Talking Taiwan Ep 284 | Invisible Nation: Director Vanessa Hope Discusses her Documentary About Tsai Ing-Wen's Presidency
Vanessa Hope is the director of Invisible Nation, a documentary film that takes a look at the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female president and events that happened during her tenure. We talked about what first brought Vanessa to Taiwan which meant that she was there in 1996 during the inauguration of Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s first directly elected president. Then in 2016 after Vanessa came to Taiwan with an international delegation to observe Taiwan’s presidential elections and witnessed the election of Tsai Ing-wen, she came up with the idea for a film about Tsai Ing-wen’s presidency.
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Vanessa’s first feature length documentary, All Eyes And Ears examined relations between the U.S. and China through the stories of U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, his adopted Chinese daughter Gracie Mei, and blind legal advocate Chen Guangcheng.
When I asked Vanessa about her experience making a documentary film in China, she recounted a story that explained why she personally related to the backlash and pressure from China that Chou Tzu-yu, a Taiwanese member of a K-pop band has faced.
We also talked about the challenges in making Invisible Nation over a seven year period, Vanessa’s personal motivations for making the film and where Invisible Nation is going to be screened in the near future.
Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:
· What brought Vanessa to Taiwan and got her interested in Taiwan
· What Vanessa observed when she was in Taiwan for the inauguration of Lee Teng-hui, the first directly elected president of Taiwan
· The first time she dabbled in filmmaking
· How Vanessa wrote and recorded the podcast, Love Is a Crime, which tells the story of her family’s connection to film
· The state of the film industry which Vanessa’s husband Ted Hope writes about on Substack
· How Vanessa came up with the idea for the film, Invisible Nation
· Vanessa worked at the Council on Foreign Relations
· Vanessa came to Taiwan with an international delegation to observe Taiwan’s presidential elections in 2016 and witnessed the election of Tsai Ing-wen
· How Vanessa secured a grant focused on women, peace and security
· How film producer Sylvia Feng helped Vanessa with submitting a proposal to President Tsai’s office regarding her idea for a documentary film
· How they filmed an interview with Chen Chu before hearing an answer from President Tsai’s office about the documentary film proposal
· How Vanessa originally envisioned working a film about Taiwan’s first female president
· The backlash President Tsai received from China initially
· The discrimination that Taiwan faces internationally
· How Taiwan has been excluded from international organizations like the WHO, the United Nations, the Olympics and others
· How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted concerns about the threat Taiwan faces from China
· How Xi Jinping has said that he will not renounce the use of force against Taiwan
· Where the name of the film, Invisible Nation came from
· The film Vanessa produced, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, about
· If President Tsai had any say in the film Invisible Nation
· What personally motivated Vanessa to make the film, Invisible Nation
· How the interview and scene with Chen Chu in the film came about
· How Chen Chu wrote her will when she was in prison and dedicated her life to the people of Taiwan
· What it was like meeting former President Ma Ying-jeou
· How Vanessa’s mentor at the Council on Foreign Relations, Jerome Cohen had been a professor at Harvard Law School to Ma Ying-jeou and Annette Lu
· What Vanessa learned from working at the Council on Foreign Relations
· What fascinated Vanessa about how the singer Chou Tzu-yu was forced to apologize for waving a flag that represented Taiwan
· Wen Liu’s comments about President Tsai that didn’t make it into the film Invisible Nation
· How it was decided that historical facts to keep in the film or not
· How part of the editing process for the film Invisible Nation was to test it on audiences
· How Vanessa has had to edit down Invisible Nation from 85 minutes to 55 minutes for television
· Who is the target audience of the film, Invisible Nation
· Why some of the Taiwanese who worked on Invisible Nation had to use pseudonyms
· China’s 3 T’s that you are not supposed to talk about, Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen
· The difference in working on documentary films in China vs. Taiwan
· What happened to Vanessa when she was in Tibet and tried to board a train with U.S.
Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who she was filming for her first documentary film, All Eyes and Ears
· Why Vanessa could relate to what happened to the singer Chou Tzu-yu
· Scenes that had to be cut from the film, Invisible Nation
· The challenge in making Invisible Nation
· Feedback that Vanessa has received at screenings of Invisible Nation
· What Vanessa hopes that people take away from the film Invisible Nation
· If Vanessa has gotten any negative feedback or threats from pro-China media or parties
· Where Invisible Nation is going to be screened
· Vanessa’s future film projects
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