as the hallmark of Taiwan’s short film scene, will also be held on 29 March.
For the list of nominated films and for more information on Golden Harvest events, please visit their Facebook page.
Image credit: Taiwan Film Institute
