It was quite an unusual weekend, as I wondered around the auditorium next to the Taipei County Library. Several huge banners were placed in front of the building, changing its facade and announcing that 2008 Taipei Film Festival was happening there. More than twenty short films created by Taiwan and international students were screened in the auditorium with no charge. An award ceremony was also held during a thundering Saturday afternoon. Three categories of prizes were announced during the ceremony:

• Golden Lion International Student Film Competition
• Golden Lion Award - Milan (2007) directed by Michaela Kezele
  The film that opened my unusual weekend. I got to see it twice in a day because it was screened again after winning the top award. Prior to Taipei, it had won numerous prizes, including best director and production from Munich International Festival Of Filmschools. Read an interview with the director here.
  
• Silver Lion Award - The Tunnel (2007) directed by Chang, Ying-Hui
  This film was actually made by a Taiwanese student. It was selected to participate in both Taiwan and international categories. Winning the second place award indicated that it was worthy of the double nomination. In fact, the film also won a special award in the Taiwan category for fiction.
  
• Bronze Lion Award - Death of Shula (2007) directed by Asaf Korman
  The director's family members, including himself, played themselves in this emotional film about the family dog, Shula. The film ended with the father of the family crying unstoppably in front of the camera--after waking up the next morning right beside where he buried Shula--and the director telling him to stop. The director revealed during the Q&A session that he wrote the final scene knowing that his father, being a longtime professional actor, wouldn't get out of the character so quickly and the effect would produce a sense of reality, although the film was fictional.
  
• Special Mention - Lovesick (2007) directed by Spela Cadez
  A warm and humorous film that drew a lot of laughter from the audience. The director realized "broken heart" and "head turned backwards", a German expression, with clay animation.
  
• Golden Lion Taiwan Student Film Competition (Fiction and Non-Fiction)
• Special Mention - Knockout (2007) directed by Li, Yi-Shan (Non-Fiction)
  Inspired by Million Dollar Baby, the film documented a student boxer's arduous preparation for a world-class competition. The weeping confession after losing the critical match drew sympathy and left a question that audience desperately wanted to know: what happened next? The question was answered by the boxer herself, when the director brought her in front the audience during the Q&A session: she was back to training again, preparing for the next world-class competition.
  
• Special Mention - Marrow (2008) directed by Yong, Deng-Chi (Non-Fiction)
• Special Mention - Hiya (2007) directed by Lai, Wen-Hsuan (Fiction)
  A very refreshing film from a very ambitious director. Hiya, a nickname of the main character, played by the director himself, means "in big trouble" in Taiwanese. The big trouble the young man got into was losing a package of artistic nude photographs that he was responsible to deliver. The peculiar solution came up by the young man and his sidekicks was to shoot nude photographs of themselves.
  
• Special Mention - The Tunnel (2007) directed by Chang, Ying-Hui (Fiction)
  
• Special Mention - Puppets (2007) directed by Lin, Chun-Yang (Fiction)
  
• New Talent Competition
• Grand Prize - The Flight (2007) directed by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette
  This is the first award the film has ever won. The director was fairly surprised to hear her name from the announcer.
  
• Special Jury Prize - 57000km Between Us (2007) directed by Delphine Kreuter
• Audience Choice Award - Cape No. 7 (2008) directed by Wei, Te-Shen
• Special Mention - What on Earth Have I Done Wrong? (2008) directed by Doze Niu, Chen-Zer
• Special Mention - Wonderful Town (2007) directed by Aditya Assarat

It takes someone who is truly heartbroken to create a movie like Sita Sings the Blues (2008), the greatest break-up story ever told. The movie actually tells two break-up stories in parallel: Nina Paley, the director whom Wired called One-Woman Pixar, was heartbroken and left homeless after being dumped by her husband with email; Sita, the ideal woman in the Indian epic Ramayana, was banished by her husband, Rama. The director found great resemblance between her experience and Sita's. Through Sita's courage and purity, the director seemed to obtain the inspiration and morale support that was required to finish the movie. If Sita's final act of returning to the mother earth had any counter part in the director's life, it will probably be the releasing of the movie into the world for everyone to see.

• Poster derived from the official site
• Original songs and sound clips on My Pet Dragon
• Referece: FAQ by Nina Paley
  

Cherry Blossoms - Hanami (2008), like a tip of an iceberg, takes the audience into a journey of mourning that has no return. The great mass of emotion in the end is powerful enough to sink another Titanic. Highly recommended to anyone who thinks he or she has too tough a heart to cry.

• Official Site
• Poster courtesy of Cineclub
• My second film by Doris Dörrie, after Naked (2002)
  

Lemon Tree (2008), one of the two opening films in 2008 Taipei Film Festival, is a story with really simple structure: two houses and a lemon grove between them. The story becomes more interesting when each house's owner is revealed: a Palestinian widow, who has grown up with the grove, and Israeli Defense Minister who just moved in with his wife. The location of the grove is equally important to the story: it is adjacent to the Green Line border between Israel and the West Bank.
Stories about the conflict between Israel and Palestine are almost mundane to the people living in that area. Director Eran Riklis was drawn to this particular one because of the symbolic nature of lemon tree, which is best described by the folk song in the 1960s:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys discovering metaphors in a movie that is easy to associate with.

• Official Site
• Poster courtesy of cine.ch

A list of movies that I will be watching in the 2008 Taipei Film Festival:

• 21:15, Fri. 2008.6.20
  Lemon Tree (2008) directed by Eran Riklis
• 15:00, Sat. 2008.6.21
  Cherry Blossoms-Hanami (2008) directed by Doris Dörrie
• 21:00, Sun. 2008.6.22
  Sita Sings the Blues (2008) directed by Nina Paley

I will also attend, for free, some programs of the Golden Lion International/Taiwan Student Film Competition:

• 11:00, Sat. 2008.6.28
  International Program 3:
  
  • Milan (2007) directed by Michaela Kezele
  • In Between (2006) directed by Jose e. Iglesias Vigil
  • Piece of Heaven (2006) directed by Kuba Czekaj
  • Lovesick (2007) directed by Spela Cadez
• 18:00, Sat. 2008.6.28
  International Program 4:
  
  • Death of Shula (2007) directed by Asaf Korman
  • Wings of Blue Angels (2007) directed by Tongpong Chantarangkul
  • Roads (2007) directed by Lior Geller
• 20:00, Sat. 2008.6.28
  International Program 5:
  
  • BALLET (2008) directed by Hong, Sung-Hoon
  • Mr. P (2007) directed by Nicole N. Horanyi
  • In the Name of the Son (2007) directed by Doze NIU Chen-Zer
    
  • Minus (2007) directed by Aditya Assarat
    
• 13:30, Sun. 2008.6.29
  Taiwan Program 1:
  
  • Knockout (2007) directed by Li, Yi-Shan
  • Endless Love (2008) directed by Hsin, Yin-Shih
  • Fever Hotel (2007) directed by Chao, Chia-Hsien
• 16:00, Sun. 2008.6.29
  Taiwan Program 2:
  
  • No Ktv,No Life (2008) directed by Jhou, Yen-Ju
  • Rhinoceros Town (2007) directed by Chiu Chung-Hsun
  • Hiya (2007) directed by Lai, Wen-Hsuan
  • The Sound of Silence (2008) directed by Li, Jeng-Han / Jou, Jr-Wei / Chen, Yi-Yun / Liou, Pei-Ling / Jau, Yi-Shiang
• 18:30, Sun. 2008.6.29
  Taiwan Program 3:
  
  • Chong!Pumbing! (2008) directed by Shiu, Wen-Hau
  • Goodbye Vietnam ˙ Goodbye Taiwan (2008) directed by Chang, Chengg-Wei
  • BALLET (2008) directed by Hong, Sung-Hoon

When I was on board the flight UA 871, from San Francisco to Taipei, across the Pacific Ocean, Dennis, my college roommate and classmate, and his wife had been in the latent phase of their first childbirth for more than 30 hours. Around 1AM, their doctor informed them that they would need to make a decision to go for a c-section because an assisted delivery had become more and more unlikely. After a half-hour deliberation, they made the decision. At 2:06AM, on May 31st, 2008, their son was born. In a rare, 1/365 chance, their son and I share the same birthday. That's enough reason for me to visit them in Taichung the next morning I arrived in Taipei.

My first encounter with microcredit was when I took the Technology for Developing Communities course as an elective in my final semester. The concept struck me as so little money could make such big difference for people struggling to get out of poverty. I read selected chapters from Muhammad Yunus's book, Banker to the Poor, as a preparation for the class on September 13, 2007, almost a year after Nobel committee announced that Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Noble Peace Prize on October 13, 2006.

Meanwhile, Kiva, a non-profit organization that brought Web 2.0 and microcredit together were founded in October 2005. On Sep 13, 2007, Sam and Sophie, a senior high school classmate of mine, joined Kiva and lent their money to Mrs. Rose Odigie, who repaid all her loan on May 27, 2008. Finally, that's the day that I became aware of the website and decided to be a lender myself. Why don't you?

The uncertainty of baseball hits me today, as New York Yankees' new manager Joe Girardi announced that Chien-Ming Wang will not start on his scheduled rotation this Saturday, but on Sunday instead in order to give the righty an extra day rest from a mild strain of right calf.

Al Gore, who used to be the next president of the United States of America, gave the keynote speech at Carnegie Mellon University's 111th commencement ceremony. He recalled his own commencement ceremony of which he literally has no memory of whom gave the commencement address that day. He believed many of us who were listening to his speech will share the same experience years later, unless he successfully tricked us. I think he did that when he talked about the experience of stepping down as vice president of the United States of America and allegedly, of opening a low-cost family restaurant.

A true surprise, however, was that Professor Randy Pausch returned to give the Charge to the Graduates. I felt fully charged by his short but passionate speech. He later gave another short speech at the SCS diploma ceremony, during which I also received the reputedly large diploma.

Interestingly, I just finished reading the book "The Last Lecture" a couple days ago. The book was then wrapped and shipped as a birthday gift. I could not help but think that it's a week that I immersed myself in Pauschisms.

I have long fancied running on the beach. Staying at the Catalina Hotel, which is only one block away from South Beach, provided the perfect chance for me to realize my fancy. It was about 5:30 p.m., when the sun was less scorching, that I commenced my first beach run. I started at the 17th street and ran along the beach to the 5th street. Then following the same route back to where I started. It's about 2.5 miles in total.

The beach was so wide that it was virtually divided into two sections: the one closer to the sea was for sunbathing; the other for running. Most of the sand I ran on was in fact hard-pressed, possibly resulted from all the running. Although I couldn't dig my toes in the sand as much as I had hoped--it was nevertheless a remarkable experience.