Curating Concept

A little more than 100 years ago, the first film made its debut. It was a humble beginning for films, as they were simply black-and-white images in motion. Yet it signifies the birth of a new medium, an unprecedented canvas for storytelling. Gradually, as the movie industry advances with novel technology, from painting colors onto films to HD digital recordings; from natural and artificial lighting to color correction, the images in films have become progressively more vibrant.

“Color palette”, also known as “color scheme” or “color chart”, is a method to analyze the composition of a particular scene in a film. It helps filmmakers establish the mise-en-scène or atmospheric tone within a film so that specific plot element and emotion gets highlighted. Studying color palettes can help audiences gain a more holistic understanding of the film.

Science taught us that colors are made from a collective of wavelengths bouncing off objects and into the visual cortex. Similarly, a movie is more than the images that meet the eyes. In fact, it represents a dynamic process involving the collaboration of many different talents. Their unique experiences are agents of the film as the paint is to an artist’s palette.

Can’t we also extend this analogy to our society? Each one of us is trying to add a little bit of color to our surroundings, but only as a whole can we show the complex beauty of this world.

The 2022 Vancouver Taiwanese Film Festival is inspired by the concept of the color charts and came up with this year’s theme: “The Palette of Life”. Through 14 films and panels, we present to our audience heartfelt stories of unique people that walk the earth, and celebrate the oxymoron of human-being: We are ordinary because we are all extraordinary in our own ways.