比紀錄片還陌生

本單元由三串短片選輯組成，展現紀實語法的創新與跨域。這些作品不僅以充滿實驗精神的音像語言回應或拆解現實，更探索電影媒介的邊界與本質。所謂陌生，並非陌異難解，而在顛覆開創，激發關於紀錄片的更多想像。

代表圖片

sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars

For six hours from sunset on 24 June 2014, a 100-foot-long roll of 35mm negative film was buried beneath fallen leaves along a rural roadside approximately 25 kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Retrieved at sunrise the following morning, the film bears traces of its exposure to the surrounding environment: insect sounds, starlight, and the physical conditions of the site.

Manal Issa, 2024

Filmed in September 2024, just before renewed bombardment in Lebanon, this film draws on long-distance conversations between the filmmaker and Manal Issa, an acclaimed performer in Beirut. Refusing to appear on camera, she reflects on political violence and the ethics of visibility, echoing historic testimonies about sexism and exploitation in cinema while questioning an actor's role in crises.

As I Lay Dying

Against unsteady handheld footage from Iran's 2009 Green Movement, a calm voice recounts the fates of protesters glimpsed in blurred frames. Urgency and street chaos flare, then freeze. Between motion and stillness, the film traces singular lives unfolding within a collective struggle.

Mohammadreza Farzad & Pegah Ahangarani: ' "There were so many of us, but when it all ended, each of us went our own way."

Koki, Ciao

This experimental autobiography is narrated by Koki, a long-lived parrot kept beside Marshal Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia for over 35 years. Drawing on four years of recordings and newly revealed state archives, the film returns to Brijuni Island, where animals once served as diplomatic symbols. Koki recounts a life of political spectacle, now continuing in tourist captivity.

16-18-4

The film was shot using a toy 35mm camera equipped with 16 lenses, which captures a rapid sequence of 16 images over a few seconds, arranged in two rows across two standard 35mm still-photography frames. This mechanism recalls the apparatus devised by Eadweard Muybridge to photograph a galloping horse in 1887, prior to the invention of the motion-picture camera.

Amusement Ride

Shot with a telephoto lens from inside a cabin of Cosmo Clock 21, a Ferris wheel in Yokohama, Amusement Ride presents a distorted view of its mechanical structure. Focusing on intermittent vertical movement, the image echoes the motion of film passing through the gate of a projector or camera.

Ten Mornings Ten Evenings and One Horizon

The film depicts bridges along the Yahagi River, near where the filmmaker grew up in Japan. Each bridge was filmed twice on the same day — once in the morning and once in the evening. The image was exposed one-sixth of the frame at a time, producing a visual rhythm that evokes the gradual rising and setting of the sun. The film is dedicated to the filmmaker's father, who was raised in Hiraya Village, Nagano, where the source of the Yahagi River is located.

45 7 Broadway

Set in Times Square, 45 7 Broadway captures the noise and constant motion of one of the world's most recognisable intersections. Using a colour-separation technique, the film was originally shot on black-and-white stock through red, green, and blue filters, then optically printed onto colour film through the same filters. Layered images captured with a handheld camera further agitate the scenes, while advertisements on the digital billboards compete with one another for visual attention.

Tokyo - Ebisu

The JR Yamanote Line is one of Japan's busiest railway lines, comprising 29 stations arranged in a continuous loop around central Tokyo at the time of filming. Shot clockwise from Tokyo Station to Ebisu Station, the film presents views from the platforms of 10 stations along the line. The in-camera visual effects and layered soundtracks heighten the sense of place, while subtly foregrounding the devices used to capture images and sound.

Apollo

Apollo reflects the filmmaker's interest in the material, medium, and apparatus of cinema. Sound is generated directly from the image via the optical soundtrack: in some passages, a 35mm still camera was used to expose the soundtrack area, while in others the film emulsion was physically scratched away. The film was created as Nishikawa Tomonari's senior thesis project at Binghamton University, under the supervision of Julie Murray.

Stranger than Documentary

Comprising three short-film programmes, this programme highlights innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches to documentary practice. These works respond to and dismantle reality through experimental audiovisual forms, while probing the limits of the cinematic medium itself.

Here, 'strangeness' does not imply obscurity, but a generative unfamiliarity that unsettles conventions and expands the ways documentary can be imagined.