Day 4: The Strawberry Generation

Today starts off with a newspaper interview with "The China Times" -- the first interview I've had with a "pan-blue" newspaper. Needless to say I'm very excited! :) "The China Times" is owned by the Wang Wang Group which has strong ties with mainland China. The journalist Eric Chiu asks a number of questions about my background and what was the motivation behind shooting the film. We have a discussion about Taiwanese-American politics and about Hollywood.

Eventually he asks if I would consider doing a historical epic on China. I tell him that while we're open to any good story, I think there may be others who would be better at that. Formosa Betrayed is about Taiwan and Taiwan's history, which is a subject I feel very comfortable with. I would feel as comfortable doing a historical Chinese epic as I would doing an historical French epic -- and I hasten to add that I speak French fluently (while my Chinese is passable).

Later in the day, we have two back-to-back screenings of Formosa Betrayed to two groups of college and graduate students, as well as a number of influential Taiwanese bloggers. This generation of Taiwanese students is known here as the "Strawberry Generation" (akin to the American Gen Y). The "Strawberry Generation" is the first generation of Taiwanese to grow up in modern day Taiwanese democracy. Most of them were born during or after the early to mid 1980s when Formosa Betrayed is set.

The stereotype of the "Strawberry Generation" is that they are generally quite apathetic when it comes to politics. Many of them are actual unaware of the history of Taiwan and it's development as a democracy. This group of students and bloggers is not stereotypical as many of them are student leaders and are opinion makers among their peers. Moreover, some of them were involved in the "Wild Strawberry" movement which protested against the leaders of mainland China when a number of them came to Taiwan last year to discuss relations between the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People's Republic of China on the mainland.

The question and answer discussion afterwards is quite interesting. A film critic and blogger named Tzara speaks first about his impressions of the film. He compares Formosa Betrayed to movies like The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda, and Munich in that the film shines a spotlight on a piece of Taiwanese history for both Westerners and Taiwanese themselves that has never been shown to the world. He says that his one of his grandparents was killed in the 2/28 massacre that is talked about in the film.

We open up the floor and the students and bloggers are very engaged and interested in talking about the motivation behind the film, as well as the political and social message that Formosa Betrayed presents. Both sessions last well beyond their scheduled times, and everyone seems very enthused and interested in helping to promote the film to their peers. I tell them that this film is really aimed at the "Strawberry Generation" and their support is critical in ensuring the film's box office success.

That's it for today. Tomorrow is our first screening outside of Taipei... in Hualien! See you tomorrow...

-Will