Taipei, Sept. 27 (CNA) Almost 170 old films from the Japanese colonial era have been preserved and repaired, and are currently being digitalized. The collection is expected to serve as an invaluable resource in historical research, the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) said Wednesday.
A special team from Tainan National University of the Arts (TNUA) spent three years repairing the 168 films -- released during the 1930s and 1940s when Japan ruled Taiwan. The collection includes documentaries, dramas, and animation, and are being restored under a program sponsored by the National Museum of Taiwan History
(NMTH).
The 70-year-old films were obtained from an antique collector in the southern city of Chiayi in 2003, with each film undergoing a complicated and time-consuming process of examination, repair and digitalization, said TNUA professor Ray Jiing, who headed the special team.
"Taiwan's film history started after the first Sino-Japanese War, when Japanese filmmaker Takamatsu Toyojiro first brought cinema to Taiwan. For most film historians, however, the colonial era is a blank memory," said CCA chairman Chiu Kun-liang.
This is why the films' reproduction -- especially the documentaries -- will be invaluable, as the footage actually shows the streets of Taipei, buildings in Tainan, cherry blossoms in Ali Mountain and what life was like for Taiwan's people 70 years ago, Jiing said.
Most of the documentaries were produced by the Japanese government, which intended to use the films to introduce Taiwan to the Japanese people while serving as Japanese propaganda in Taiwan.
In addition to the films, 135 film licenses were also acquired and repaired. They are also valuable cultural assets because every film license provided detailed information about the film, from its director, cast and crew to the dialogue, Jiing added.
The digitalization of all the films will be completed and available to the public by year's end, Jiing said, and people will be able to watch the films through the NMTH Web site.