The Urban Nomad Film Program at the 2008 Taipei Biennial
- From the curators
Following the opening of the Taipei Biennial on September 13, the Urban Nomad Film Fest will keep the exhibition’s spirit alive through six weeks of free screenings of indie films. The first screening will be in Taipei Art Park at 7:30pm on Sunday, September 14, and afterwards screenings will happen every Saturday from September 20 to October 18 at 7:30pm at the Taiwan Beer Factory on Jianguo South Road in Taipei.
The films will include documentaries, features and shorts from Taiwan and around the world that relate amazing and entertaining stories, while also speaking to movements for change and social awareness. Films will cover subjects like an American defector to North Korea, Nigeria’s film industry, Japanese democracy, and Filipino hip hop gangs. It’s just our way of blazing a more sustainable path into this brave new world.
Urban Nomad is a self-funded platform for underground and indie films founded in 2002 and based in Taipei. This year, we are cooperating with the 2008 Taipei Biennial upon the request of curators Manray Hsu (Germany/Taiwan) and Vasif Kortum (Turkey). Our major goal is to create community-level support for producers of short films, documentaries and narrative films, and also a place where people can simply come together. We also work to stretch this community spirit by building connections with indie filmmakers and festivals in East Asia and Southeast Asia.
In 2008, Urban Nomad’s annual festival drew an audience of around 1000 people in eight days of screenings in Taipei. In the last year, the festival toured to Hong Kong and art fairs in Miami, USA and Basel, Switzerland, with Urban Nomad co-founder David Frazier receiving an independent curator award from the Scope Art Fair. Sean Scanlan is Urban Nomad’s co-founder and organizer.
The Taipei Biennial is Taiwan’s premier exhibition for contemporary art and is organized by the Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. This sixth edition of the Biennial takes place between September 13, 2008 and January 4, 2009.
Dates and Locations
9/14 @ Taipei Art Park, Zhongshan N. Rd, Sec. 3
- next to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
9/20 – 10/18 (every Saturday) @ Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
All screenings begin at 7:30pm
Schedule
http://urbannomadfilmfest.blogspot.com