Cape No. 7 wins award for best narrative film in Hawaii
Written by Writer on Thursday, October 16th, 2008
Cape No. 7 wins award for best narrative film in Hawaii
CNA
Thursday, October 16, 2008
TAIPEI, Taiwan –– The Taiwan-produced box office hit, “Cape No. 7,” won the Best Narrative Film Award at the 2008 Louis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival Tuesday.
According to information posted on the festival’s Web site, an international jury screened 150 entries from 36 countries based on the Hawaii film festival’s mandate “to entertain, enlighten and empower.”
Other awards were presented for the best documentary, the best short film, the best film in Hawaii, achievement in acting, plus a Viewers Choice Award, a Maverick Award, and an award from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.
Vanessa Shih, minister of the Government Information Office (GIO), has extended congratulations on behalf of the government to the film’s director Wei Te-sheng, who was present at the festival, according to officials at the GIO’s Department of Motion Picture Affairs.
The officials said that in addition to receiving a cash award of NT$100,000, Wei will be entitled to a government subsidy to cover 20 percent of the movie’s NT$50 million (US$1.54 million) budget.
The Hawaii film festival award was the third in row for “Cape No. 7,” which also captured the first prize at the fourth Asian Marine Film Festival in Makuhari, Japan, in September, as well as three awards — the Grand Prize, the Best Music and Best Cinematography awards — at the 2008 Taipei Film Festival in June before the film was released commercially.
Cape No. 7 is a romantic comedy and Wei’s first full-length motion picture. It is still being screened in movie theaters around Taiwan, with box office takings already surpassing NT$400 million (US$12.34 million) — the second highest in Taiwan, next to the NT$775 million for the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic.
The film tells two interrelated stories. One is a love story about a Japanese man leaving his Taiwanese girlfriend in what is now Pingtung County in southern Taiwan when Japan gave up its colonial rule of the island. The other is about the dreams of a group of young, amateur Taiwanese musicians.
In her congratulatory message to Wei, Shih wished him further success with his next feature film, “Seediq Bale,” on which shooting is scheduled to begin in autumn next year.
Seediq Bale is a story about the Wushe Incident of 1930, in which Seediq warrior Mona Rudao led the aboriginal people from his tribe in an armed rebellion against the Japanese occupiers in Nantou County.
They killed 125 Japanese and wounded more than 200 others. In retaliation, the Japanese colonial government deployed 2,000 soldiers and police officers who placed the Seediq tribe under siege for months. Mona, along with some 300 of his warriors, refused to surrender and killed themselves.
