TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwanese film "Who’ll Stop the Rain" was screened at the 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival (MGFF) in Sydney on Thursday (Feb. 15), per the Ministry of Culture (MOC).

With support from the MOC, the Cultural Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Sydney invited director Su I-hsuan (蘇奕瑄) to participate. A post-screening discussion was held on Saturday (Feb. 17), with Su in attendance.

The film depicts art students protesting about creative freedom at a university in the 1990s and intertwined stories of growth, love, and self-identity, per CNA.

Su said the idea for the script originated from her involvement in a documentary about the protests in Taiwan in the 1990s, conducted by Academia Sinica in 2015. Just after martial law was lifted, most protests were politically motivated, but the protests by art students were for personal creative freedom, which greatly attracted her, she said.

Su said the English title of the film, “Who'll Stop the Rain,” was taken from the anti-Vietnam War song of the 1960s by Creedence Clearwater Revival. In the song, “rain” symbolizes bullets, echoing the fact that the events in the film occurred during the rainy season of 1994, Su explained.

“We may not be able to stop the rain or shake the system, but we can decide how to face the rain, find someone to hold an umbrella for you, or dance in the rain. It's a change of mindset,” she said.

Head of the Cultural Division Chen Chih-i (陳芝儀) thanked festival director Lisa Rose at the post-screening event for supporting Taiwanese films. Chen said the film is based on the true story of the protests by students from the Department of Fine Arts at Chinese Culture University in 1994, and is a reminder to cherish today’s free, democratic, and diverse society.

The MGFF will last from Feb. 16 to March 3, according to its website. Nationwide screening is set to run from March 1-11.