Taking Back the Legislature, produced by the Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers group, is a powerful document of one of the most dramatic events of the Hong Kong protests of summer 2019 Read More
Film
Oldest
The short film, “Kuroshio Current,” aims to tell a story of diasporic loss framed by traditional Taiwanese folk religion Read More
Inside the Brick Wall—a film that can no longer safely be safely screened in Hong Kong—will no doubt prove a worthy historical document of the Hong Kong protests. Not only does the film document a key moment in the protests, but it proves a film encapsulating the dynamics of the protest in microcosm—and the subjective struggle faced by Hongkongers as a whole today Read More
Nomadland, a film that won Chloé Zhao an Oscar for Best Director, is a film that follows a woman named Fern who takes seasonal jobs to make ends meet as she drives across the country in her minivan after her husband's death. Fern and her husband used to work for the US Gypsum Company in Empire, Nevada, where they shared a company-owned flat. The US Gypsum shut down its gypsum mine and drywall plant, forcing people who lived and worked there to relocate Read More
Taipei Suicide Story, directed by KEFF, is a beautifully understated short film. In this respect, the film is highly atmospheric without being effusive or overdone in the slightest. The film takes place during one night at a “suicide hotel.” The hotel is one in which guests spend one night; either they decide to kill themselves at the end of that night, or they decide to give life another chance Read More
Lost Course (迷航), a 2019 documentary covering nearly ten years of the protests in Wukan village in China, is a tour de force Read More
In Trance We Gaze, directed by Singing Chen, proves a nuanced, complex portrait of man’s relation to divinity in contemporary Taiwan. It accomplishes this by working on multiple registers, touching on the many forms that man’s relation to religious worship can take within traditional Taiwanese folk religion Read More
Gubuk, directed by So Yo-hen, is a unique look at the experiences of “runaway” migrant workers in Taiwan, mixing fact and fiction, realism and the fantastical. As an experimental documentary that hopes to highlight the experience of migrant workers, the film is highly Brechtian Read More
According to director Huang Pang-chuan, the motivation for shooting Last Year When the Train Passed By began with a whim—he took a photo while passing by a town on train one day and later began to wonder about the inhabitants of the houses that he had photographed Read More
I Am Greta is a documentary film about climate activist Greta Thunberg, the central figure of the 2018 climate strike movement. Thunberg, a high school student, started protesting the inaction of the government in regards to climate change by skipping school and going on strike on Fridays. This simple act of rebellion, at first done only by Thunberg herself, slowly caught the attention of other students, and eventually grew into a global climate strike movement, participated by students around the world. Thunberg’s reputation was catapulted to celebrity status by the media, and as a result, she was invited to many UN climate meetings Read More
Swingin’ aims to be a charmful, cute, and playful story, even as it touches on contemporary social issues still debated in Taiwanese society. The short film tells the story of eleven-year-old elementary schooler Qiu Qiu, who has two gay fathers, one of which is his biological father. However, the film focuses more on Qiu Qiu’s relation with his non-biological father, Wu Jia-hao. Read More
The following Taiwanese animated shorts for children were reviewed as part of the “Formosa Fantastica” section of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland. The film festival will be held from July 2nd to July 10th in a hybrid format, with simultaneously live-streamed events in Neuchâtel and Taipei Read More