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In the 1990s, Chinese composer and educator Bao Yuankai began composing Western-style symphonic pieces rooted in traditional folk music. One of his acclaimed pieces is Sketches of Taiwan, which Bao was inspired to write after falling in love with Taiwan’s people and culture. Tsui Yung-Hui follows as he retraces his musical journey, decades-long love affair with Taiwanese culture and how he came up with brilliant, groundbreaking work that artfully bridges East and West.

Over the span of a decade, the director, as a family member, records the mental odyssey of his sister after she was trafficked, confronts the person who bought her directly, probes into the secrets of his AIDS-stricken father, and listens to his mother’s unspoken laments. In his eyes, this remaining, clan-style family gathers and parts, and as death looms near, they sing heartily.

The contemporary Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong traveled to the border of the United States and Mexico for his new painting project. Faced with complicated border and refugee issues, a foreign country, and stranger people, he used his Chinese sensibility and artist’s simplicity to find inspiration for his creation.

Henshin! Henshin! Arashi and Rider is a 1972 special promoting Henshin Ninja Arashi and Kamen Rider.

A documentary spanning from the Korean Wars to the present. (MUBI)

Ten years have passed since the Sewol ferry disaster. The life of KIM Dong-soo, who came back alive from the disaster, has changed a lot from before. KIM Dong-soo, who used to live as a truck driver, lost his truck in a disaster and now guards the Hallasan trail everyday. He is repeatedly hospitalized and discharged from the psychiatric ward and suffers from pain all over his body. Still, he struggles to restore his daily life by participating in the marathon event. KIM Dong-soo's wife, KIM Hyung-sook, and his two daughters support him in his daily life. The eyes looking at KIM Dong-soo with a desperate expression, asking for help, revive every moment and shake his heart, but he still lives by holding the hands of his family who stand by his side.

In 1990, due to the skyrocketing rental price, many tenants suffered and even took their own lives. Showing their memorial service as a starting point, we approach the problems of housing policy and the social structural problems of Korean society.

Documentary recording the devastation of the 1923 Kanto earthquake and subsequent relief efforts and reconstruction. Re-released by the Kanto Earthquake Digital Image Archive in 2021.

A documentary about the director's family and his struggles as a filmmaker.

Before my thirty-fourth birthday, I underwent emergency surgery at the ER. I’ve been diagnosed with stage 3 endometrial cancer. Enduring the tough chemotherapy, I sense that it changes the way I see the world and how my body experiences it. It also recalls my memories of my grandmother who fought against kidney cancer but passed away in pain. I realize that I have never thought about my fear of death even though I filmed my grandmother's funeral eight years ago. With a 25cm surgical scar from my navel to the perineum, I now pick up the camera to confront my deepest fear of death with the desire to live, standing on the border between death and life. 25cm is a personal essay exploring the question that a person, undergoing the tough treatment, asks oneself: Is life worth living despite the overwhelming pain?

Miyazaki artist Komatsu Takahide stumbled upon a painting of a Taiwanese indigenous girl in a local antique shop. He discovered the painter Shiotsuki Toho had made significant contributions to the Taiwanese art scene although remaining unknown in Japan. Toho arrived in Taiwan as an educator under the colonial government in 1921, harboured a deep love for Taiwanese indigenous people and cultures. Komatsu embarked on a journey to trace this century-ago fellow artist, pondering what "freedom" means to an artist.

Former gangsters, former homeless people, abuse victims, people struggling with the meaning of life... these hurt and lovable "sinners" gather at a Christian church in Kitakyushu that supports the needy. A documentary that intersects the passion play of Christ performed by them, the hardships they went through, and their current stories.

Japan has the world record for sexual abstinence, but the pornographic industry is very lucrative. The documentary reveals how the number of singles has doubled, and how older couples do not have sex. According to the National Institute of Japanese Sexology, "sexless" are those who have sexual intercourse with a frequency lower than once a month.

The Hundred Squares: "No more delays," the cry of citizens echoes from the lives of those barely holding out against discrimination and hatred. Struggling with diverse identities in their daily lives, citizens reflect on the meaning of "discrimination" through their own experiences and testimonies. They question and reflect on what is needed to eliminate it and speak out before the camera. The Blooming Equalities: discrimination law that has been on hold for 20 years. A lawyer, a researcher, a religious figure, a writer, and an activist stand in the square again after a year, and, in this time of rampant right-wing extremism and hate, they speak of an anti-discrimination law as "the right answer to ending the insurrection, the last line of defense for human dignity, a current that can no longer be held back, a square that cannot at all harm families, churches, and the nation, and a place where the voices of the less fortunate can be heard."

Short documentary about naturism in Thailand.

My father’s 100-year-old family home may soon be torn down. Filled with traces of past lives, it holds the weight of memory. To preserve those memories, I captured them on film.

Documentary focusing on Miyawaki Akira, who has planted some 40 million trees through his forestation activities at over 1,700 sites.

A voyage to the northern border of Taiwan — the eponymous Beigu Islet, a sea rock roughly 300sqft submerged under water half of the time — delves into regional histories, the gaze on borderline landscapes, and the ambivalent state of Taiwanese territory and subjectivity.

This performative lecture by Boram Soh is inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' short story, Blue Tigers. Like the Argentine writer, she explores the dynamics between hunter and prey, human and beast. Tracing the hunting practices of the era and making ten stops along the trajectory of imperial history, Soh transforms what we know into articulate geometric objects through the auxiliary of her own body.

This documentary tells the sorrow and helplessness faced by villagers in Nansalu Village (Ming Tribe) of Namaxia Township at southern Taiwan, a hard-hit area by typhoon Morakot. The twelve short stories about homes depict the kind of emotional entanglement experienced by the tribal people after going through a drastic disaster. These stories portray the cruelty of reality and allow the audience to see how it forges endurance of life.

Sculptor Tu-shui Huang (1895-1930) was way ahead of his time, combining traditional Chinese themes with Western influences that he learned while studying at the art academy in Tokyo. This earned him a reputation as the “founder of modern Taiwanese sculpture,” but he also drew criticism.

Hong Kong is facing tyranny, and a pair of brothers are marching on their own ways in the revolution. However, the horror is approaching, and it’s like this city knows everything, it reborns after it collapses. There seems to be a huge energy behind this, asking inwardly: What is the fight for?

This documentary captures the Korean film industry's campaign to maintain the screen quota system, in opposition to the government and Hollywood's plot to overtake the film market. Images of them shaving heads and going on hunger strikes reveal oppressed state they are in and their willingness to fight. Currently, they are waging a campaign for international solidarity among filmmakers.

Ye Yun (or Da San) is the third son in his family, born in 1970 in Zhaowu Dameng in Inner Mongolia, where he works for a local copper company. For the last 10 years of his life, he feels little has changed. However, he has always had an idea: to go to Tibet and see Mount Everest. Those around him have often discouraged the idea because of the region's harsh environment. Yet, Da San is determined to do something different life in his ordinary life. He determines to satisfy his wish, so he persuaded his friends to embark on a roadtrip to Tibet.

BIASes follows BIAS NYC, a party that uniquely fuses K-pop & underground club music while spotlighting queer & trans culture, as they prepare to make their debut in Seoul. Co-founders Sammy & Julian have poured everything into creating the inclusive community they've always yearned for, but will it embrace them back?

Coincidence comes out of the blue, fleeting like a whisper. It touches us, leaving layers of memory. 'Yul' rescues a kitten from her apartment's stray cat feeding station. For the first time in her life, she crosses the fence to uncover the circumstances of the kitten's abandonment.

The office, as an everyday space, holds subtle tension and creative potential even within its monotony. This work reconstructs such a space, weaving the latent movements and sounds of office supplies into a rhythmic flow. The photogram technique explores the boundary between materiality and immateriality, creating moments where familiar objects feel unfamiliar. Through this, the audience discovers new expressions of everyday objects that often go unnoticed.

Documentary following sign-language rock band Bright Eyes

In his 40s, sculptor JU Ming had already made his name in the early 80s art scene in Taiwan. He then decided to pursue opportunities in New York. During then, HUANG Yu-shan made her first documentary with JU Ming as the subject when she studied at New York University. The film contains footage of JU knocking and carving in his studio and interviews with gallery managers, art critics, and sculptors. This film brings together two New York experiences from two Taiwanese/Asian “exhibitors” who respectively experienced documentary filmmaking and sculpting in the city.

Within Japan, there's a place that's like another world: Gion, in Kyoto. When night falls in this historic district, nearly 100 geiko, or traditional entertainers, make their way to teahouses to perform classical arts, such as music and dance, for carefully selected guests. Kimi Ota, 77, is proprietress of a 200-year-old teahouse. Throughout its history, it has always been run by a woman. The proprietress cannot marry, and must have a daughter who can someday take over. Peer behind the curtain into the unique and alluring world of Kyoto's teahouses.

Huangyangchuan township, Gulang County, Gansu province. In a village, two members of a family died in accidents in a short period. People took it seriously, they decided to rebuild the old temple in the village, hoping it could bless them with peace. In the ceremony after the rebuilding was finished, the figure of Buddha, the picture of Chairman Mao, the Taoist and the country shamen, gathered together…This film documented the details of this ceremony, hoping to reveal the common status of Chinese people’s religion.

Shot on lo-fi digital video, Tommy visits his father on his farm in Chiang Dao, Thailand. The farm is slowly consumed by the spirit realm, revealing itself to Tommy. His father appears as a medium.

An intensely personal documentary shot and directed by Toshiko Takashi, former director of Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (TILGFF, 1992-93). Visiting a low-income house in Osaka where she spent 10 years of her childhood, Toshiko encounters two familiar women in their 70s. When she returns three years later, she finds the house has been abandoned. Intercut with poetic reflections and intimate moments that Toshiko spends with her lover Sakura, who works as a stripper, the older women's lives and memories intertwine with the younger couple's in Takashi's dream-like visions. - Overview from Japan Society

A set of 500*500 pixel boxes analyzes a group of image data produced on a train—a train running between Korea and Kazakhstan. Mostly, the detection process appears to be random. However, despite the incoherency, the boxes can generate an output, a story that can make sense.

Mizuyoshi tries to highlight everyday landscapes through his camera. Capturing the movements of light on the water of a stream, or reflections through the grass, he seeks to render a certain cinematographic image quality.

Traditional opera is well known in Fujian, and the women clown (played by men) of Gaojia Opera are the most famous. This film records the last days of Master Ke Xianxi, one of four most famous 'clowns' in China, and his caring for the existence and development of Gaojia Opera in modern times. It depicts the major challenges facing Chinese traditional opera today.

In 1971, while the Japanese prime minister Sato Eisaku was visiting South Korea to attend a party for President Park Chung-hee, a group of eight South Korean hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) took a direct petition to the Japanese embassy. The South Korean hibakusha were detained by South Korean authorities for the duration of the prime minister’s visit. This film follows the lives of these eight people. That same year, Son Chin-tu, a hibakusha who had entered Japan illegally and was being held at the Omura Detention Center, filed his so-called “Hibakusha Certificate Lawsuit,” demanding Japanese residency and medical treatment.

Under constant regimes of discipline and incorporation, rituals, faiths, bodies, and the position of man and god all trend towards uprootedness, where we lose our links to the land and to others. Time is dissected into ever more infinitesimal parts. Those who could not keep up now appear within the gaze of a stopped frame. Regardless of man or god, all destruction and rebirth meet at this point in search of a safe corner.

This is a record of six years since the closing of the Doomeal branch school. At the end of 1994, the residents of Doomaelee, who protested the closure order of Doomeal Elementary School in Doomaelee village (Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do), developed an anti-closure movement and opened a school in the village hall to teach children. Due to the unreasonable demands of the education office and the government, it is discontinued.

Never Rest/Unrest is a hand-held short film by Tiffany Sia about the relentless political actions in Hong Kong, spanning early summer to late 2019. The experimental short is an adaptation of the artist’s practice of scaling oral history, of showing political crisis in Hong Kong as ephemeral stories on Instagram for the past year.

A conversation in a music store between two people who have reunited after a year. Their lives have changed. New stories have emerged surrounding them and words many are reluctant to say.

Cut, drowned, burned, buried, and evaporated, Myeong Wol's body eumhwa blossoms in a dream. Eumhwa is erotic image, negative, and secret story. Part I traces colonial courtesan body, exploring erotic of rumor via peach, parasite, and film metaphors. Part II reworks 79 experimental films as negative found footage. Work in digital and film, letting vanished body's eumhwa blossom.

THORNAPPLE 'Fire Watching' 10th Anniversary Documentary

Footage from the making/screening of Kim Gok & Kim Sun's Capitalist Manifesto

It’s an extraordinary opening scene: the view from within a tomb under construction. We see people at work, and others watching—holding mugs of tea, or a child on their lap. Filmmaker Sanshou Hu introduces these people, and himself. In the town where he was born, he and his family are following an age-old tradition by building a tomb for his grandparents.

Li Bing is a Buddhist nun who has worked for years to set up schools for local children in ethnically-Tibetan regions. In September 2016, she helped set up the Songhe Mani Tent School and hired two teachers, Gan Ge and Lhamo. The local incarnate Buddhist Lama has problem with their behaviors. In March 2017, as the new semester starts, the villagers come up with all sorts of excuses to demand that Lhamo be removed as teacher at the school. As Lhamo is forced to leave, Li Bing decides to remove Gan Ge too, as well as all the tents that serve as the school’s dormitory.

A group of Pangcah people left their homeland in the eastern Taiwan to seek jobs on the western coast. They drifted from one construction site to another, until they finally settled on a temporarily unclaimed clearing behind a university, building a community far away from home. Despite the instability of work and earnings, they lived life to the fullest catching fish, growing vegetables, singing and dancing, even electing leaders of their community in this 'new paradise'.

The Third Front movement described by sons of workers who relocated in Gansu.