"Even the objective documentary can never record all the historic truth.” - Taiwanese filmmaker Lin Hsin-i
Three documentaries by Taiwanese artists will be shown at the 2017 Hong Kong Independent Film Festival to highlight the importance of thinking outside of mainstream consciousness.
"Realm of Reverberations (殘響世界)” by guerilla artist Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) examines the bleak future faced by an old sanatorium housing former leprosy patients. Lo Sheng Sanatorium was established in 1930 to forcibly quarantine sufferers of Hansen's disease, but now that it faces the prospect of demolishment, remaining residents discuss its inevitable "end.”
"3 Islands (三島)” by self-proclaimed video poet Lin Hsin-i (林欣怡) recounts the parallel struggles of Taiwan, Okinawa, and Jeju Island. From the 228 Incident of Taiwan to the mass suicides of the Battle of Okinawa and the bloody Jeju Uprising, these troublesome movements seem to be asymptomatic of larger, collective issues that plague all three nations in East Asia.
"Le Moulin (日曜日式散步者)” by independent filmmaker Huang Ya-li (黃亞歷) is named after an eponymous poetry society largely upheld as Taiwan's first modern art group during the Japanese colonial era. Their loyalty to French aesthetics and western role models, however, draw the ire of colonial authorities who sought cultural assimilation.
The three Taiwan-made documentaries will be screened over two days at the 2017 Hong Kong Independent Film Festival's "Indie Frontline: Towards a Poetics of Taiwan Documentary” segment, which was made possible with the support of the Taiwan Film Institute.
‘Indie Frontline: Toward a Poetics of Taiwan Documentary'
- Venue: HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity
- Site: www.hkindieff.hk/indie_front.html
- "Le Moulin” - 1/19 @ 8pm
- "Realm of Reverberations” - 1/20 @ 8pm
- "3 Islands” - 1/20 @ 8pm