This year marks the third year of the “Young Film Festival”, a collaborative event between the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and independent film makers of Taiwan. The first festival was titled the “Young Pursuing Film Festival”, second year the “Cheers, Youth! Film Festival, and this year the “Young Pop-Eye Film Festival” which continues to offer a platform for young film makers to express and showcase their talents from July 28th through to September 10th.

This year’s film festival intends to focus on two categories: short films and animation, and offers an opportunity for the discovery of Taiwan’s contemporary youthful perspective. This group of young talent has gone through a journey of youthful naïve self-discovery, self-acceptance amongst peers, and this time around, the emphasis is placed on self-reflection of personal ideals and struggles. The outcomes are comprised of issues that these film makers were attentive to throughout different periods. With globalization, there are dramatic shifts in political settings and natural climates, these phenomena have inspired these film makers to base their creative concepts through internal reflections. With a pushing force rising from these adversities and combined with experiences of self-developments, a great vigor is formed with courage and enthusiasm. Through their images, they set out to challenge today’s societal values, and aim to spur for more multifaceted thinking processes.

Short Films

Short films curator / Milu Huang

“With a force of eye-popping vigor, the youths are set out to cross over the past and create a future that is bright and new!”

This surging energy of eye-popping vigor is an explosive state of emotion that has been culminated in an extensive period of time, and strives to surpass and excel! It may have originated from skepticism or bewilderment about life, or a sense of loss during the pursuit of dreams, or perhaps a breakdown of emotions are bottled up with no relieving outlet. When the logic of right and wrong is no longer as clearly defined as stated in textbooks, a sense of surging emotion brews inside, and it becomes essential to go on a quest to search for the answer. These conditions come to form the message that the “Young Pop-Eye Film Festival” attempts to deliver. Similar to how a creative process must go through a continual period of self-inspection in order to progress, youthful souls have to also go through the challenges of reality and grow from the experiences acquired, and from which vigorous developments and bold actions carried out by the contemporary young generation are able to be reflected and observed.

Animations

Animations curator / Helin Lou

“Youth” has the ability to resonate to each individual’s personal experiences in life. In life, people gaze into mirrors to observe their own states of youth, and like the theory of the “Mirror Stage” proposed by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, through the reflections in the mirror, people are able to learn about the forming of the self. This is similar to how him/herself and his/her own stories through animation. “Young Pop-Eye Film Festival” anticipates for each of the exhibited animation works to connect with the audience. This sense of vigor is similar to the sounds of crashing waves, and it is a symbolism of the exciting rhythm being formed internally, and is also the colliding beats of the heart and soul. Furthermore, it is a perceptual sense that comes from the resonance between two beings. This exhibition hopes through the mirror-like animation works to form a communal life experience with the viewers. The experiences of internal vigor could be inspired by passion, moved emotions, and could also be from sadness or memories. The exhibition is divided into two themes of “Pop-Eye Life Experiences” and “Pop-Eye Story Plots”, and is designed to encourage the animators to interact and connect with each other and to form dialogues between the viewers and animators as well.

Courtesy of the artists and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, for further information please visit http://www.mocataipei.org.tw/blog/post/28194710.