AND-亞洲紀錄片連線

With the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, now under construction, 1.13 million people along the Yangtze River will have been to be dislocated. The majority of them are farmers. BINGAI features one woman farmer who refuses to move away from her village. The audience will follow her seven-year struggle with officials who pressure her to relocate, while a strong devotion to her land compels her to remain in the place she calls home.

Japan's altar to its war dead, Yasukuni Shrine has long been the controversial focus of the painful memories of war for people in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. This documentary, 10 years in the making and directed by the Tokyo-based Chinese filmmaker Li Ying, is the first documentary on Yasukuni ever produced in Japan. It looks into the heart of the shrine, at the emblem of the Emperor, and "the sword" - which is both the symbol of militarism and the object of worship.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2002, 154 million people suffered from depression and 25 million from schizophrenia. More than 800,000 people die by suicide every year. MENTAL is a documentary that observes the complex world of a mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff and home-helpers. The film breaks a major taboo against discussing mental illness in Japanese society, and captures the candid lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, apprehension, and fear of society.

The outside world doesn't exist, all that exists is inside the ward of a hospital for terminally ill patients; The camera is patiently recording an old man, whose life activities can only be carried out in his bed. Most of the shots are close or medium range; a face or an expression, after contemplating for a long while, one cannot help but think of that Japannese phrase,"Eyes before death." Yet, one must also listen patiently...

A novel documentary portraying the lives of women workers engaged in an uncommon vocation in a distant country, Choloque in Bolivia. It is a work of quality that not only is appealing in the subject that it is dealing with but also in the way the film will capture the universal sufferings and life force of women laborers around the world.