Taiwan on Screen: TIDF Presents Taiwan Spectrum | War memories, Shifting Identities and 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. Two of its signature curated sections—Taiwan Spectrum and Reel Taiwan—will offer in-depth explorations of Taiwan’s postwar history through documentary cinema. Bringing together rarely seen archival footage and newly restored works, the programmes revisit pivotal historical moments while opening up new perspectives on Taiwan’s evolving identities.

The Taiwan Spectrum programme “War Memories, Shifting Identities” examines the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers under Japanese imperial rule and the postwar Nationalist government. By juxtaposing works from different eras, the programme explores how successive regimes have shaped personal experience, national consciousness, and identity. The selection spans nearly a century, ranging from colonial-era propaganda films to 1970s observational documentaries, from interview-driven works of the 1990s to more recent pieces representative of new directions in local filmmaking, bringing together a total of 12 films.

 

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.

 

Taiwan Spectrum: 12 Films, Archival Encounters, Contested Histories

Bringing together 12 works spanning nearly a century, Taiwan Spectrum re-examines Taiwan’s complex historical trajectories through a dialogue between archival images and contemporary reflections.

Alongside several films previously featured at TIDF, the programme presents the world premiere of Archive: Li Guang-hui (1975–1979), composed of footage and rough-cut master tapes preserved by CHANG Chao-tang (1943–2024). It also marks the first theatrical screening in Taiwan of Japanese artist FUJII Hikaru’s Mujō (The Heartless) (2019/2026), alongside the seminal Asia Is One (1972) by Japan’s Nihon Documentary Union (NDU).

The award-winning From Island to Island (2024), directed by Malaysia-born Taiwanese filmmaker LAU Kek-huat, opens up new modes for revisiting Taiwan’s wartime past and its contested historical narratives and served as a key point of departure for the programme’s curatorial framework.

From Island to Island (2024)

 

Re-encountering the Disciplined Body: Archival Images and Contemporary Intervention

Beginning with the disciplined bodies of Taiwanese subjects under Japanese rule, the programme draws on two archival films from the TFAI collection: Leaving for the Front Line, Spiritual Mobilization (1937) and Military Drill for Student Soldiers, Shinto Matsuri (c. 1942–1945). Beyond documenting wartime mobilization and Japanization policies, these works reveal how militarism permeated everyday life.

 

Leaving for the Front Line, Spiritual Mobilization (1937), Military Drill for Student Soldiers, Shinto Matsuri (c. 1942–1945)

 

In dialogue with these works, FUJII Hikaru’s multi-channel Mujō (The Heartless) critically re-enacts the 1943 propaganda film Kokumin Dojo (Civilian Training Centre), exposing how both body and mind were shaped under militarist ideology. For this edition, FUJII has created a special cinematic version, offering a viewing experience distinct from its original installation format.

Mujō (The Heartless) (2019/2026)

 

Revisiting Mobilization: Filmmakers Reclaiming History

From the 1990s onward, amid a growing awareness of local identity, Taiwanese filmmakers began re-examining history through personal narratives and social reportage. Moving beyond official accounts, these works reclaim the authority to interpret the past while preserving vital first-hand testimonies.

What became of the young men mobilized under Japanese rule? A Taiwanese Teikoku Kunjin (1993), directed by HUNG Pei-ying, interviews five former Taiwanese Japanese soldiers from diverse units and backgrounds.

Heat Sun (2008) follows Taiwanese men once sent to North Borneo as prison camp guards—later labeled “war criminals”—as they continue, late in life, to seek justice from Japan, evoking a Taiwanese counterpart to KAZUO Hara’s The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987).

 

A Taiwanese Teikoku Kunjin (1993), Heat Sun (2008)

 

Director KUO Liang-yin approaches different eras of state mobilization from a grassroots perspective. Shonenko (2006) traces Taiwanese youth conscripted into Japanese naval factories, weaving archival material with oral histories, while Suspended Duty: Taiwan Military Training Regiment (2010) revisits the postwar anti-Communist period through a satirical, propaganda-inflected lens.

 

Shonenko (2006), Suspended Duty: Taiwan Military Training Regiment (2010)

 

Dispersed Lives: Indigenous Soldiers and Wartime Legacies

Under Japanese rule, Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples were often subjected to particularly harsh conditions. A striking case is LI Guang-hui, an Amis man who, after serving as a Taiwanese Japanese soldier, remained hidden in the jungles of Indonesia for nearly three decades after the war. Archive: Li Guang-hui (1975-1979) brings together newsreel-style footage documenting fragments of his life—from his return to Taiwan in 1975 to his later years—revealing a life suspended between histories. Preserved within the archives of late director CHANG Chao-tang, these long-unseen images are now brought back into view.

Archive: Li Guang-hui (1975-1979)

 

From the Dulan community in Taitung, Amis artist Siki Sufin guides a search for those who never returned. In How Long Is the Road (2006), director TANG Shiang-chu travels to China in search of missing veterans, while Wings of Takasago (2016) by Futuru C. I. TSAI follows efforts to commemorate Indigenous youth who died in the Pacific War, tracing paths of remembrance across borders.

 

Across Islands: Reframing Wartime Memory

LAU Kek-huat’s five-hour film From Island to Island (2024), which served as curatorial inspiration for this programme, offers a sweeping re-examination of Taiwanese Japanese soldiers and their entanglement in contested historical events, confronting the tensions between simultaneously being a “perpetrator” and a “victim” that dominant historical narratives often leave unaddressed. Meanwhile, Asia Is One (1972)—produced by Japan’s Nihon Documentary Union and named after a slogan appropriated by Imperial Japan—offers a critical Japanese perspective. Tracing the displacement and forced mobilization of diverse ethnic groups across Okinawa, the film ultimately arrives in Taiwan, culminating in an encounter in a Tayal village in Nan’ao with former members of the Takasago Volunteer Corps—capturing precious images of Indigenous veterans in the postwar era.

Asia Is One (1972)

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.