China may be boycotting the annual Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards in Taipei this November, but this is unlikely to affect China-Taiwan film co-productions, or have any impact on their respective film markets, according to key players in the industry. Wu Kao-hsiung, a member of the Cross-Strait Films Exchange Committee that co-organises annual film festivals with the China Film Association, says relations between Chinese and Taiwanese filmmakers have not been affected by the former’s boycott of the Golden Horse Awards, known as the Chinese-language cinema Oscars. He says a film festival jointly organised with the Fujian Film Administration, expected to be held in December in Fujian, the mainland Chinese province nearest Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait, “will progress as usual”. Taiwan will contribute 10 films to the festival, half of them new releases, according to Wu, president of Taipei-based Dragons Group Film Company. “If mainland Chinese distributors like any of the new movies, they will help with their release in China. There will also be conferences on cross-strait co-production during the festival,” he says. Besides the film festival in Fujian, Wu says Taiwanese filmmakers will also participate in the Silk Road International Film Festival, to be held, also in Fujian, in October. “Other than the [Golden Horse] ban, I don’t see other cross-strait film exchanges are affected,” says Wu. The Golden Horse Awards boycott, reported in August, was seen as Beijing’s response to Taiwan-born documentary director Fu Yue’s call for the world to recognise the island as an independent country during her award acceptance speech at last year’s ceremony. Fu won the best documentary prize for her film Our Youth in Taiwan . People should not over-analyse the Golden Horse Awards ban. It is temporary and the awards are certain to resume as normal next year Gene Yao Jing-yu, chief executive of Taiwanese film distribution company Swallow Wings Films The chief executive of Taiwanese film distribution company Swallow Wings Films, Gene Yao Jing-yu, said China had no choice but to boycott the Golden Horse Awards after Fu’s speech, especially with the Taiwanese presidential election looming. “The awards ceremony is too close to the Taiwanese presidential election [on January 11, 2020],” he says. “China cannot control what is said at the ceremony. Unrest in Hong Kong is also raging. “If anything out of bounds is said at the ceremony, it will further inflame the tense political situation and affect the forthcoming presidential election. The safest option for China is not to send anyone there. If the awards ceremony were held six months [before or after] the election, there would not be any boycott.” China’s decision to boycott the awards is a consequence of three things – the rising siege mentality resulting from the US-China trade war, the demonstrations in Hong Kong and the ongoing tensions in the South China Sea, according to Ying Zhu, professor of Cinema Studies at the City University of New York and director of the Centre for Film and Moving Image Research at the Academy of Film, Baptist University in Hong Kong. “The Golden Horse Awards are a good platform for film exchanges, particularly in East Asia. China’s absence this year will not have any real repercussions on either [China or Taiwan] in the long run,” Zhu says. That sentiment is shared by filmmaker Lin Yu-hsien, who left Taiwan for mainland China in 2012. He says as far as he knows, co-productions have not been affected by the Golden Horse Awards boycott. Lin says as long as filmmakers are interested in a script and love the movie, where they work is irrelevant. China last year announced a series of policy initiatives to boost cross-strait cooperation on filmmaking. Among the initiatives were the abolition of quotas limiting the import of Taiwanese movies and TV shows, an easing of co-production rules and the removal of limits on the number of mainland Chinese productions that Taiwanese talent can appear in. Because of cultural differences between mainland China and Taiwan, Yao says, co-productions are often commercial flops. “None of the cross-strait co-productions so far has been a success,” he said. Despite a high-profile publicity campaign and a stellar cast, including Lin Chi-ling and Dee Hsu, 2017 film Didi’s Dreams took only 26 million yuan (US$3.3 million) at the box office in mainland China. For Chinese- language cinema to truly go global, the film industries from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan must work together. Political hiccups will not affect the big picture Yao on the future relationship between the China and Taiwan film industries Audiences in Taiwan react negatively to films that use simplified Chinese characters (as opposed to the traditional characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) and that portray mainland Chinese social mores. A 2016 co-production, At Cafe 6, ran into problems because of cultural differences. Taiwan audiences took issue with the Beijing accent of mainland Chinese actor Dong Zijian, who played a Taiwanese character in the film. In the version of the film shown in mainland China, all the scenes featuring Taiwanese actor Leon Dai were deleted (Dai was a supporter of the 2014 “sunflower movement” protests against a trade pact between mainland China and Taiwan). The deletions left the film’s plot fragmented. Yao says the odds of making a co-production that can appeal to audiences in both Taiwan and mainland China are very small. “Although there’s a government policy to encourage co-productions, there are fewer and fewer of them as they don’t make money [for investors],” he says. “[Moviemakers are] businessmen who don’t care much about politics. Co-productions bring tax concessions. They will flock to make co-productions if they are money-spinners.” Golden Horse Awards: Zhang Yimou’s film ‘Shadow’ shines at Chinese Oscars In spite of the dismal state of cross-strait film co-production, Yao says China wants such cooperation to continue, since it perceives cultural exchanges between Taiwan and China as benefiting the Chinese leadership’s goal of unification with Taiwan. Leaders in Beijing consider Taiwan a renegade province of China. “People should not over-analyse the Golden Horse Awards ban. It is temporary and the awards are certain to resume as normal next year. Taiwanese films that win the awards [this year] will attract distributors in mainland China. Films from mainland China that win awards at festivals will also draw the attention of Taiwanese distributors,” Yao says. “The cultural gap between mainland China and Taiwan has to be bridged by events like film festivals,” he adds. Terminating exchanges would ultimately lead to Taiwan’s secession [from China], which was the outcome China least wanted. Besides, Yao says, “The vast and fast-developing entertainment industry in mainland China needs Taiwanese talent. “There’s no language barrier between China and Taiwan. Cross-strait cooperation has been going well. For Chinese- language cinema to truly go global, the film industries from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan must work together. Political hiccups will not affect the big picture.”