“Island of the Winds” won the Docs-in-Progress Award in Cannes Docs 2023!

The highest award for docs-in-progress at the Marché du Film’s sidebar dedicated to documentary, Cannes Docs, has gone to Ya-Ting Hsu’s debut feature doc “Islands of the Winds.”

Twenty years in the making, the film follows the anti-eviction struggle of the patients of Losheng Sanatorium for lepers, which became a symbol of the fight for democracy in Hsu’s native Taiwan.

The prize comes with a €10,000 ($10,800) cash prize and project follow-up by IEFTA (the International Emerging Film Talent Assn.).

It is produced by Hsu’s Taiwan-based Argosy Films and Media Productions, Huang Yin-Yu (Moolin Films, Ltd. & Moolin Production, Co., Ltd, Taiwan and Japan) and Baptiste Brunner (Wide Productions – La Cuisine aux Images, France).

Handing out the prize, the jury, composed of Angeliki Vergou, head of Agora at Thessaloniki Doc Fest, French producer Karim Aitouna and Brazilian Fernanda Lomba, EP at Mundi Filmes and co-founder of NICHO 54, congratulated the film “for its patience, dedication and the respectful way the filmmaker approached this grass-roots movement with an engaged and passionate camera. For their intention to fight against oblivion and treat her characters with the dignity they deserve.”