Taiwan on Screen: TIDF Presents Reel Taiwan | The Late 1980s on Film
Organized by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), the Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) will take place from May 1 to 10, 2026.
This year’s Reel Taiwan programme, “The Late 1980s on Film”, focuses on four 16mm works by LEE Daw-ming, recipient of the 2022 TIDF Outstanding Contribution Award. Addressing subjects including international refugees, indigenous cultures, and environmental movements, the films were recently digitally restored by TFAI. The restorations will have their world premieres at the festival, and director LEE will attend post-screening discussions, inviting audiences to revisit the dynamic and turbulent social landscape of Taiwan nearly four decades ago.
REEL Taiwan: The Late 1980s on FilmWorld Premieres of Four Restored Classics
This program features four 16mm films from the late 1980s by LEE Daw-ming, recipient of the TIDF 2022 Outstanding Contribution Award. Covering topics from international refugees and Indigenous cultures to environmental movements, these works have been digitally restored by TFAI and will have their world premieres at the festival．
While most media practitioners and documentary filmmakers had shifted to Betacam videotape in the mid-to-late 1980s, LEE, who had just returned from his studies in the United States, chose to continue working with film, valuing its longevity and archival durability. LEE will join post-screening discussions, inviting audiences to revisit Taiwan’s dynamic and turbulent social landscape nearly four decades ago.
In 1980, large numbers of refugees fled to the Thai–Cambodian border to escape armed conflict. Taiwan’s private Kuangchi Program Service, known for educational television, initiated a documentary project led by LEE Daw-ming. The team traveled deep into refugee camps to complete Beyond the Killing Fields: Refugees on the Thai-Cambodian Border (1986). As Taiwan’s first documentary to address international refugees, it won the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary, breaking the long-standing dominance of state-run studios and redefining Taiwanese documentary filmmaking.
Beyond the Killing Fields: Refugees on the Thai-Cambodian Border（1986）
Songs of Pasta’ay (1988), co-directed by LEE and the late anthropologist-filmmaker HU Tai-li, documents the 1986 paSta'ay ritual that is held once every ten years by the SaySiyatpeople in Wufeng Township, Hsinchu. LEE recorded synchronous sound on a Nagra recorder, marking Taiwan’s first ethnographic documentary fully shot with sync sound. The film’s cinematography was done by CHANG Chao-tang, a noted documentarian in his own right who received the 2024 TIDF Outstanding Contribution Award.
Songs of Pasta’ay（1988）
Following the lifting of martial law in 1987, LEE began documenting a wide range of social movements. Beyond the Anti-DuPont Movement: Portraits of Some Social Activists (1990) interviews major figures in the Lukang Anti-DuPont campaign, tracing how the fight for environmental protection transformed from being a thankless “fringe” issue into a mainstream topic commanding political attention. Meanwhile, Voice of the People (1991) follows four different environmental movements across Taiwan, not only capturing the fighting spirit of everyday people engaged in the campaigns but also framing the broader landscape of Taiwan’s social movements in the late 1980s. It was previously selected for the 1991 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
Beyond the Anti-DuPont Movement: Portraits of Some Social Activists（1990）
Voice of the People（1991）
40th Anniversary of the Lukang Anti-DuPont Movement and the Green Team
2026 marks the 40th anniversary of two pivotal moments in Taiwan’s social and documentary history: the Lukang Anti-DuPont Movement (1986 - 1987), the first environmental protest to force a foreign company to withdraw investment; and the establishment of the Green Team (1986–1990), an independent documentary collective active as Taiwan transitioned out of martial law.
To commemorate the occasion, TIDF hosted Green Team anniversary events prior to the festival. Six landmark Green Team films—all subtitled in English—will also be freely available for online streaming on Vimeo from May 20 to July 20. Additional in-person campus and community screenings across Taiwan over the months to come will feature these works.
In conjunction with these screenings, TFAI journal Fa Film Appreciation has curated a special issue with extended critical content, including a first-person account and interview with LEE Daw-ming, alongside essays by scholars and critics examining the significance of these four works in Taiwanese documentary, ethnographic cinema, and social movement history. The publication will be available for purchase at festival venues.
The 15th Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) will take place from May 1 to May 10 at the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, Shin Kong Cinemas Taipei Lion’s , SPOT Huashan, and Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), among other venues.
Tickets can be purchased via OPENTIX, with single tickets NT$120 and six-film packages NT$420. For more information and ticket bookings, please visit TIDF website, Facebook ,Instagram and Threads.
