For a long time the KMT government has held a monopoly over Taiwan’s TV channels, using the lack of channel bandwidth as an excuse for its stranglehold. During the campaign for the elections for county magistrates, county council members and national legislators in 1989, Green Team set up a satellite transmission channel on its own, poking a hole in the KMT’s argument.
Military in Power, No Hope of Democracy
On 2 May 1990, President LEE Teng-hui decided to nominate previous Military Chief of Staff HAU Pei-tsun for the position of premier. Many thought the decision was a terrible step back. In protest of the military involvement, some students camped out at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on the night of the announcement and others spray-painted slogans at various media headquarters.
A Historic Misunderstanding?
With the lively social activist scene in Taiwan being labelled as a hindrance for investment by the ruling regime, this film details case studies of the past to examine the derogatory terms such as ‘social activist gangster’ brought to the lexicon by former Premier HAU Pei-tsun, serving to prove the ruling elite has yet again dished out its own distorted take on history to the masses.
The Taoyuan Airport Incident
On 30 November 1986, leading opposition figure HSU Hsin-liang planned to fly back to Taiwan after years of exile. The DPP called for a mass mobilisation to welcome him at the airport but clashed with a large number of police personnel trying to disperse the crowd with water cannons and tear gas. In contrast to the biased reports on TV, this film is a full coverage of the incident.
France Is Our Mother Country
France Is Our Mother Country is a story of an encounter between two cultures, two sensibilities, and two imaginations. This encounter resulted in a colonisation with no less brutality than others. By juxtaposing clips of archival footage, from the time of Cambodia’s occupation by France, and their title cards, the film examines the colonial history of Indochina.
The Event
In August 1991, a failed coup d’état attempt in Moscow (known as Putsch) signalled the fall of the Soviet Union. Thousands of people poured into the streets of Leningrad to be part of the event which was supposed to change their destiny. Sergei LOZNITSA revisits the dramatic moments of August 1991 and casts an eye on the event hailed worldwide as the birth of ‘Russian democracy’.
I Am the People
As the Egyptian people rise up in Tahrir Square, rural villagers in the south are watching the revolution on TV. From the overthrow of MUBARAK to the fall of MORSI, the film follows the upheavals through the eyes of Farraj, a peasant in the Nile valley near Luxor. In the daily life of the farmer, between hopes and disappointments, change is a long time coming.
Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)
This two-part documentary chronicles the everyday life in Iraq before and after the U.S. invasion. In Part I, the director filmed a group of Iraqis, mostly members of his family, in their expectation of the war. This part ends with the start of U.S. strikes on Baghdad. Part II shows the consequences of this invasion on the main characters. It ends with the violent death of the filmmaker’s nephew, twelve-year-old Haidar.
Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III
Returning to an unfinished film project he first started in 1979, Kidlat TAHIMIK carries with him the history of the Philippines, for which he spent the last thirty-five years searching. From the circumnavigation of the globe by Ferdinand MAGELLAN, to that by Enrique the slave, he brews the memories of homeland into reality – a continuously renewed journey of memory and identity.
No Home Movie
This film is, above all else, about my late mother, about this woman who came to Belgium in 1938, fleeing Poland, the pogroms, and the abuses. We only see her in her apartment in Brussels. It’s a film about the changing world that my mother does not see.
