Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain Wins 2006 Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score
After winning Best Director and Best Picture honors at the 63rd Golden Globes, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain went on to win the Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score at the 78th Academy Awards. Lee accepted his Oscar in person during the ceremonies at the Kodak Theatre. Premier Su Tseng-chang and Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Cheng Wen-tsang offered Lee their congratulations through the GIO’s Los Angeles Press Division as soon as they heard the news. Premier Su’s message stated: “I was thrilled to hear that Brokeback Mountain had won the Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay honors at 2006’s 78th Annual Academy Awards. The people of our nation are honored by your win. Congratulations.” Minister Cheng’s message read: “Brokeback Mountain’s Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score at 2006’s 78th Annual Academy Awards reflect the world’s love of your work. The people of our nation are honored by your win. Congratulations.” The Lee-directed Brokeback Mountain has won a number of awards, including a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Song; BAFTA awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay; and several awards from film critics’ societies, including those in Los Angeles and New York. After hearing news of the awards, Minister Cheng noted that Lee was a major international-caliber director. But even before Lee won, Minister Cheng had expressed the hope that the current outbreak of film fever would spur the development of all segments of Taiwan’s film industry--financial planning, marketing, and film production and management, as well as the cultivation of new talent. The GIO hopes that Taiwanese directors will take Lee as a model, taking on new challenges in different stages of their development and constantly seeking to innovate and refine their skills. Minister Cheng also stated that the GIO planned to work with Lee’s alma mater, the National Taiwan University of Arts, to bring Lee back to Taiwan for a series of film fora to discuss ways to accelerate the expansion of Taiwan’s film industry with the rising stars of local film. Currently, the most pressing demand of film policy in Taiwan is to help all aspects of the industry—capital, talent, marketing, and the market itself—develop roots in Taiwan. The GIO cannot simply pursue a single policy to foster the industry’s development, but must instead address all of these issues simultaneously. Minister Chen stated that the GIO had applied to the Executive Yuan’s Development Fund for investment funds with which to guide and assist Taiwan’s television and film industries. The GIO has also established the procedures by which it will guide filmmakers, print publishers and providers of television programming through the application process for Development Fund investment, and created an application flow chart to help steer them through the process. The GIO hopes that these measures, which will make it easier for companies to raise capital, will help create a more financially supportive environment for our film and television industries.
