Schedule

Edward LEUNG was an average student before he unexpectedly finds himself at the focal point of two Legislative Council elections. Despite winning over 60,000 votes in the by-election, his ticket to LegCo is forfeited when the regime imposes extra measures in the nomination process. On the other hand, Edward finds his free days numbered as he faces rioting charges for taking part in the Mong Kok Protest.

Theater Quarterly leaped on stage in 1965 with a literal bang by breaking a fragile plaster gong and the performance of two absurdist theatre pieces, The Prophet and Waiting for Godot. This film interviews those involved in the performance and recreates the plaster gong while weaving in archival footage.

Originally written by HUANG Hua-cheng, the script centres on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience of a play. When this piece was first shown in 1965, director Richard Yao-chi CHEN reworked it with the actors on stage. 51 years later, actors CHUANG Ling and LIU Ying-shang are invited back to the theatre to recreate the groundbreaking original.

In 1994 HUANG Hua-cheng showed his 8mm film Experiment 002 during a seminar titled ‘Theater Quarterly and Me’ at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. This film is a recording of the seminar, documenting how the film was played and the seminar proceedings. HUANG passed away in 1996, and his earlier films have been lost.

Renowned writer Xi Xi served as editor for the ninth issue of Theater Quarterly. Having an elder brother who worked at a television news station, she had access to a large amount of discarded tape. Piecing these images and sounds of celebrities and even the Pope together, this collage work serves as a reworked document of the era.

This film documents a short trip from Star Ferry’s taxi stand to the office of Chinese Student Weekly in Kowloon Tong. It shows the street scenes of Hong Kong in 1968 and the state of mind of a Hong Kong young man after the 1967 Riot.

During the 1960s, Tom DAVENPORT was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Taiwan. This was his first documentary, in which he captured philosopher NAN Huai-chin practicing Tai-chi at Taiwan’s northeastern coast. Shot with a 16mm camera, the film features sound created by composer Tom JOHNSON.

Caterpillar crawling on the wall, a seemingly masturbating naked man, a weird car accident, poetic captions, ending with 11 stills of people posing like crucifixion. Rumour has it that a priest in Cardinal Tien Cultural Center concerned about the image of masturbation and canceled the participation of this film in the 1966 “Theatre Quarterly’s” film exhibition. The stills, script and notes, however, were published in the fifth edition of Theatre Quarterly and thus became a legend. This is the first time that the film will be screened after it has been considered lost for 52 years.  

This short movie that is maybe not a documentary is made by the filmmaker in memory of the extrajudicial killing of young Lahu activist Chaiyapoom PASAE. She knew the young Lahu boy through a workshop she gave some years before he was killed. A tribute to a young aspiring filmmaker and his Lahu language and culture.

A young Belgium film student discovers the hidden miracles of Hanoi, Vietnam. Since she did not speak the language, the film is mainly about looking – very careful and intense looking, with a visual poetry as result. It shows the beauty of decay and survival in a small street that is in fact a railway.

Bendera, an Indonesian nationalist group, is angry with Malaysia. The leader has asked to declare war on Malaysia. This can happen for real in Indonesia (or Malaysia) that somebody says we should go at war with the other country. The filmmaker took it seriously (or does he?) and goes to talk with a war monger.

Orphan is a one-woman production and has in fact not really a cast unless you want to count children’s dolls and action figures as actors, which in fact are in this movie. It is a puppet movie but not of the sweet children’s story kind. It is a children’s movie, but of death and violence.

The trolley is a rail trolley; it moves by hand power over an old railway and is used as illegal transport by poor people in Manila. The trolley brings the film into contact with the trolley driver and his customers, and through that, it shows a cross-section of society, or better the poor part of society.

A suburban Bandung family enjoys their pastime with Ngadu Bagong, a Sundanese traditional game where dogs are put to fight against boar. Ade Rohmat has been in the game for a long time as a hobby that he passes on to his teenage daughter Ilma Nurjanah. Ngadu Bagong brings emotion, prestige, and fortune to its enthusiasts.

We live in the same space, my mother and I. But we are like strangers under one roof. Our only exchanges are the meals she cooks and leaves for me on our dining table. No hellos, no goodbyes, and no ‘I love you’. Silence permeates our house as I watch her, knowing that beneath the deafening silence lies a secret that weighs heavily on her, keeping her from speaking. But am I ready to hear what she has to say?

For years he has stayed behind closed doors, uttering nothing to anyone. In that long quietude, memories pay unexpected visits. Unfamiliar faces come before his eyes along with images from the past. The common shapes of others intertwine and reflect what he has been reluctant to face. This is an attempt by the filmmaker to reappraise his relationship to the world through external observation and self-reflection.

Trains were introduced to Thailand in 1890 during the reign of King Rama the 5th. They were once symbols of modernity. However, with corruption and inefficient operation, the Thai railways failed to improve for many decades. Railway Sleepers explores the close connection between Thai people and Thai railways and takes the audience to experience a 2-day, 2-night trip from the north to the south.

Three grandsons embark with their grannies on an anarchic journey into the past - a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a coming of age story of three young men and a ‘coming out of age’ tale of their grandmothers, an experiment to form a language that the forthcoming generations could use to keep the 20th-century values alive.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

This story begins with a man’s portrait hanging in my family home in Malaysia. The identity of this man has always been a taboo, until one day I discovered it was my grandfather, whose identity was hidden from me because he was a member of the Malaysian Communist Party. This film is a journey to discover the secret history of my country through the eyes of my grandfather.

One of the most actual, original and courageous documentaries in the programme. PANSITTIVORAKUL became notorious for making wildly homo-erotic experimental movies – and for a sharp viewer there are still traces there – but this movie might be his most mature and accessible one. In a visual way the movie explores the rise of nationalism and observes a variety of communities in Thailand. They are all there: soldiers and students and other boys.

This film re-examines major environmental movements and events in Taiwan from the 1980s to 2018, including the protest against LCY Chemical Corp in Hsinchu, anti-DuPont movement in Lukang, movement against the expansion of petrochemical industry, anti-nuclear and anti-air pollution protests. It is a compilation of over 30 years of documentary footage and interviews of those who took part in the protests.   TIDF Outstanding Contribution Award

In Arata in Hyogo’s Kobe City, a man wearing a faded jacket opens the shutter of a store, which is covered in signage featuring numerous provocative messages written in large letters. He is Kenzo Okuzaki, the proprietor of a battery and used car repair business, who also happens to be notorious for having shot pachinko balls at the Emperor. In Yabu, also in Hyogo Prefecture, Okuzaki serves as a go-between at an Otagaki family wedding, and reads a congratulatory speech in front of rows of kith, kin, and elders. “This match was made possible because the groom and I both fought against the establishment. This is a rare wedding.” On the Emperor’s birthday, security police block the passage of Okuzaki’s intimidating slogan-laden car, which conveys messages such as “Impartial soldier of the divine army,” “Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka,” “Yamazaki, shoot the Emperor!”, and “Risking your life for others is the path to salvation.” He locks himself inside and delivers an aggressive oration. Okuzaki decides to build a jail cell on the roof of his house, and heads to Kobe Detention Center to take measurements. He berates unresponsive employees who block him from entering. “You guys are robots! You aren’t even human!” Dressed in a black formal mourning suit, Okuzaki departs for a memorial service dedicated to his wartime comrades of the 36th Engineering Regiment who died in New Guinea. His car speeds through the streets with a fluttering flag bearing the words “divine army.” In Etajima in Hiroshima, Okuzaki meets with Iseko Shimamoto, the mother of deceased Private Masayuki Shimamoto, who joined the regiment in the same year as Okuzaki. He promises to take her to New Guinea. Okuzaki’s memorial pilgrimage moves on to Hamasaka in Hyogo, where he pays his respects to Private First Class Yamazaki who died of starvation in the jungle, and to Nandan to console the spirit of Sergeant Tanaka, who died in a fit of madness after being shot by a poisoned arrow. 23 days after the end of World War II, Captain Koshimizu of the 36 Engineering Corps in Wewak in New Guinea allegedly shot and killed two of his subordinates. To investigate the circumstances behind the execution, Okuzaki visits his former superior officers unannounced. His pursuit eventually uncovers shocking evidence of the madness of war, and the process in which one of humanity’s greatest taboos became a part of daily existence. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

The film is about how everything changes while remaining the same, or rather how everything remains the same by changing. It uses all the basic elements of film language – image, sound, light, movement (or non-movement), editing rhythm and pauses and all those things a man never thinks about walking along a country road.

There is a popular Latvian folk song which begins with ‘I was singing out high on a mountain’. The irony of it is that according to physical geography there are no mountains in Latvia. So what exactly is the place where the Latvians are ‘singing out’? It may be safely said that it’s the same place where they are skiing.

Rubiks' road is a bicycle path connecting Riga and Jurmala. While we were filming pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, dogs, birds, trains, scooters and airplanes, the citizens of Latvia elected Alfreds RUBIKS, former Communist Party leader who strongly opposed the independence of Latvia, to the European Parliament.

There are places that we don’t want to know anything about. One such place is a dumpsite. It is a stinking desert of trash, but it’s also a desert that is teaming with life. The astounding profusion of insects, reptiles, birds and mammals imparts to it some strangely alluring dream-like quality.

The traditional ‘tarling dangdut’ music of Indramayu, an area on the Java island, is famous for its erotic dances and skimpily-clad singers. Muslim leaders wanted to have it banned, but it still circulates in the society. Jaham, a tarling dangdut songwriter is faced with a challenge from clerics who want him to write Islamic tangling dangdut songs. With the help of an erotic singer, Jaham writes down his religious pieces.

A fully naked and heavily pregnant woman gazes straight ahead, in one of several photos taken by Kazuo Hara of the front, back, and sides of his ex-wife Miyuki Takeda. Hara arrives in Okinawa prior to its return to Japan, and visits Takeda. She is living with a woman named Sugako. “Can’t you say anything?” “Can’t you explain yourself?” “You never want to say anything.” “You got sick of me?” “You annoying little brat.” Takeda persistently berates Sugako. Their relationship is almost at its end, and Hara’s presence seems to drive a final wedge between them. African American soldiers on leave from a U.S. military base dance energetically at Bar Ginza. Also present is Chichi, a 14-year-old girl with a perfect afro hairdo and long curly eyelashes. She is pregnant with the child of an African American soldier. “I never understood freedom. I prefer the thrill of fear,” says Takeda. “I’m going to raise my kid like a wild child. That’s how I want him to be.” “Hara, I promised you two years ago. I’ll give birth by myself, and you’ll film it. I want you to see me giving birth.” After returning to Tokyo, Hara receives a letter from Takeda saying she is pregnant with the child of an Okinawan man. He again flies to Okinawa. Takeda has already broken up with her unborn baby’s father, and is living with a black American soldier named Paul. She voices voluminous complaints regarding men’s oppression of women and her frustration with Paul to Hara, who becomes irritated. “So in a nutshell, you love this guy named Paul, huh? Then what does him being black have to do with it?!” Hara cries, with his microphone pointed at Takeda. In response, she asks him. “Why are you crying?” For a third time, Hara travels to Okinawa with his current lover, Sachiko Kobayashi. With microphone in hand, she declares to Takeda: “I didn’t like feeling intimidated by you, so I had to see you face-to-face.” Takeda replies by enumerating Hara’s faults to Kobayashi. “He’s good with words. That’s why I don’t trust him.” “You’re not the only one he had sex with, you know.” “I can’t work with this guy.” “You like him, so you won’t understand.” Lying on white sheets, Takeda moans. Hara captures her expressions on film as they engage in sex. The lens slowly scans up and down... Her eyes, gazing dimly into the camera, and at Hara, exude beauty. Takeda decides to leave Okinawa. She wants to hand out pamphlets expressing her feelings for Okinawa to women working at establishments catering to U.S. troops. Taking her young son Rei by the hand, she walks through the town of Koza at night. The day comes for Takeda to leave Okinawa. She boards a ferry, carrying Rei in her arms. The anchor is raised, a horn blows, and the island grows ever distant. On the deck, a sea breeze washes over mother and child. At Hara’s apartment in Tokyo, Takeda is in the throes of labor pains as she attempts to give birth unassisted. Plastic sheets and newspapers have been laid out on top of the tatami flooring. Eventually, a new life slowly announces its arrival to the world.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Featuring a middle-aged veteran living in Hualien County, the film is a realistic and powerful portrayal of his simple daily life. It is a film about ordinary people at an unordinary historical moment. The power of the film resides in its attempt to represent the subjects the way they are and to leave the task of interpretation to the viewers.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

It is said that when America began its westward territorial expansion, every mile of train track laid down cost the life of a Chinese migrant worker. Mixing fiction with documentary, the film shows trains racing past ramshackle forts and barren deserts as a waltz plays on, with the desolate scenery contrasting with the tourists’ smiling faces.

This is a student exercise made when the director was studying for his MA at UCLA; all aspects including story, script, and character design were independently conceived. It features classic oriental imagery and a Western child narrating the Chinese legend ‘Houyi Shoots Down the Suns’ in English.

A student secretly works a night job to pay off his father’s gambling debts, and as a result constantly dozes off during classes in the day. When the teacher investigates, a series of family disputes ensues. This is MOU’s first film after graduating from Taiwan Art College. When it was first shown, it drew much criticism and debate.

The traditional ‘tarling dangdut’ music of Indramayu, an area on the Java island, is famous for its erotic dances and skimpily-clad singers. Muslim leaders wanted to have it banned, but it still circulates in the society. Jaham, a tarling dangdut songwriter is faced with a challenge from clerics who want him to write Islamic tangling dangdut songs. With the help of an erotic singer, Jaham writes down his religious pieces.

Across the Caucasus, Azerbaijani men labour to build a new railroad promising to bring glory to a new generation, while across the closed borders in Armenia, a lonely stationmaster sits idle in an abandoned railroad depot. This film is a journey by rail where workers reflect upon opportunity and regret, floating through a Eurasian expanse striving to fill their days and dreams, as much as their pockets.  

Two journeys take place in two different periods. One is a return by rail, passing through two continents. The other is an old family photograph tracing wartime life. The rhythmic swaying of the train merges the past and the present and reveals a forgotten memory, which has been covered by dust for a long time.

In 2006, former asbestos workers and their relatives in Osaka’s Sennan district file a lawsuit against the Japanese government, seeking compensation for the damage done to their health. Over eight years, director Hara follows the plaintiffs and their legal team, as well as the investigations of asbestos damage group founder Kazuyoshi Yuoka. Although the government had been aware of the health hazard, it prioritized economic development and neglected to implement regulations and countermeasures. Now it appeals each verdict in favor of the ailing plaintiffs, whose prolonged fight for justice takes a heavy physical toll. In May of 2010, the Osaka District Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs. However, compensation for family members and local residents exposed to asbestos is not included. Is the legal process merely a formality to maintain state power? In December of 2013, the second plaintiff group wins in the High Court, and their legal team urges the government not to appeal. Then in January of 2014, as plaintiffs travel to Tokyo, Yuoka declares his intention to deliver a petition directly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. The poorest of undocumented immigrants have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route. El Mar la Mar weaves together sublime 16mm shots of nature, animals, people and the tracks they leave behind, creating a multi-faceted panorama of a highly politicised stretch of land.

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

This is a journey in which the creator of this documentary tries to find the origin for his creation. While driving on the freeway to Puzi, Chiayi County, WU Yao-tung and Tom continue a conversation left unfinished two decades ago. The dialogue falters; clearly they live in two different worlds. After traversing this journey for 20 years, the dark spectre entangled within the depths of the mind is never driven away.

It’s a film about Tom, who struggles with health problems and depression. As Tom keeps flirting with the camera and challenging his authority as the filmmaker, WU finds the film out of his control and the filming becomes a journey with no definite end. Now, 20 years later, WU revisits Tom and makes another film titled Goodnight & Goodbye.

Hiroshi Yokota, a man with cerebral palsy, gets out of his wheelchair, leaves his apartment, and begins shuffling along the outer corridor of his complex. As he ventures outside, dragging himself forward close to the ground, blinding shafts of sunlight strike his eyes. On all fours, Yokota crawls across the pedestrian crossing of a main street. With his head and limbs moving involuntarily, he seems to be struggling. The crossing light turns red, and several vehicles rush by behind him. “That was scary,” he confesses. Close by, fellow CP sufferer Koichi Yokozuka takes photos of the beginning of Yokota’s adventure. His hands that hold the camera are twisted into an unnatural, crooked shape. The two men venture out from places where no one can see them, and into the streets. Members of the Aoi Shiba no Kai Kanagawa Joint Association, to which Yokota and Yokozuka are also affiliated, stand in front of a train station and assert the rights of people with cerebral palsy. They receive donations from housewives, office workers, and young children... “Why did you make a donation?”, asks Hara. “Because we’re healthy and normal, so I feel sorry for them.” “Because I’m on my way home from visiting my ancestors’ grave.” Association members drink at Yokota’s apartment, talking frankly about their sexual experiences. “My first time didn’t go well.” “I went to (red light district) Yoshiwara.” “In a sense, it was rape.” A train carrying Yokota arrives at a station. He crawls determinedly toward the door to get off, and falls onto the platform. Back at Yokota’s apartment, association members are locked in heated debate. Yokota wants the filming to stop, but others attack him. Eventually, Yokota’s wife, who was against the film from the beginning, explodes in anger. She hurls abuse at Hara as he wields his camera. In an underground passage near the west exit of Shinjuku station, Yokota carries himself on his haunches, his limbs and head swaying uncontrollably, as if dancing. His glasses fall, he picks them up, then continues crawling. His glasses fall, he picks them up...　 On a street closed to traffic on weekends in Shinjuku, Yokota writes in chalk on the asphalt with an unsteady hand. It is an act of physical expression by this CP sufferer, who is surrounded by a wall of able-bodied pedestrians. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

This is a journey in which the creator of this documentary tries to find the origin for his creation. While driving on the freeway to Puzi, Chiayi County, WU Yao-tung and Tom continue a conversation left unfinished two decades ago. The dialogue falters; clearly they live in two different worlds. After traversing this journey for 20 years, the dark spectre entangled within the depths of the mind is never driven away.

It’s a film about Tom, who struggles with health problems and depression. As Tom keeps flirting with the camera and challenging his authority as the filmmaker, WU finds the film out of his control and the filming becomes a journey with no definite end. Now, 20 years later, WU revisits Tom and makes another film titled Goodnight & Goodbye.

  Mitsuharu Inoue incisively critiques a novel written by a student at his own literary seminar. He drinks with guests, including his students and his close friend Yutaka Haniya, in the drawing room of his home. On a stage, he assumes the guise of a traveling entertainer, and puts on a strip show accompanied by the song “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki” (Scenes from the Tsugaru Strait in Winter). At a bar popular in literary circles, he plays a piano and dances. Various sides are shown of this famous author. Female students who attend his classes blush at the suggestion of amorous adventures with their teacher... On the recommendation of his regular physician, Inoue visits a doctor at The University of Tokyo Hospital’s surgery department. In a consultation room, the doctor shows Inoue x-rays and informs him that he has sigmoid colon cancer. Despite this, the novelist continues his busy schedule as he travels around Japan, holding literature classes and giving lectures to the public, helping to screen candidates for the Buraku Liberation Literary Award, and visiting Sakito, a former coal mining town in Sasebo where he spent his childhood. Inoue undergoes further tests at the The University of Tokyo Hospital. His cancer has progressed. A doctor suggests an operation that would extract the cancerous areas and leave only a quarter of his liver. Inoue decides to undergo the procedure. On the day of the surgery, Inoue’s cancer-laden liver is skillfully excised. The doctor visits Inoue’s sickroom to check on his condition after the operation. Painful-looking sutures run down the length of his abdomen. He is visited by his former lover Jakucho Setouchi, and Haniya.　 Bearing a map drawn in India ink by Inoue, Hara heads for the author’s hometown of Sakito. Scenes from the past are recreated. On “ukesen” (payday), when miners received their wages, South Korean prostitutes dressed in colorful chima jeogori outfits parade along the seaside, banging gongs and drums as they dance. One of them is Inoue’s first love. His father died when he was young, and his childhood was marred by abject poverty. Hara interviews Inoue’s relatives and acquaintances, and even browses his family register. The further the film delves into the truth, the more it becomes apparent that Inoue’s descriptions of his past are riddled with falsehoods. Nevertheless, these falsehoods themselves contain glimpses of the truth.. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Waterfall and I, and – no, the other way around! This film is, of course, about nature – human nature. Or – what a human can do with the widest waterfall in Europe.

In a cluster of houses outside town, in the shadow of an old chimney, there live several light-haired girls. With her extreme sense for detail, the director captures the poetry of the everyday. The result is a fresh and humorous look at a world ruled by spontaneity, playfulness and the immediacy of children’s logic.

If ‘all the world’s a stage’, then the scenes recorded by an unmoving camera on an ordinary football field are its pure essence. Over the course of just two minutes, this cinematic miniature unfolds a story filled with concentration, hope, disappointment, friendship and the collegiality of sport. A football microcosm.

The city is as it is. There needs to be a serious reason in order to ask an urban person to stop and be calm in front of the camera for a moment. This time MOZART serves as the reason.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

Hiroshi Yokota, a man with cerebral palsy, gets out of his wheelchair, leaves his apartment, and begins shuffling along the outer corridor of his complex. As he ventures outside, dragging himself forward close to the ground, blinding shafts of sunlight strike his eyes. On all fours, Yokota crawls across the pedestrian crossing of a main street. With his head and limbs moving involuntarily, he seems to be struggling. The crossing light turns red, and several vehicles rush by behind him. “That was scary,” he confesses. Close by, fellow CP sufferer Koichi Yokozuka takes photos of the beginning of Yokota’s adventure. His hands that hold the camera are twisted into an unnatural, crooked shape. The two men venture out from places where no one can see them, and into the streets. Members of the Aoi Shiba no Kai Kanagawa Joint Association, to which Yokota and Yokozuka are also affiliated, stand in front of a train station and assert the rights of people with cerebral palsy. They receive donations from housewives, office workers, and young children... “Why did you make a donation?”, asks Hara. “Because we’re healthy and normal, so I feel sorry for them.” “Because I’m on my way home from visiting my ancestors’ grave.” Association members drink at Yokota’s apartment, talking frankly about their sexual experiences. “My first time didn’t go well.” “I went to (red light district) Yoshiwara.” “In a sense, it was rape.” A train carrying Yokota arrives at a station. He crawls determinedly toward the door to get off, and falls onto the platform. Back at Yokota’s apartment, association members are locked in heated debate. Yokota wants the filming to stop, but others attack him. Eventually, Yokota’s wife, who was against the film from the beginning, explodes in anger. She hurls abuse at Hara as he wields his camera. In an underground passage near the west exit of Shinjuku station, Yokota carries himself on his haunches, his limbs and head swaying uncontrollably, as if dancing. His glasses fall, he picks them up, then continues crawling. His glasses fall, he picks them up...　 On a street closed to traffic on weekends in Shinjuku, Yokota writes in chalk on the asphalt with an unsteady hand. It is an act of physical expression by this CP sufferer, who is surrounded by a wall of able-bodied pedestrians. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

A fully naked and heavily pregnant woman gazes straight ahead, in one of several photos taken by Kazuo Hara of the front, back, and sides of his ex-wife Miyuki Takeda. Hara arrives in Okinawa prior to its return to Japan, and visits Takeda. She is living with a woman named Sugako. “Can’t you say anything?” “Can’t you explain yourself?” “You never want to say anything.” “You got sick of me?” “You annoying little brat.” Takeda persistently berates Sugako. Their relationship is almost at its end, and Hara’s presence seems to drive a final wedge between them. African American soldiers on leave from a U.S. military base dance energetically at Bar Ginza. Also present is Chichi, a 14-year-old girl with a perfect afro hairdo and long curly eyelashes. She is pregnant with the child of an African American soldier. “I never understood freedom. I prefer the thrill of fear,” says Takeda. “I’m going to raise my kid like a wild child. That’s how I want him to be.” “Hara, I promised you two years ago. I’ll give birth by myself, and you’ll film it. I want you to see me giving birth.” After returning to Tokyo, Hara receives a letter from Takeda saying she is pregnant with the child of an Okinawan man. He again flies to Okinawa. Takeda has already broken up with her unborn baby’s father, and is living with a black American soldier named Paul. She voices voluminous complaints regarding men’s oppression of women and her frustration with Paul to Hara, who becomes irritated. “So in a nutshell, you love this guy named Paul, huh? Then what does him being black have to do with it?!” Hara cries, with his microphone pointed at Takeda. In response, she asks him. “Why are you crying?” For a third time, Hara travels to Okinawa with his current lover, Sachiko Kobayashi. With microphone in hand, she declares to Takeda: “I didn’t like feeling intimidated by you, so I had to see you face-to-face.” Takeda replies by enumerating Hara’s faults to Kobayashi. “He’s good with words. That’s why I don’t trust him.” “You’re not the only one he had sex with, you know.” “I can’t work with this guy.” “You like him, so you won’t understand.” Lying on white sheets, Takeda moans. Hara captures her expressions on film as they engage in sex. The lens slowly scans up and down... Her eyes, gazing dimly into the camera, and at Hara, exude beauty. Takeda decides to leave Okinawa. She wants to hand out pamphlets expressing her feelings for Okinawa to women working at establishments catering to U.S. troops. Taking her young son Rei by the hand, she walks through the town of Koza at night. The day comes for Takeda to leave Okinawa. She boards a ferry, carrying Rei in her arms. The anchor is raised, a horn blows, and the island grows ever distant. On the deck, a sea breeze washes over mother and child. At Hara’s apartment in Tokyo, Takeda is in the throes of labor pains as she attempts to give birth unassisted. Plastic sheets and newspapers have been laid out on top of the tatami flooring. Eventually, a new life slowly announces its arrival to the world.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

In Arata in Hyogo’s Kobe City, a man wearing a faded jacket opens the shutter of a store, which is covered in signage featuring numerous provocative messages written in large letters. He is Kenzo Okuzaki, the proprietor of a battery and used car repair business, who also happens to be notorious for having shot pachinko balls at the Emperor. In Yabu, also in Hyogo Prefecture, Okuzaki serves as a go-between at an Otagaki family wedding, and reads a congratulatory speech in front of rows of kith, kin, and elders. “This match was made possible because the groom and I both fought against the establishment. This is a rare wedding.” On the Emperor’s birthday, security police block the passage of Okuzaki’s intimidating slogan-laden car, which conveys messages such as “Impartial soldier of the divine army,” “Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka,” “Yamazaki, shoot the Emperor!”, and “Risking your life for others is the path to salvation.” He locks himself inside and delivers an aggressive oration. Okuzaki decides to build a jail cell on the roof of his house, and heads to Kobe Detention Center to take measurements. He berates unresponsive employees who block him from entering. “You guys are robots! You aren’t even human!” Dressed in a black formal mourning suit, Okuzaki departs for a memorial service dedicated to his wartime comrades of the 36th Engineering Regiment who died in New Guinea. His car speeds through the streets with a fluttering flag bearing the words “divine army.” In Etajima in Hiroshima, Okuzaki meets with Iseko Shimamoto, the mother of deceased Private Masayuki Shimamoto, who joined the regiment in the same year as Okuzaki. He promises to take her to New Guinea. Okuzaki’s memorial pilgrimage moves on to Hamasaka in Hyogo, where he pays his respects to Private First Class Yamazaki who died of starvation in the jungle, and to Nandan to console the spirit of Sergeant Tanaka, who died in a fit of madness after being shot by a poisoned arrow. 23 days after the end of World War II, Captain Koshimizu of the 36 Engineering Corps in Wewak in New Guinea allegedly shot and killed two of his subordinates. To investigate the circumstances behind the execution, Okuzaki visits his former superior officers unannounced. His pursuit eventually uncovers shocking evidence of the madness of war, and the process in which one of humanity’s greatest taboos became a part of daily existence. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

  Mitsuharu Inoue incisively critiques a novel written by a student at his own literary seminar. He drinks with guests, including his students and his close friend Yutaka Haniya, in the drawing room of his home. On a stage, he assumes the guise of a traveling entertainer, and puts on a strip show accompanied by the song “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki” (Scenes from the Tsugaru Strait in Winter). At a bar popular in literary circles, he plays a piano and dances. Various sides are shown of this famous author. Female students who attend his classes blush at the suggestion of amorous adventures with their teacher... On the recommendation of his regular physician, Inoue visits a doctor at The University of Tokyo Hospital’s surgery department. In a consultation room, the doctor shows Inoue x-rays and informs him that he has sigmoid colon cancer. Despite this, the novelist continues his busy schedule as he travels around Japan, holding literature classes and giving lectures to the public, helping to screen candidates for the Buraku Liberation Literary Award, and visiting Sakito, a former coal mining town in Sasebo where he spent his childhood. Inoue undergoes further tests at the The University of Tokyo Hospital. His cancer has progressed. A doctor suggests an operation that would extract the cancerous areas and leave only a quarter of his liver. Inoue decides to undergo the procedure. On the day of the surgery, Inoue’s cancer-laden liver is skillfully excised. The doctor visits Inoue’s sickroom to check on his condition after the operation. Painful-looking sutures run down the length of his abdomen. He is visited by his former lover Jakucho Setouchi, and Haniya.　 Bearing a map drawn in India ink by Inoue, Hara heads for the author’s hometown of Sakito. Scenes from the past are recreated. On “ukesen” (payday), when miners received their wages, South Korean prostitutes dressed in colorful chima jeogori outfits parade along the seaside, banging gongs and drums as they dance. One of them is Inoue’s first love. His father died when he was young, and his childhood was marred by abject poverty. Hara interviews Inoue’s relatives and acquaintances, and even browses his family register. The further the film delves into the truth, the more it becomes apparent that Inoue’s descriptions of his past are riddled with falsehoods. Nevertheless, these falsehoods themselves contain glimpses of the truth.. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Hiroshi Yokota, a man with cerebral palsy, gets out of his wheelchair, leaves his apartment, and begins shuffling along the outer corridor of his complex. As he ventures outside, dragging himself forward close to the ground, blinding shafts of sunlight strike his eyes. On all fours, Yokota crawls across the pedestrian crossing of a main street. With his head and limbs moving involuntarily, he seems to be struggling. The crossing light turns red, and several vehicles rush by behind him. “That was scary,” he confesses. Close by, fellow CP sufferer Koichi Yokozuka takes photos of the beginning of Yokota’s adventure. His hands that hold the camera are twisted into an unnatural, crooked shape. The two men venture out from places where no one can see them, and into the streets. Members of the Aoi Shiba no Kai Kanagawa Joint Association, to which Yokota and Yokozuka are also affiliated, stand in front of a train station and assert the rights of people with cerebral palsy. They receive donations from housewives, office workers, and young children... “Why did you make a donation?”, asks Hara. “Because we’re healthy and normal, so I feel sorry for them.” “Because I’m on my way home from visiting my ancestors’ grave.” Association members drink at Yokota’s apartment, talking frankly about their sexual experiences. “My first time didn’t go well.” “I went to (red light district) Yoshiwara.” “In a sense, it was rape.” A train carrying Yokota arrives at a station. He crawls determinedly toward the door to get off, and falls onto the platform. Back at Yokota’s apartment, association members are locked in heated debate. Yokota wants the filming to stop, but others attack him. Eventually, Yokota’s wife, who was against the film from the beginning, explodes in anger. She hurls abuse at Hara as he wields his camera. In an underground passage near the west exit of Shinjuku station, Yokota carries himself on his haunches, his limbs and head swaying uncontrollably, as if dancing. His glasses fall, he picks them up, then continues crawling. His glasses fall, he picks them up...　 On a street closed to traffic on weekends in Shinjuku, Yokota writes in chalk on the asphalt with an unsteady hand. It is an act of physical expression by this CP sufferer, who is surrounded by a wall of able-bodied pedestrians. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

In 2006, former asbestos workers and their relatives in Osaka’s Sennan district file a lawsuit against the Japanese government, seeking compensation for the damage done to their health. Over eight years, director Hara follows the plaintiffs and their legal team, as well as the investigations of asbestos damage group founder Kazuyoshi Yuoka. Although the government had been aware of the health hazard, it prioritized economic development and neglected to implement regulations and countermeasures. Now it appeals each verdict in favor of the ailing plaintiffs, whose prolonged fight for justice takes a heavy physical toll. In May of 2010, the Osaka District Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs. However, compensation for family members and local residents exposed to asbestos is not included. Is the legal process merely a formality to maintain state power? In December of 2013, the second plaintiff group wins in the High Court, and their legal team urges the government not to appeal. Then in January of 2014, as plaintiffs travel to Tokyo, Yuoka declares his intention to deliver a petition directly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Waterfall and I, and – no, the other way around! This film is, of course, about nature – human nature. Or – what a human can do with the widest waterfall in Europe.

In a cluster of houses outside town, in the shadow of an old chimney, there live several light-haired girls. With her extreme sense for detail, the director captures the poetry of the everyday. The result is a fresh and humorous look at a world ruled by spontaneity, playfulness and the immediacy of children’s logic.

If ‘all the world’s a stage’, then the scenes recorded by an unmoving camera on an ordinary football field are its pure essence. Over the course of just two minutes, this cinematic miniature unfolds a story filled with concentration, hope, disappointment, friendship and the collegiality of sport. A football microcosm.

The city is as it is. There needs to be a serious reason in order to ask an urban person to stop and be calm in front of the camera for a moment. This time MOZART serves as the reason.

In Arata in Hyogo’s Kobe City, a man wearing a faded jacket opens the shutter of a store, which is covered in signage featuring numerous provocative messages written in large letters. He is Kenzo Okuzaki, the proprietor of a battery and used car repair business, who also happens to be notorious for having shot pachinko balls at the Emperor. In Yabu, also in Hyogo Prefecture, Okuzaki serves as a go-between at an Otagaki family wedding, and reads a congratulatory speech in front of rows of kith, kin, and elders. “This match was made possible because the groom and I both fought against the establishment. This is a rare wedding.” On the Emperor’s birthday, security police block the passage of Okuzaki’s intimidating slogan-laden car, which conveys messages such as “Impartial soldier of the divine army,” “Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka,” “Yamazaki, shoot the Emperor!”, and “Risking your life for others is the path to salvation.” He locks himself inside and delivers an aggressive oration. Okuzaki decides to build a jail cell on the roof of his house, and heads to Kobe Detention Center to take measurements. He berates unresponsive employees who block him from entering. “You guys are robots! You aren’t even human!” Dressed in a black formal mourning suit, Okuzaki departs for a memorial service dedicated to his wartime comrades of the 36th Engineering Regiment who died in New Guinea. His car speeds through the streets with a fluttering flag bearing the words “divine army.” In Etajima in Hiroshima, Okuzaki meets with Iseko Shimamoto, the mother of deceased Private Masayuki Shimamoto, who joined the regiment in the same year as Okuzaki. He promises to take her to New Guinea. Okuzaki’s memorial pilgrimage moves on to Hamasaka in Hyogo, where he pays his respects to Private First Class Yamazaki who died of starvation in the jungle, and to Nandan to console the spirit of Sergeant Tanaka, who died in a fit of madness after being shot by a poisoned arrow. 23 days after the end of World War II, Captain Koshimizu of the 36 Engineering Corps in Wewak in New Guinea allegedly shot and killed two of his subordinates. To investigate the circumstances behind the execution, Okuzaki visits his former superior officers unannounced. His pursuit eventually uncovers shocking evidence of the madness of war, and the process in which one of humanity’s greatest taboos became a part of daily existence. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

  Mitsuharu Inoue incisively critiques a novel written by a student at his own literary seminar. He drinks with guests, including his students and his close friend Yutaka Haniya, in the drawing room of his home. On a stage, he assumes the guise of a traveling entertainer, and puts on a strip show accompanied by the song “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki” (Scenes from the Tsugaru Strait in Winter). At a bar popular in literary circles, he plays a piano and dances. Various sides are shown of this famous author. Female students who attend his classes blush at the suggestion of amorous adventures with their teacher... On the recommendation of his regular physician, Inoue visits a doctor at The University of Tokyo Hospital’s surgery department. In a consultation room, the doctor shows Inoue x-rays and informs him that he has sigmoid colon cancer. Despite this, the novelist continues his busy schedule as he travels around Japan, holding literature classes and giving lectures to the public, helping to screen candidates for the Buraku Liberation Literary Award, and visiting Sakito, a former coal mining town in Sasebo where he spent his childhood. Inoue undergoes further tests at the The University of Tokyo Hospital. His cancer has progressed. A doctor suggests an operation that would extract the cancerous areas and leave only a quarter of his liver. Inoue decides to undergo the procedure. On the day of the surgery, Inoue’s cancer-laden liver is skillfully excised. The doctor visits Inoue’s sickroom to check on his condition after the operation. Painful-looking sutures run down the length of his abdomen. He is visited by his former lover Jakucho Setouchi, and Haniya.　 Bearing a map drawn in India ink by Inoue, Hara heads for the author’s hometown of Sakito. Scenes from the past are recreated. On “ukesen” (payday), when miners received their wages, South Korean prostitutes dressed in colorful chima jeogori outfits parade along the seaside, banging gongs and drums as they dance. One of them is Inoue’s first love. His father died when he was young, and his childhood was marred by abject poverty. Hara interviews Inoue’s relatives and acquaintances, and even browses his family register. The further the film delves into the truth, the more it becomes apparent that Inoue’s descriptions of his past are riddled with falsehoods. Nevertheless, these falsehoods themselves contain glimpses of the truth.. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

A fully naked and heavily pregnant woman gazes straight ahead, in one of several photos taken by Kazuo Hara of the front, back, and sides of his ex-wife Miyuki Takeda. Hara arrives in Okinawa prior to its return to Japan, and visits Takeda. She is living with a woman named Sugako. “Can’t you say anything?” “Can’t you explain yourself?” “You never want to say anything.” “You got sick of me?” “You annoying little brat.” Takeda persistently berates Sugako. Their relationship is almost at its end, and Hara’s presence seems to drive a final wedge between them. African American soldiers on leave from a U.S. military base dance energetically at Bar Ginza. Also present is Chichi, a 14-year-old girl with a perfect afro hairdo and long curly eyelashes. She is pregnant with the child of an African American soldier. “I never understood freedom. I prefer the thrill of fear,” says Takeda. “I’m going to raise my kid like a wild child. That’s how I want him to be.” “Hara, I promised you two years ago. I’ll give birth by myself, and you’ll film it. I want you to see me giving birth.” After returning to Tokyo, Hara receives a letter from Takeda saying she is pregnant with the child of an Okinawan man. He again flies to Okinawa. Takeda has already broken up with her unborn baby’s father, and is living with a black American soldier named Paul. She voices voluminous complaints regarding men’s oppression of women and her frustration with Paul to Hara, who becomes irritated. “So in a nutshell, you love this guy named Paul, huh? Then what does him being black have to do with it?!” Hara cries, with his microphone pointed at Takeda. In response, she asks him. “Why are you crying?” For a third time, Hara travels to Okinawa with his current lover, Sachiko Kobayashi. With microphone in hand, she declares to Takeda: “I didn’t like feeling intimidated by you, so I had to see you face-to-face.” Takeda replies by enumerating Hara’s faults to Kobayashi. “He’s good with words. That’s why I don’t trust him.” “You’re not the only one he had sex with, you know.” “I can’t work with this guy.” “You like him, so you won’t understand.” Lying on white sheets, Takeda moans. Hara captures her expressions on film as they engage in sex. The lens slowly scans up and down... Her eyes, gazing dimly into the camera, and at Hara, exude beauty. Takeda decides to leave Okinawa. She wants to hand out pamphlets expressing her feelings for Okinawa to women working at establishments catering to U.S. troops. Taking her young son Rei by the hand, she walks through the town of Koza at night. The day comes for Takeda to leave Okinawa. She boards a ferry, carrying Rei in her arms. The anchor is raised, a horn blows, and the island grows ever distant. On the deck, a sea breeze washes over mother and child. At Hara’s apartment in Tokyo, Takeda is in the throes of labor pains as she attempts to give birth unassisted. Plastic sheets and newspapers have been laid out on top of the tatami flooring. Eventually, a new life slowly announces its arrival to the world.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Featuring a middle-aged veteran living in Hualien County, the film is a realistic and powerful portrayal of his simple daily life. It is a film about ordinary people at an unordinary historical moment. The power of the film resides in its attempt to represent the subjects the way they are and to leave the task of interpretation to the viewers.

It is said that when America began its westward territorial expansion, every mile of train track laid down cost the life of a Chinese migrant worker. Mixing fiction with documentary, the film shows trains racing past ramshackle forts and barren deserts as a waltz plays on, with the desolate scenery contrasting with the tourists’ smiling faces.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

This is a student exercise made when the director was studying for his MA at UCLA; all aspects including story, script, and character design were independently conceived. It features classic oriental imagery and a Western child narrating the Chinese legend ‘Houyi Shoots Down the Suns’ in English.

Artists contributing to the 1966 Modern Poetry Exhibition included HUANG Hua-cheng, LONG Sih-liang, HUANG Yong-song, and CHANG Chao-tang; each artist chose their favorite modern poems and transformed them into imagery. This film is a time capsule capturing some of the exhibits, as well as the young artists.

Caterpillar crawling on the wall, a seemingly masturbating naked man, a weird car accident, poetic captions, ending with 11 stills of people posing like crucifixion. Rumour has it that a priest in Cardinal Tien Cultural Center concerned about the image of masturbation and canceled the participation of this film in the 1966 “Theatre Quarterly’s” film exhibition. The stills, script and notes, however, were published in the fifth edition of Theatre Quarterly and thus became a legend. This is the first time that the film will be screened after it has been considered lost for 52 years.  

In these freckled, disjointed montages of everyday life, we see a faint hint of an upcoming festival as the theatre troupe sound its drums; the children either sit and gaze, or clamber to see the lead actress. This 8mm roll of film was found after LONG Sih-liang passed away in 2012 and is now shown for the first time in 51 years.

This calm, family-centered film documents the first 18 months of the life of the director’s eldest daughter. The film follows the young baby’s faltering footsteps, as she takes account of the wide world through her tiny body, and preserves the cherished moments of the family.

A pregnant woman awakes at the start of a day. The camera invites the viewers along with a placid, light-feeling view, as she goes about her day, taking into view unhurried pedestrians, tricycles, a traditional market place, and a plain city still unencumbered by high rise buildings.

On the sandy shore at Yehliu, a headless human figure is beached and beaten by the waves. As the figure rolls along the sand, it takes on a variety of sculpture-like poses in the endless space where sea and sky seem to join as one. The human-like figure flickers in and out of view between the waves, until her arms stretch out from the vast emptiness and are cleansed.

On a morning in 1966, as requested by the director, artist XI De-jin ran around the Renai Road Roundabout, while an 8mm camera tagged along. The runner, wearing a striped outfit, keeps striding forward to some unknown finish line, his eyes looking around from time to time; suddenly, a crowd of motorcycles appears and engulfs him.

This is an early work by the director, who had just returned from Italy. As dawn gradually breaks, we see the neon lights of the city being swallowed by the morning light. The lens traverses through parks, churches, markets, factories, and finally follows the morning paper into the breakfast hours of a small white-collar family.

Trains were introduced to Thailand in 1890 during the reign of King Rama the 5th. They were once symbols of modernity. However, with corruption and inefficient operation, the Thai railways failed to improve for many decades. Railway Sleepers explores the close connection between Thai people and Thai railways and takes the audience to experience a 2-day, 2-night trip from the north to the south.

Across the Caucasus, Azerbaijani men labour to build a new railroad promising to bring glory to a new generation, while across the closed borders in Armenia, a lonely stationmaster sits idle in an abandoned railroad depot. This film is a journey by rail where workers reflect upon opportunity and regret, floating through a Eurasian expanse striving to fill their days and dreams, as much as their pockets.  

Two journeys take place in two different periods. One is a return by rail, passing through two continents. The other is an old family photograph tracing wartime life. The rhythmic swaying of the train merges the past and the present and reveals a forgotten memory, which has been covered by dust for a long time.

Edward LEUNG was an average student before he unexpectedly finds himself at the focal point of two Legislative Council elections. Despite winning over 60,000 votes in the by-election, his ticket to LegCo is forfeited when the regime imposes extra measures in the nomination process. On the other hand, Edward finds his free days numbered as he faces rioting charges for taking part in the Mong Kok Protest.

In 2006, former asbestos workers and their relatives in Osaka’s Sennan district file a lawsuit against the Japanese government, seeking compensation for the damage done to their health. Over eight years, director Hara follows the plaintiffs and their legal team, as well as the investigations of asbestos damage group founder Kazuyoshi Yuoka. Although the government had been aware of the health hazard, it prioritized economic development and neglected to implement regulations and countermeasures. Now it appeals each verdict in favor of the ailing plaintiffs, whose prolonged fight for justice takes a heavy physical toll. In May of 2010, the Osaka District Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs. However, compensation for family members and local residents exposed to asbestos is not included. Is the legal process merely a formality to maintain state power? In December of 2013, the second plaintiff group wins in the High Court, and their legal team urges the government not to appeal. Then in January of 2014, as plaintiffs travel to Tokyo, Yuoka declares his intention to deliver a petition directly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. The poorest of undocumented immigrants have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route. El Mar la Mar weaves together sublime 16mm shots of nature, animals, people and the tracks they leave behind, creating a multi-faceted panorama of a highly politicised stretch of land.

Featuring a middle-aged veteran living in Hualien County, the film is a realistic and powerful portrayal of his simple daily life. It is a film about ordinary people at an unordinary historical moment. The power of the film resides in its attempt to represent the subjects the way they are and to leave the task of interpretation to the viewers.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

It is said that when America began its westward territorial expansion, every mile of train track laid down cost the life of a Chinese migrant worker. Mixing fiction with documentary, the film shows trains racing past ramshackle forts and barren deserts as a waltz plays on, with the desolate scenery contrasting with the tourists’ smiling faces.

This is a student exercise made when the director was studying for his MA at UCLA; all aspects including story, script, and character design were independently conceived. It features classic oriental imagery and a Western child narrating the Chinese legend ‘Houyi Shoots Down the Suns’ in English.

This is an early work by the director, who had just returned from Italy. As dawn gradually breaks, we see the neon lights of the city being swallowed by the morning light. The lens traverses through parks, churches, markets, factories, and finally follows the morning paper into the breakfast hours of a small white-collar family.

In these freckled, disjointed montages of everyday life, we see a faint hint of an upcoming festival as the theatre troupe sound its drums; the children either sit and gaze, or clamber to see the lead actress. This 8mm roll of film was found after LONG Sih-liang passed away in 2012 and is now shown for the first time in 51 years.

This calm, family-centered film documents the first 18 months of the life of the director’s eldest daughter. The film follows the young baby’s faltering footsteps, as she takes account of the wide world through her tiny body, and preserves the cherished moments of the family.

A pregnant woman awakes at the start of a day. The camera invites the viewers along with a placid, light-feeling view, as she goes about her day, taking into view unhurried pedestrians, tricycles, a traditional market place, and a plain city still unencumbered by high rise buildings.

Caterpillar crawling on the wall, a seemingly masturbating naked man, a weird car accident, poetic captions, ending with 11 stills of people posing like crucifixion. Rumour has it that a priest in Cardinal Tien Cultural Center concerned about the image of masturbation and canceled the participation of this film in the 1966 “Theatre Quarterly’s” film exhibition. The stills, script and notes, however, were published in the fifth edition of Theatre Quarterly and thus became a legend. This is the first time that the film will be screened after it has been considered lost for 52 years.  

Artists contributing to the 1966 Modern Poetry Exhibition included HUANG Hua-cheng, LONG Sih-liang, HUANG Yong-song, and CHANG Chao-tang; each artist chose their favorite modern poems and transformed them into imagery. This film is a time capsule capturing some of the exhibits, as well as the young artists.

On a morning in 1966, as requested by the director, artist XI De-jin ran around the Renai Road Roundabout, while an 8mm camera tagged along. The runner, wearing a striped outfit, keeps striding forward to some unknown finish line, his eyes looking around from time to time; suddenly, a crowd of motorcycles appears and engulfs him.

On the sandy shore at Yehliu, a headless human figure is beached and beaten by the waves. As the figure rolls along the sand, it takes on a variety of sculpture-like poses in the endless space where sea and sky seem to join as one. The human-like figure flickers in and out of view between the waves, until her arms stretch out from the vast emptiness and are cleansed.

Theater Quarterly leaped on stage in 1965 with a literal bang by breaking a fragile plaster gong and the performance of two absurdist theatre pieces, The Prophet and Waiting for Godot. This film interviews those involved in the performance and recreates the plaster gong while weaving in archival footage.

Originally written by HUANG Hua-cheng, the script centres on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience of a play. When this piece was first shown in 1965, director Richard Yao-chi CHEN reworked it with the actors on stage. 51 years later, actors CHUANG Ling and LIU Ying-shang are invited back to the theatre to recreate the groundbreaking original.

In 1994 HUANG Hua-cheng showed his 8mm film Experiment 002 during a seminar titled ‘Theater Quarterly and Me’ at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. This film is a recording of the seminar, documenting how the film was played and the seminar proceedings. HUANG passed away in 1996, and his earlier films have been lost.

During the 1960s, Tom DAVENPORT was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Taiwan. This was his first documentary, in which he captured philosopher NAN Huai-chin practicing Tai-chi at Taiwan’s northeastern coast. Shot with a 16mm camera, the film features sound created by composer Tom JOHNSON.

This film documents a short trip from Star Ferry’s taxi stand to the office of Chinese Student Weekly in Kowloon Tong. It shows the street scenes of Hong Kong in 1968 and the state of mind of a Hong Kong young man after the 1967 Riot.

Renowned writer Xi Xi served as editor for the ninth issue of Theater Quarterly. Having an elder brother who worked at a television news station, she had access to a large amount of discarded tape. Piecing these images and sounds of celebrities and even the Pope together, this collage work serves as a reworked document of the era.

This short movie that is maybe not a documentary is made by the filmmaker in memory of the extrajudicial killing of young Lahu activist Chaiyapoom PASAE. She knew the young Lahu boy through a workshop she gave some years before he was killed. A tribute to a young aspiring filmmaker and his Lahu language and culture.

A young Belgium film student discovers the hidden miracles of Hanoi, Vietnam. Since she did not speak the language, the film is mainly about looking – very careful and intense looking, with a visual poetry as result. It shows the beauty of decay and survival in a small street that is in fact a railway.

Bendera, an Indonesian nationalist group, is angry with Malaysia. The leader has asked to declare war on Malaysia. This can happen for real in Indonesia (or Malaysia) that somebody says we should go at war with the other country. The filmmaker took it seriously (or does he?) and goes to talk with a war monger.

Orphan is a one-woman production and has in fact not really a cast unless you want to count children’s dolls and action figures as actors, which in fact are in this movie. It is a puppet movie but not of the sweet children’s story kind. It is a children’s movie, but of death and violence.

The trolley is a rail trolley; it moves by hand power over an old railway and is used as illegal transport by poor people in Manila. The trolley brings the film into contact with the trolley driver and his customers, and through that, it shows a cross-section of society, or better the poor part of society.

One of the most actual, original and courageous documentaries in the programme. PANSITTIVORAKUL became notorious for making wildly homo-erotic experimental movies – and for a sharp viewer there are still traces there – but this movie might be his most mature and accessible one. In a visual way the movie explores the rise of nationalism and observes a variety of communities in Thailand. They are all there: soldiers and students and other boys.

The film is about how everything changes while remaining the same, or rather how everything remains the same by changing. It uses all the basic elements of film language – image, sound, light, movement (or non-movement), editing rhythm and pauses and all those things a man never thinks about walking along a country road.

There is a popular Latvian folk song which begins with ‘I was singing out high on a mountain’. The irony of it is that according to physical geography there are no mountains in Latvia. So what exactly is the place where the Latvians are ‘singing out’? It may be safely said that it’s the same place where they are skiing.

Rubiks' road is a bicycle path connecting Riga and Jurmala. While we were filming pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, dogs, birds, trains, scooters and airplanes, the citizens of Latvia elected Alfreds RUBIKS, former Communist Party leader who strongly opposed the independence of Latvia, to the European Parliament.

There are places that we don’t want to know anything about. One such place is a dumpsite. It is a stinking desert of trash, but it’s also a desert that is teaming with life. The astounding profusion of insects, reptiles, birds and mammals imparts to it some strangely alluring dream-like quality.

This is a journey in which the creator of this documentary tries to find the origin for his creation. While driving on the freeway to Puzi, Chiayi County, WU Yao-tung and Tom continue a conversation left unfinished two decades ago. The dialogue falters; clearly they live in two different worlds. After traversing this journey for 20 years, the dark spectre entangled within the depths of the mind is never driven away.

A suburban Bandung family enjoys their pastime with Ngadu Bagong, a Sundanese traditional game where dogs are put to fight against boar. Ade Rohmat has been in the game for a long time as a hobby that he passes on to his teenage daughter Ilma Nurjanah. Ngadu Bagong brings emotion, prestige, and fortune to its enthusiasts.

A student secretly works a night job to pay off his father’s gambling debts, and as a result constantly dozes off during classes in the day. When the teacher investigates, a series of family disputes ensues. This is MOU’s first film after graduating from Taiwan Art College. When it was first shown, it drew much criticism and debate.

This story begins with a man’s portrait hanging in my family home in Malaysia. The identity of this man has always been a taboo, until one day I discovered it was my grandfather, whose identity was hidden from me because he was a member of the Malaysian Communist Party. This film is a journey to discover the secret history of my country through the eyes of my grandfather.

We live in the same space, my mother and I. But we are like strangers under one roof. Our only exchanges are the meals she cooks and leaves for me on our dining table. No hellos, no goodbyes, and no ‘I love you’. Silence permeates our house as I watch her, knowing that beneath the deafening silence lies a secret that weighs heavily on her, keeping her from speaking. But am I ready to hear what she has to say?

In 2006, former asbestos workers and their relatives in Osaka’s Sennan district file a lawsuit against the Japanese government, seeking compensation for the damage done to their health. Over eight years, director Hara follows the plaintiffs and their legal team, as well as the investigations of asbestos damage group founder Kazuyoshi Yuoka. Although the government had been aware of the health hazard, it prioritized economic development and neglected to implement regulations and countermeasures. Now it appeals each verdict in favor of the ailing plaintiffs, whose prolonged fight for justice takes a heavy physical toll. In May of 2010, the Osaka District Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs. However, compensation for family members and local residents exposed to asbestos is not included. Is the legal process merely a formality to maintain state power? In December of 2013, the second plaintiff group wins in the High Court, and their legal team urges the government not to appeal. Then in January of 2014, as plaintiffs travel to Tokyo, Yuoka declares his intention to deliver a petition directly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Hiroshi Yokota, a man with cerebral palsy, gets out of his wheelchair, leaves his apartment, and begins shuffling along the outer corridor of his complex. As he ventures outside, dragging himself forward close to the ground, blinding shafts of sunlight strike his eyes. On all fours, Yokota crawls across the pedestrian crossing of a main street. With his head and limbs moving involuntarily, he seems to be struggling. The crossing light turns red, and several vehicles rush by behind him. “That was scary,” he confesses. Close by, fellow CP sufferer Koichi Yokozuka takes photos of the beginning of Yokota’s adventure. His hands that hold the camera are twisted into an unnatural, crooked shape. The two men venture out from places where no one can see them, and into the streets. Members of the Aoi Shiba no Kai Kanagawa Joint Association, to which Yokota and Yokozuka are also affiliated, stand in front of a train station and assert the rights of people with cerebral palsy. They receive donations from housewives, office workers, and young children... “Why did you make a donation?”, asks Hara. “Because we’re healthy and normal, so I feel sorry for them.” “Because I’m on my way home from visiting my ancestors’ grave.” Association members drink at Yokota’s apartment, talking frankly about their sexual experiences. “My first time didn’t go well.” “I went to (red light district) Yoshiwara.” “In a sense, it was rape.” A train carrying Yokota arrives at a station. He crawls determinedly toward the door to get off, and falls onto the platform. Back at Yokota’s apartment, association members are locked in heated debate. Yokota wants the filming to stop, but others attack him. Eventually, Yokota’s wife, who was against the film from the beginning, explodes in anger. She hurls abuse at Hara as he wields his camera. In an underground passage near the west exit of Shinjuku station, Yokota carries himself on his haunches, his limbs and head swaying uncontrollably, as if dancing. His glasses fall, he picks them up, then continues crawling. His glasses fall, he picks them up...　 On a street closed to traffic on weekends in Shinjuku, Yokota writes in chalk on the asphalt with an unsteady hand. It is an act of physical expression by this CP sufferer, who is surrounded by a wall of able-bodied pedestrians. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

Trains were introduced to Thailand in 1890 during the reign of King Rama the 5th. They were once symbols of modernity. However, with corruption and inefficient operation, the Thai railways failed to improve for many decades. Railway Sleepers explores the close connection between Thai people and Thai railways and takes the audience to experience a 2-day, 2-night trip from the north to the south.

Featuring a middle-aged veteran living in Hualien County, the film is a realistic and powerful portrayal of his simple daily life. It is a film about ordinary people at an unordinary historical moment. The power of the film resides in its attempt to represent the subjects the way they are and to leave the task of interpretation to the viewers.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

It is said that when America began its westward territorial expansion, every mile of train track laid down cost the life of a Chinese migrant worker. Mixing fiction with documentary, the film shows trains racing past ramshackle forts and barren deserts as a waltz plays on, with the desolate scenery contrasting with the tourists’ smiling faces.

This is a student exercise made when the director was studying for his MA at UCLA; all aspects including story, script, and character design were independently conceived. It features classic oriental imagery and a Western child narrating the Chinese legend ‘Houyi Shoots Down the Suns’ in English.

In Arata in Hyogo’s Kobe City, a man wearing a faded jacket opens the shutter of a store, which is covered in signage featuring numerous provocative messages written in large letters. He is Kenzo Okuzaki, the proprietor of a battery and used car repair business, who also happens to be notorious for having shot pachinko balls at the Emperor. In Yabu, also in Hyogo Prefecture, Okuzaki serves as a go-between at an Otagaki family wedding, and reads a congratulatory speech in front of rows of kith, kin, and elders. “This match was made possible because the groom and I both fought against the establishment. This is a rare wedding.” On the Emperor’s birthday, security police block the passage of Okuzaki’s intimidating slogan-laden car, which conveys messages such as “Impartial soldier of the divine army,” “Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka,” “Yamazaki, shoot the Emperor!”, and “Risking your life for others is the path to salvation.” He locks himself inside and delivers an aggressive oration. Okuzaki decides to build a jail cell on the roof of his house, and heads to Kobe Detention Center to take measurements. He berates unresponsive employees who block him from entering. “You guys are robots! You aren’t even human!” Dressed in a black formal mourning suit, Okuzaki departs for a memorial service dedicated to his wartime comrades of the 36th Engineering Regiment who died in New Guinea. His car speeds through the streets with a fluttering flag bearing the words “divine army.” In Etajima in Hiroshima, Okuzaki meets with Iseko Shimamoto, the mother of deceased Private Masayuki Shimamoto, who joined the regiment in the same year as Okuzaki. He promises to take her to New Guinea. Okuzaki’s memorial pilgrimage moves on to Hamasaka in Hyogo, where he pays his respects to Private First Class Yamazaki who died of starvation in the jungle, and to Nandan to console the spirit of Sergeant Tanaka, who died in a fit of madness after being shot by a poisoned arrow. 23 days after the end of World War II, Captain Koshimizu of the 36 Engineering Corps in Wewak in New Guinea allegedly shot and killed two of his subordinates. To investigate the circumstances behind the execution, Okuzaki visits his former superior officers unannounced. His pursuit eventually uncovers shocking evidence of the madness of war, and the process in which one of humanity’s greatest taboos became a part of daily existence. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

The film is about how everything changes while remaining the same, or rather how everything remains the same by changing. It uses all the basic elements of film language – image, sound, light, movement (or non-movement), editing rhythm and pauses and all those things a man never thinks about walking along a country road.

There is a popular Latvian folk song which begins with ‘I was singing out high on a mountain’. The irony of it is that according to physical geography there are no mountains in Latvia. So what exactly is the place where the Latvians are ‘singing out’? It may be safely said that it’s the same place where they are skiing.

Rubiks' road is a bicycle path connecting Riga and Jurmala. While we were filming pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, dogs, birds, trains, scooters and airplanes, the citizens of Latvia elected Alfreds RUBIKS, former Communist Party leader who strongly opposed the independence of Latvia, to the European Parliament.

There are places that we don’t want to know anything about. One such place is a dumpsite. It is a stinking desert of trash, but it’s also a desert that is teaming with life. The astounding profusion of insects, reptiles, birds and mammals imparts to it some strangely alluring dream-like quality.

Theater Quarterly leaped on stage in 1965 with a literal bang by breaking a fragile plaster gong and the performance of two absurdist theatre pieces, The Prophet and Waiting for Godot. This film interviews those involved in the performance and recreates the plaster gong while weaving in archival footage.

Originally written by HUANG Hua-cheng, the script centres on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience of a play. When this piece was first shown in 1965, director Richard Yao-chi CHEN reworked it with the actors on stage. 51 years later, actors CHUANG Ling and LIU Ying-shang are invited back to the theatre to recreate the groundbreaking original.

In 1994 HUANG Hua-cheng showed his 8mm film Experiment 002 during a seminar titled ‘Theater Quarterly and Me’ at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. This film is a recording of the seminar, documenting how the film was played and the seminar proceedings. HUANG passed away in 1996, and his earlier films have been lost.

During the 1960s, Tom DAVENPORT was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Taiwan. This was his first documentary, in which he captured philosopher NAN Huai-chin practicing Tai-chi at Taiwan’s northeastern coast. Shot with a 16mm camera, the film features sound created by composer Tom JOHNSON.

This film documents a short trip from Star Ferry’s taxi stand to the office of Chinese Student Weekly in Kowloon Tong. It shows the street scenes of Hong Kong in 1968 and the state of mind of a Hong Kong young man after the 1967 Riot.

Renowned writer Xi Xi served as editor for the ninth issue of Theater Quarterly. Having an elder brother who worked at a television news station, she had access to a large amount of discarded tape. Piecing these images and sounds of celebrities and even the Pope together, this collage work serves as a reworked document of the era.

This short movie that is maybe not a documentary is made by the filmmaker in memory of the extrajudicial killing of young Lahu activist Chaiyapoom PASAE. She knew the young Lahu boy through a workshop she gave some years before he was killed. A tribute to a young aspiring filmmaker and his Lahu language and culture.

A young Belgium film student discovers the hidden miracles of Hanoi, Vietnam. Since she did not speak the language, the film is mainly about looking – very careful and intense looking, with a visual poetry as result. It shows the beauty of decay and survival in a small street that is in fact a railway.

Bendera, an Indonesian nationalist group, is angry with Malaysia. The leader has asked to declare war on Malaysia. This can happen for real in Indonesia (or Malaysia) that somebody says we should go at war with the other country. The filmmaker took it seriously (or does he?) and goes to talk with a war monger.

Orphan is a one-woman production and has in fact not really a cast unless you want to count children’s dolls and action figures as actors, which in fact are in this movie. It is a puppet movie but not of the sweet children’s story kind. It is a children’s movie, but of death and violence.

The trolley is a rail trolley; it moves by hand power over an old railway and is used as illegal transport by poor people in Manila. The trolley brings the film into contact with the trolley driver and his customers, and through that, it shows a cross-section of society, or better the poor part of society.

Three grandsons embark with their grannies on an anarchic journey into the past - a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a coming of age story of three young men and a ‘coming out of age’ tale of their grandmothers, an experiment to form a language that the forthcoming generations could use to keep the 20th-century values alive.

In these freckled, disjointed montages of everyday life, we see a faint hint of an upcoming festival as the theatre troupe sound its drums; the children either sit and gaze, or clamber to see the lead actress. This 8mm roll of film was found after LONG Sih-liang passed away in 2012 and is now shown for the first time in 51 years.

A pregnant woman awakes at the start of a day. The camera invites the viewers along with a placid, light-feeling view, as she goes about her day, taking into view unhurried pedestrians, tricycles, a traditional market place, and a plain city still unencumbered by high rise buildings.

Artists contributing to the 1966 Modern Poetry Exhibition included HUANG Hua-cheng, LONG Sih-liang, HUANG Yong-song, and CHANG Chao-tang; each artist chose their favorite modern poems and transformed them into imagery. This film is a time capsule capturing some of the exhibits, as well as the young artists.

On a morning in 1966, as requested by the director, artist XI De-jin ran around the Renai Road Roundabout, while an 8mm camera tagged along. The runner, wearing a striped outfit, keeps striding forward to some unknown finish line, his eyes looking around from time to time; suddenly, a crowd of motorcycles appears and engulfs him.

This is an early work by the director, who had just returned from Italy. As dawn gradually breaks, we see the neon lights of the city being swallowed by the morning light. The lens traverses through parks, churches, markets, factories, and finally follows the morning paper into the breakfast hours of a small white-collar family.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

A student secretly works a night job to pay off his father’s gambling debts, and as a result constantly dozes off during classes in the day. When the teacher investigates, a series of family disputes ensues. This is MOU’s first film after graduating from Taiwan Art College. When it was first shown, it drew much criticism and debate.

Three grandsons embark with their grannies on an anarchic journey into the past - a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a coming of age story of three young men and a ‘coming out of age’ tale of their grandmothers, an experiment to form a language that the forthcoming generations could use to keep the 20th-century values alive.

Across the Caucasus, Azerbaijani men labour to build a new railroad promising to bring glory to a new generation, while across the closed borders in Armenia, a lonely stationmaster sits idle in an abandoned railroad depot. This film is a journey by rail where workers reflect upon opportunity and regret, floating through a Eurasian expanse striving to fill their days and dreams, as much as their pockets.  

Two journeys take place in two different periods. One is a return by rail, passing through two continents. The other is an old family photograph tracing wartime life. The rhythmic swaying of the train merges the past and the present and reveals a forgotten memory, which has been covered by dust for a long time.

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. The poorest of undocumented immigrants have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route. El Mar la Mar weaves together sublime 16mm shots of nature, animals, people and the tracks they leave behind, creating a multi-faceted panorama of a highly politicised stretch of land.

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

For years he has stayed behind closed doors, uttering nothing to anyone. In that long quietude, memories pay unexpected visits. Unfamiliar faces come before his eyes along with images from the past. The common shapes of others intertwine and reflect what he has been reluctant to face. This is an attempt by the filmmaker to reappraise his relationship to the world through external observation and self-reflection.

  Mitsuharu Inoue incisively critiques a novel written by a student at his own literary seminar. He drinks with guests, including his students and his close friend Yutaka Haniya, in the drawing room of his home. On a stage, he assumes the guise of a traveling entertainer, and puts on a strip show accompanied by the song “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki” (Scenes from the Tsugaru Strait in Winter). At a bar popular in literary circles, he plays a piano and dances. Various sides are shown of this famous author. Female students who attend his classes blush at the suggestion of amorous adventures with their teacher... On the recommendation of his regular physician, Inoue visits a doctor at The University of Tokyo Hospital’s surgery department. In a consultation room, the doctor shows Inoue x-rays and informs him that he has sigmoid colon cancer. Despite this, the novelist continues his busy schedule as he travels around Japan, holding literature classes and giving lectures to the public, helping to screen candidates for the Buraku Liberation Literary Award, and visiting Sakito, a former coal mining town in Sasebo where he spent his childhood. Inoue undergoes further tests at the The University of Tokyo Hospital. His cancer has progressed. A doctor suggests an operation that would extract the cancerous areas and leave only a quarter of his liver. Inoue decides to undergo the procedure. On the day of the surgery, Inoue’s cancer-laden liver is skillfully excised. The doctor visits Inoue’s sickroom to check on his condition after the operation. Painful-looking sutures run down the length of his abdomen. He is visited by his former lover Jakucho Setouchi, and Haniya.　 Bearing a map drawn in India ink by Inoue, Hara heads for the author’s hometown of Sakito. Scenes from the past are recreated. On “ukesen” (payday), when miners received their wages, South Korean prostitutes dressed in colorful chima jeogori outfits parade along the seaside, banging gongs and drums as they dance. One of them is Inoue’s first love. His father died when he was young, and his childhood was marred by abject poverty. Hara interviews Inoue’s relatives and acquaintances, and even browses his family register. The further the film delves into the truth, the more it becomes apparent that Inoue’s descriptions of his past are riddled with falsehoods. Nevertheless, these falsehoods themselves contain glimpses of the truth.. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

This short movie that is maybe not a documentary is made by the filmmaker in memory of the extrajudicial killing of young Lahu activist Chaiyapoom PASAE. She knew the young Lahu boy through a workshop she gave some years before he was killed. A tribute to a young aspiring filmmaker and his Lahu language and culture.

A young Belgium film student discovers the hidden miracles of Hanoi, Vietnam. Since she did not speak the language, the film is mainly about looking – very careful and intense looking, with a visual poetry as result. It shows the beauty of decay and survival in a small street that is in fact a railway.

Bendera, an Indonesian nationalist group, is angry with Malaysia. The leader has asked to declare war on Malaysia. This can happen for real in Indonesia (or Malaysia) that somebody says we should go at war with the other country. The filmmaker took it seriously (or does he?) and goes to talk with a war monger.

Orphan is a one-woman production and has in fact not really a cast unless you want to count children’s dolls and action figures as actors, which in fact are in this movie. It is a puppet movie but not of the sweet children’s story kind. It is a children’s movie, but of death and violence.

The trolley is a rail trolley; it moves by hand power over an old railway and is used as illegal transport by poor people in Manila. The trolley brings the film into contact with the trolley driver and his customers, and through that, it shows a cross-section of society, or better the poor part of society.

Edward LEUNG was an average student before he unexpectedly finds himself at the focal point of two Legislative Council elections. Despite winning over 60,000 votes in the by-election, his ticket to LegCo is forfeited when the regime imposes extra measures in the nomination process. On the other hand, Edward finds his free days numbered as he faces rioting charges for taking part in the Mong Kok Protest.

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

A suburban Bandung family enjoys their pastime with Ngadu Bagong, a Sundanese traditional game where dogs are put to fight against boar. Ade Rohmat has been in the game for a long time as a hobby that he passes on to his teenage daughter Ilma Nurjanah. Ngadu Bagong brings emotion, prestige, and fortune to its enthusiasts.

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

Originally written by HUANG Hua-cheng, the script centres on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience of a play. When this piece was first shown in 1965, director Richard Yao-chi CHEN reworked it with the actors on stage. 51 years later, actors CHUANG Ling and LIU Ying-shang are invited back to the theatre to recreate the groundbreaking original.

In 1994 HUANG Hua-cheng showed his 8mm film Experiment 002 during a seminar titled ‘Theater Quarterly and Me’ at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. This film is a recording of the seminar, documenting how the film was played and the seminar proceedings. HUANG passed away in 1996, and his earlier films have been lost.

During the 1960s, Tom DAVENPORT was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Taiwan. This was his first documentary, in which he captured philosopher NAN Huai-chin practicing Tai-chi at Taiwan’s northeastern coast. Shot with a 16mm camera, the film features sound created by composer Tom JOHNSON.

This film documents a short trip from Star Ferry’s taxi stand to the office of Chinese Student Weekly in Kowloon Tong. It shows the street scenes of Hong Kong in 1968 and the state of mind of a Hong Kong young man after the 1967 Riot.

Renowned writer Xi Xi served as editor for the ninth issue of Theater Quarterly. Having an elder brother who worked at a television news station, she had access to a large amount of discarded tape. Piecing these images and sounds of celebrities and even the Pope together, this collage work serves as a reworked document of the era.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

For years he has stayed behind closed doors, uttering nothing to anyone. In that long quietude, memories pay unexpected visits. Unfamiliar faces come before his eyes along with images from the past. The common shapes of others intertwine and reflect what he has been reluctant to face. This is an attempt by the filmmaker to reappraise his relationship to the world through external observation and self-reflection.

This is a journey in which the creator of this documentary tries to find the origin for his creation. While driving on the freeway to Puzi, Chiayi County, WU Yao-tung and Tom continue a conversation left unfinished two decades ago. The dialogue falters; clearly they live in two different worlds. After traversing this journey for 20 years, the dark spectre entangled within the depths of the mind is never driven away.

Across the Caucasus, Azerbaijani men labour to build a new railroad promising to bring glory to a new generation, while across the closed borders in Armenia, a lonely stationmaster sits idle in an abandoned railroad depot. This film is a journey by rail where workers reflect upon opportunity and regret, floating through a Eurasian expanse striving to fill their days and dreams, as much as their pockets.  

Three grandsons embark with their grannies on an anarchic journey into the past - a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a coming of age story of three young men and a ‘coming out of age’ tale of their grandmothers, an experiment to form a language that the forthcoming generations could use to keep the 20th-century values alive.

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. The poorest of undocumented immigrants have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route. El Mar la Mar weaves together sublime 16mm shots of nature, animals, people and the tracks they leave behind, creating a multi-faceted panorama of a highly politicised stretch of land.

This story begins with a man’s portrait hanging in my family home in Malaysia. The identity of this man has always been a taboo, until one day I discovered it was my grandfather, whose identity was hidden from me because he was a member of the Malaysian Communist Party. This film is a journey to discover the secret history of my country through the eyes of my grandfather.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

A student secretly works a night job to pay off his father’s gambling debts, and as a result constantly dozes off during classes in the day. When the teacher investigates, a series of family disputes ensues. This is MOU’s first film after graduating from Taiwan Art College. When it was first shown, it drew much criticism and debate.

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

Three grandsons embark with their grannies on an anarchic journey into the past - a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a coming of age story of three young men and a ‘coming out of age’ tale of their grandmothers, an experiment to form a language that the forthcoming generations could use to keep the 20th-century values alive.

In Arata in Hyogo’s Kobe City, a man wearing a faded jacket opens the shutter of a store, which is covered in signage featuring numerous provocative messages written in large letters. He is Kenzo Okuzaki, the proprietor of a battery and used car repair business, who also happens to be notorious for having shot pachinko balls at the Emperor. In Yabu, also in Hyogo Prefecture, Okuzaki serves as a go-between at an Otagaki family wedding, and reads a congratulatory speech in front of rows of kith, kin, and elders. “This match was made possible because the groom and I both fought against the establishment. This is a rare wedding.” On the Emperor’s birthday, security police block the passage of Okuzaki’s intimidating slogan-laden car, which conveys messages such as “Impartial soldier of the divine army,” “Kill Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka,” “Yamazaki, shoot the Emperor!”, and “Risking your life for others is the path to salvation.” He locks himself inside and delivers an aggressive oration. Okuzaki decides to build a jail cell on the roof of his house, and heads to Kobe Detention Center to take measurements. He berates unresponsive employees who block him from entering. “You guys are robots! You aren’t even human!” Dressed in a black formal mourning suit, Okuzaki departs for a memorial service dedicated to his wartime comrades of the 36th Engineering Regiment who died in New Guinea. His car speeds through the streets with a fluttering flag bearing the words “divine army.” In Etajima in Hiroshima, Okuzaki meets with Iseko Shimamoto, the mother of deceased Private Masayuki Shimamoto, who joined the regiment in the same year as Okuzaki. He promises to take her to New Guinea. Okuzaki’s memorial pilgrimage moves on to Hamasaka in Hyogo, where he pays his respects to Private First Class Yamazaki who died of starvation in the jungle, and to Nandan to console the spirit of Sergeant Tanaka, who died in a fit of madness after being shot by a poisoned arrow. 23 days after the end of World War II, Captain Koshimizu of the 36 Engineering Corps in Wewak in New Guinea allegedly shot and killed two of his subordinates. To investigate the circumstances behind the execution, Okuzaki visits his former superior officers unannounced. His pursuit eventually uncovers shocking evidence of the madness of war, and the process in which one of humanity’s greatest taboos became a part of daily existence. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

The director follows three art college students HUANG Yong-song, MOU Tun-fei, and HUANG Gui-rong as they enjoy an excursion into the mountains. As the song ‘California Dreamin’ plays, the three talk about their artistic ideals, how only KMT party members were eligible for scholarships, and their view on the Vietnam War.

Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable playmates, but after Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong falls into a dark spiral. At the time, this film was banned due to its homosexual overtones and ideology, while some felt that certain segments drew comparison with CHEN Ying-zhen’s short story The Noodle Stall.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

We live in the same space, my mother and I. But we are like strangers under one roof. Our only exchanges are the meals she cooks and leaves for me on our dining table. No hellos, no goodbyes, and no ‘I love you’. Silence permeates our house as I watch her, knowing that beneath the deafening silence lies a secret that weighs heavily on her, keeping her from speaking. But am I ready to hear what she has to say?

A fully naked and heavily pregnant woman gazes straight ahead, in one of several photos taken by Kazuo Hara of the front, back, and sides of his ex-wife Miyuki Takeda. Hara arrives in Okinawa prior to its return to Japan, and visits Takeda. She is living with a woman named Sugako. “Can’t you say anything?” “Can’t you explain yourself?” “You never want to say anything.” “You got sick of me?” “You annoying little brat.” Takeda persistently berates Sugako. Their relationship is almost at its end, and Hara’s presence seems to drive a final wedge between them. African American soldiers on leave from a U.S. military base dance energetically at Bar Ginza. Also present is Chichi, a 14-year-old girl with a perfect afro hairdo and long curly eyelashes. She is pregnant with the child of an African American soldier. “I never understood freedom. I prefer the thrill of fear,” says Takeda. “I’m going to raise my kid like a wild child. That’s how I want him to be.” “Hara, I promised you two years ago. I’ll give birth by myself, and you’ll film it. I want you to see me giving birth.” After returning to Tokyo, Hara receives a letter from Takeda saying she is pregnant with the child of an Okinawan man. He again flies to Okinawa. Takeda has already broken up with her unborn baby’s father, and is living with a black American soldier named Paul. She voices voluminous complaints regarding men’s oppression of women and her frustration with Paul to Hara, who becomes irritated. “So in a nutshell, you love this guy named Paul, huh? Then what does him being black have to do with it?!” Hara cries, with his microphone pointed at Takeda. In response, she asks him. “Why are you crying?” For a third time, Hara travels to Okinawa with his current lover, Sachiko Kobayashi. With microphone in hand, she declares to Takeda: “I didn’t like feeling intimidated by you, so I had to see you face-to-face.” Takeda replies by enumerating Hara’s faults to Kobayashi. “He’s good with words. That’s why I don’t trust him.” “You’re not the only one he had sex with, you know.” “I can’t work with this guy.” “You like him, so you won’t understand.” Lying on white sheets, Takeda moans. Hara captures her expressions on film as they engage in sex. The lens slowly scans up and down... Her eyes, gazing dimly into the camera, and at Hara, exude beauty. Takeda decides to leave Okinawa. She wants to hand out pamphlets expressing her feelings for Okinawa to women working at establishments catering to U.S. troops. Taking her young son Rei by the hand, she walks through the town of Koza at night. The day comes for Takeda to leave Okinawa. She boards a ferry, carrying Rei in her arms. The anchor is raised, a horn blows, and the island grows ever distant. On the deck, a sea breeze washes over mother and child. At Hara’s apartment in Tokyo, Takeda is in the throes of labor pains as she attempts to give birth unassisted. Plastic sheets and newspapers have been laid out on top of the tatami flooring. Eventually, a new life slowly announces its arrival to the world.   *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

  Mitsuharu Inoue incisively critiques a novel written by a student at his own literary seminar. He drinks with guests, including his students and his close friend Yutaka Haniya, in the drawing room of his home. On a stage, he assumes the guise of a traveling entertainer, and puts on a strip show accompanied by the song “Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki” (Scenes from the Tsugaru Strait in Winter). At a bar popular in literary circles, he plays a piano and dances. Various sides are shown of this famous author. Female students who attend his classes blush at the suggestion of amorous adventures with their teacher... On the recommendation of his regular physician, Inoue visits a doctor at The University of Tokyo Hospital’s surgery department. In a consultation room, the doctor shows Inoue x-rays and informs him that he has sigmoid colon cancer. Despite this, the novelist continues his busy schedule as he travels around Japan, holding literature classes and giving lectures to the public, helping to screen candidates for the Buraku Liberation Literary Award, and visiting Sakito, a former coal mining town in Sasebo where he spent his childhood. Inoue undergoes further tests at the The University of Tokyo Hospital. His cancer has progressed. A doctor suggests an operation that would extract the cancerous areas and leave only a quarter of his liver. Inoue decides to undergo the procedure. On the day of the surgery, Inoue’s cancer-laden liver is skillfully excised. The doctor visits Inoue’s sickroom to check on his condition after the operation. Painful-looking sutures run down the length of his abdomen. He is visited by his former lover Jakucho Setouchi, and Haniya.　 Bearing a map drawn in India ink by Inoue, Hara heads for the author’s hometown of Sakito. Scenes from the past are recreated. On “ukesen” (payday), when miners received their wages, South Korean prostitutes dressed in colorful chima jeogori outfits parade along the seaside, banging gongs and drums as they dance. One of them is Inoue’s first love. His father died when he was young, and his childhood was marred by abject poverty. Hara interviews Inoue’s relatives and acquaintances, and even browses his family register. The further the film delves into the truth, the more it becomes apparent that Inoue’s descriptions of his past are riddled with falsehoods. Nevertheless, these falsehoods themselves contain glimpses of the truth.. *Copyrights 2019, all rights reserved by Shisso Production, Inc

Theater Quarterly leaped on stage in 1965 with a literal bang by breaking a fragile plaster gong and the performance of two absurdist theatre pieces, The Prophet and Waiting for Godot. This film interviews those involved in the performance and recreates the plaster gong while weaving in archival footage.

Originally written by HUANG Hua-cheng, the script centres on the dialogue between a couple sitting in the audience of a play. When this piece was first shown in 1965, director Richard Yao-chi CHEN reworked it with the actors on stage. 51 years later, actors CHUANG Ling and LIU Ying-shang are invited back to the theatre to recreate the groundbreaking original.

In 1994 HUANG Hua-cheng showed his 8mm film Experiment 002 during a seminar titled ‘Theater Quarterly and Me’ at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. This film is a recording of the seminar, documenting how the film was played and the seminar proceedings. HUANG passed away in 1996, and his earlier films have been lost.

During the 1960s, Tom DAVENPORT was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Taiwan. This was his first documentary, in which he captured philosopher NAN Huai-chin practicing Tai-chi at Taiwan’s northeastern coast. Shot with a 16mm camera, the film features sound created by composer Tom JOHNSON.

This film documents a short trip from Star Ferry’s taxi stand to the office of Chinese Student Weekly in Kowloon Tong. It shows the street scenes of Hong Kong in 1968 and the state of mind of a Hong Kong young man after the 1967 Riot.

Renowned writer Xi Xi served as editor for the ninth issue of Theater Quarterly. Having an elder brother who worked at a television news station, she had access to a large amount of discarded tape. Piecing these images and sounds of celebrities and even the Pope together, this collage work serves as a reworked document of the era.

An old dog lives in an empty lot in a quiet district of Seoul. With a camera in her hands, the director approaches people and asks them what they know about the dog. Though they hardly seemed to care, locals and passers-by start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the stories they tell, certain clues to their lives are also revealed.

This is a journey in which the creator of this documentary tries to find the origin for his creation. While driving on the freeway to Puzi, Chiayi County, WU Yao-tung and Tom continue a conversation left unfinished two decades ago. The dialogue falters; clearly they live in two different worlds. After traversing this journey for 20 years, the dark spectre entangled within the depths of the mind is never driven away.