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.
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
Related Links:
Invisible Nation (website): https://www.invisiblenation.net/
Vanessa Hope on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vhopeful/
Vanessa Hope on Twitter/X: https://x.com/VHopeful
A Question of Peace, Vanessa Hope’s Substack: https://vanessahope.substack.com/
Love Is a Crime podcast: https://www.vanityfair.com/podcast/love-is-a-crime
Hope for Film, Ted Hope’s Substack: https://tedhope.substack.com/
Lee Teng-hui: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Teng-hui
Taiwan’s first direct presidential elections (1996): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Taiwanese_presidential_election
Second Group of U.S. Ships Sent to Taiwan: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/03/11/second-group-of-us-ships-sent-to-taiwan/34280337-be79-4d6e-b859-8046682a37b3/
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party
Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/
Elizabeth Economy: https://www.hoover.org/profiles/elizabeth-economy
Jerome A. Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_A._Cohen
Former U.S. President Barak Obama: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/barack-obama/
Jon Huntsman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman_Jr.
All Eyes and Ears (film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2505376/
Film producer Sylvia Feng: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6484900/
Former President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsai_Ing-wen
Chen Chu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Chu
Fake news or fake tan? Photo of ‘orange face Trump’ goes viral: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3049709/fake-news-or-fake-tan-photo-orange-face-trump-goes
Chinese Communist Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party
Hong Kong protests (2019-2020): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests
Photo of the Day: Grand Hotel Taipei celebrates zero coronavirus cases (from the Taiwan News): https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3916422
WHO (World Health Organization): https://www.who.int/
SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome): https://www.who.int/health-topics/severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome#tab=tab_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS
Vladimir Putin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
Xi Jinping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping
China will never renounce right to use force over Taiwan, Xi says: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-china-will-never-renounce-right-use-force-over-taiwan-2022-10-16/#:~:text=BEIJING%2FTAIPEI%2C%20Oct%2016%20(,of%20a%20major%20party%20meeting.
8 key things to notice from Xi Jinping’s New Year speech on Taiwan: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/8-key-things-to-notice-from-xi-jinpings-new-year-speech-on-taiwan/
Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396
United Nations: https://www.un.org/en/
Chinese Taipei at the Olympics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Taipei_at_the_Olympics
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14030682/
Kuomintang (KMT): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang
Chiang Kai-shek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
Ma Ying-jeou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Ying-jeou
Annette Lu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Lu
Pan-Green Coalition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Green_Coalition
Pan-Blue Coalition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Blue_Coalition
The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-expansion-authoritarian-rule
A look at the protests of the war in Gaza that have emerged at U.S. colleges: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/a-look-at-the-protests-of-the-war-in-gaza-that-have-emerged-at-us-colleges
The Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/grand-strategies-of-the-left/966D16DBED1238269D1B4816F41AEF7D
Professor Andy Nathan (Columbia university): https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/andrew-j-nathan
Singer’s Apology for Waving Taiwan Flag Stirs Backlash of Its Own: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/asia/taiwan-china-singer-chou-tzu-yu.html
Tzuyu releases apology video for scandal: https://www.koreaboo.com/video/tzuyu-releases-apology-video-for-taiwanese-flag-incident/
Chiang Ching-kuo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Ching-kuo
FEATURE: Activists who tried to kill Chiang tell of inspiration: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2018/02/07/2003687223
Entrance to the Plaza Hotel Is the Scene of Assassination Attempt: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/25/archives/entrance-to-the-plaza-hotel-is-the-scene-of-assassination-attempt.html
China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier: https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/china-anaconda-chandelier
National Committee on U.S. China Relations: https://www.ncuscr.org/
The Handmaid’s Tale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
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