More than four years ago, an ambitious filmmaker self-financed NT$2 million into making a five-minute promotional film that was meant to lure investors to fund a US$7 million (NT$250 million) full-length feature film. The short film successfully created the buzz, but failed to win what the filmmaker described as "the biggest gamble" of his life.

The flopped project somehow escaped my radar until recently, after I met a girl who is a Seediq aborigine from Hualien County. How I met the girl was another story, but curiosity prompted me to google more about the Seediq people. Before long, the five-minute short film, titled Seediq Bale, came up on my screen.

With hindsight, the campaign led by Te-Sheng Wei, the filmmaker who made the NT$2 million bet on a film budget that is rarely seen in Taiwan's film industry, resembles the campaign led by Mona Rudao in the Wushe Incident. Taiwan may need "a real on-screen hero" like Mona Rudao, but Taiwan's film industry also needs a real-life hero who is not afraid of making huge bets.