Taipei, Sept. 11 (CNA) “The Man Who Couldn’t Leave (無法離開的人),” a virtual reality film exploring Taiwan’s White Terror period in the 1950s, has won the top prize at the Venice Immersive event at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) announced Sunday.
Alongside two other entries representing Taiwan — Red Tail (紅尾巴)” by Golden Horse-winning animator Fish Wang (王登鈺), and multimedia artist Craig Quintero’s “All That Remains” (遺留) — the film competed at the 2022 Venice Immersive, the extended reality section of the Venice International Film Festival.
During judging between Aug. 31 and Sept. 10, all three films received a positive reception from jury members May Abdalla, David Adler, and Blanca Li, and were in contention for the event’s Grand Jury Prize, Special Jury Prize, and the top prize for Best Experience.
In the end, “The Man Who Couldn’t Leave” was named the best of the 30 entrants, and took home the top prize.
On winning the award, the film’s director Singing Chen (陳芯宜) said that the project was made in honor of those who sacrificed themselves for freedom in the 1950s during the then-Kuomintang government’s suppression of political rights in Taiwan.
Chen has previously said the subject matter of the White Terror era gave weight to her virtual reality movie, with the period’s bleak violence all the more palpable through the use of immersive presentation.
In her speech, Chen went on to thank the National Human Rights Museum for commissioning the film, saying it had taken two years of hard work to complete the movie.
Culture Minister Lee Yung-te (李永得) also congratulated Chen on winning a significant international film award.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Chen’s win marked the second time that one of Taiwan’s entrants took home a prize at Venice Immersive, following a Best Experience Award win for director Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健) and artist Laurie Anderson’s “La Camera Insabbiata” in 2017.