台灣映像

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was once considered as the expansive tidal flats connecting the Dadu and Zhuoshui River estuaries in southeastern Taiwan as one of Asia’s most significant wetland areas and this area was once one of Taiwan’s most important bird habitats. But the passage of time has increasingly distanced the local fishing villages from the sea and its sustenance.

In 2004, when an outbreak of H5N2 bird flu was first reported in Taiwan, Taiwan bureaucratic system insisted that this case was caused by chickens infected by migratory birds, but after investigation, the truth is unscrupulous businesspeople smuggling bird flu virus strains, invent and sell the illegal manufacture of vaccines. After the failure of the production, this vaccines resulting in a pandemic spread over whole henhouse. To unveil the truth, director began collecting samples from henhouse in 2006 and this six-year long investigation, never find the way out until the March 2010.

These Vietnamese women workers have been in Taiwan for two months. They become our neighbors on this warm island. Through letters to their faraway homes, and dreamy night talks that parallel with reality, the film states the nostalgia they experiences at the moment.

This is an Asian epic documentary on migrant workers spanning thirteen years. Both the Filipino caretakers and the elderly suffer from homesickness in the Taipei nursing home. The caretakers comfort themselves by singing “No money, no honey”. What price do they have to pay for love and livelihood? Can their dreams ever come true?

THE LONG FAREWELL means saying goodbye slowly. This documentary is a video letter written by a daughter, also the director, to her father who passed away for heart attack, and her mother who got colon cancer half year after. The director faced missing and sorrow honestly, through looking straight into life without her father, while he still seemed to be everywhere. Through the long farewell, she learned lessons from everyday life, wedding or funeral ceremonies, and the natural life circle.