Event

This year CEAS and Penn Museum are co-sponsoring the Freedom Crossing Institute Film Festival, which will have an in-person component on Saturday, November 23rd, at Penn Museum! That day will include EIGHT films playing at two venues, with three accompanying workshops from 10am to 7pm.

The three workshops will follow themes of the films screenings, with discussions with university faculty and staff, and with film directors. 

The first workshop 12:35-12:50 will feature the theme of Kinmen: Past, Present, and Future and will include discussions from Prof. Michael Szonyi (Harvard) and S. Leo Chiang, Director of Island in Between moderated by FCFF curator Minghua Hsiao.

The second workshop will be 4:05-4:50, on the theme of Defending the Sacred - Saving Scripture and Dialogue, with Penn's University Chaplain and Vice President for Social Equity & Community, Charles (Chaz) Howard.

A third workshop will follow two films on themes of being imprisoned for political, religious, or "thought" crimes, in both Taiwan during the time of the White Terror, and in more recent years in the context of Uyghur imprisonments in the PRC. This workshop will include Center for East Asian Studies Associate Director David Dettmann.

While most of the films in this series are documentaries from Taiwan, thematic content transcends borders and in some cases includes broader regional issues. One noted exception to the Taiwanese documentaries and feature films includes Nikah نىكاھ, a 2022 film directed by Bastien Ehouzan and Mukaddas Mijit, in Uyghur with English subtitles.