“Understanding Taiwan on Its Own Terms”: Vanessa Hope on Invisible Nation

Though producer-director Vanessa Hope has spent her career zeroing in on China — from producing Wang Quanan’s The Story Of Ermei and Chantal Akerman’s Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai to directing her own short China In Three Words and feature-length debut All Eyes and Ears — Hope’s followup feature is nonetheless a bit of a surprise. An intimate portrait of Taiwan’s first female president Tsai Ing-wen, Invisible Nation weaves the tale of President Tsai’s contemporary rise with the (often buried) history of the long-colonized island itself. Through archival footage and in-depth interviews with activists, historians and, of course, the head of (a disputed) state, what emerges is a narrative as surreal as it is tragic: The story of a country and a culture that, according to the People’s Republic, never really was. Soon after the start of the doc’s fall US festival run (and prior to its international premiere at IDFA), Filmmaker caught up via email with the Chinese-fluent, award-winning multihyphenate, who also runs Double Hope Films with her producer husband Ted, to learn about Invisible Nation and working as a foreigner in a forbidden land.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.