Taiwan Film Festival offers free screenings

Screening to the public at no cost and launching on 31 August 2012, the Taiwan Film Festival will give Cinema Nouveau audiences an opportunity to experience the beauty of film from Taiwan. Free tickets for each film can be collected at the box office one hour before each screening.

"The Taiwan Film Festival solidifies our commitment to providing audiences with a diverse range of cinema entertainment. It is also very exciting that we can showcase the highly acclaimed Warriors of the Rainbows: Seediq Bale, which has won a number of awards including; winner of the 2011 Venice Film Festival Official Competition, Best Feature Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Sound Effect, Best Original Film Score, Audience Choice Awards at the 48th Golden Horse Awards (2011) as well as the Best Film Award at the 12th Chinese Film Media Awards (2011)," commented Lola Gallant, marketing manager at Ster-Kinekor Cinema Nouveau.

Tale of clashing races

Directed by WEI Te-Sheng, Warriors of the Rainbows: Seediq Bale is the epic tale of two races that clashed to defend their faith in the mountains of Taiwan where one race (Seediq) believes in rainbows and the other (the Japanese) in the sun. Set in the early 20th century, the film takes audiences on a historical venture as the Seediq tribes plot a rebellion against their Japanese colonial masters. When the revolution begins, the Japanese troops threaten to crush the Seediq but the tribesmen are sustained by their beliefs and myths.

The inspiring film shows how one of the Seediq beliefs was that young males in the tribes had to undergo a rite of passage to become adult men, which gave them the right to have their faces tattooed. In the tribal language, they became Seediq Bale - real man, with the belief that the ancestors would lead the spirits of the Seediq Bale across a rainbow bridge to the summit of the mountain when their time came.

For more information, go to www.cinemanouveau.co.za.