Invisible Nation

Could Taiwan be the next geopolitical flashpoint? Another Ukraine — but potentially even worse? These are the spectres that haunt Vanessa Hope’s admiring portrait of Tsai Ing-wen, the first female, democratically elected president of what remains, officially, the “Republic of China”. A country only a little bigger than Vancouver Island, but with a population five times greater than BC’s, Taiwan under Tsai has attempted to assert its independence from the People’s Republic, just 130 km across the strait. This is no easy balancing act, when Xi Jinping threatens to impose sovereignty through diplomatic isolation and military might. As Hope makes clear, the stakes here are very high. The island is a strategic bulwark for the democracies in the Pacific, including South Korea and Japan, standing against an alliance between authoritarian regimes — China, Russia, North Korea. And tensions continue to ramp up…

Director’s Statement:

Invisible Nation is my effort to ring the alarm bells about that future conflict, one that, unlike the war in Ukraine, can still be deterred. I began this film with a grant to focus on ’Women, Peace and Security’ because I believe that we can learn to live in peace, especially by giving women equal treatment, status and voice, and that war need not be inevitable. I felt the subtext of the film on an emotional level throughout filming: that the discrimination, threat of violence, marginalization, and domination that Taiwan faces, that contribute to the vulnerability of its democracy, is not unlike the second class status and poor treatment most women face around the world which jeopardizes democracy everywhere. And yet, the women and democratic leaders of Taiwan offer tremendous hope for the future. We have a window of opportunity to act on Taiwan’s behalf now, before it’s too late. I hope that audiences see our film, engage in the challenging conversations needed for truth to prevail, and feel themselves to be an important part of the international community that can help the world see and support Taiwan.

Vanessa Hope, 2024

Timely and valuable… Compelling, engrossing, highly informative.

Richard Kuipers, Variety

Watching it, one is driven to anger and, hopefully, to action.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail

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