台灣競賽

HUANG Da-wang is a Taiwanese sound/performance artist known as a ‘walking Wikipedia of music’. He has developed a distinctive style of electronic noise and improvisation and performs the unique ‘Black Wolf Nakashi’ shows. This film follows him closely, observing the links between his life and creations while shuttling in the city with him, from sound to body, from bedroom to ruins.

After the death of my second-eldest sister, I began to keep a diary, take pictures, and film the daily life of my family. It was an expression of dread towards death and loss: the idea was to capture everything on film before it disappears. One early morning in 2014, I had a dream of my second-eldest sister; it seemed she was telling me it was time to face the fact.

In the end of 2012, when the Burmese army waged a war on Kachin Independence Army (KIA), many corporations working with the government on jade mining in the area were forced to stop their operation. Workers from all over the country flocked to the jade mines in Kachin State to dig illegally for jade. They risked their lives for a piece of valuable jade that will transform their lives.

For decades, WU Le-tien had been telling the story of the ‘Taiwanese Robin Hood’, LIAO Tian-ding, on his pirate radio show. The government tried to stop its broadcast, but it became the accompaniment to democracy and requiem for the people. He was also considered a hero by many of his millions of listeners. Lately, as protesters take to the streets again, he quietly reappears too.

Twenty years ago, CHEN Wan-tsong set up ‘Zhuang San Xin Liang-le Opera Troupe’ to pass on the soon-to-disappear art of ‘local Taiwanese opera’. After his decease, his son CHEN Mao-yi took over and continued his father’s mission. This film documents the troupe’s transformation from an amateur community troupe to a government-subsidised one and the difficulties it faced along the way.