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Nostalgia or backwards

An art curator is told about a past visit to Searles Lake, a salt desert near California's Mojave Desert, and the nearby town of Trona, while pulling out a burned pharmaceutical encyclopedia. Trona's borax serves as a raw material for film developer, becoming becomes a link between the memory of the place and the act of filmmaking. Long-held memories of conversations with the filmmaker's mentor James Benning, colleagues, and other mentors about the book found in front of a burned house in this borax-mining village are restored as script.

Nostalgia or backwards

NR 2025
This Woman

Alan Zhang's film delves into the journey of Beibei, a young woman grappling with societal expectations amidst the COVID-19 epidemic. As Beibei navigates the complexities of life, marriage, and her roles as a wife, mother, and daughter, the film provocatively questions the constraints of conventional gender roles. The film immerses us in the life of Beibei, who refuses to let her identity be defined by others, who demands the right to find out for herself who she is and what she wants. Moving from city to city and from lover to lover, she defies society’s expectations of what a woman should do and be. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction, the film boldly challenges traditional gender expectations, showcasing the struggles and triumphs of emancipated women like Beibei.

This Woman

8.0 2023
One Country through Torture

This documentary depicts the stories of four Chinese activists—Xie Wenfei, Zhang Shengyu, Chen Yunfei, and Liu Ping—who faced torture. It also invites Hong Kong participants Chan Ho-wun, Li On-yin, Chen Hung Sau, and Cheung Chiu-hung to experience and reflect on these situations through simulated installations. The film highlights that in the advancement of human civilization, "human rights", "rule of law", and "democracy" are mutually indispensable and interdependent. In countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, the rule of law cannot be upheld, let alone the protection of human rights.

One Country through Torture

NR 2020
a BEAUTIFUL REEL. B'z LIVE-GYM 2002 GREEN ~GO★FIGHT★WIN~

a BEAUTIFUL REEL. B'z LIVE-GYM 2002 GREEN ~GO★FIGHT★WIN~ is a home video by B'z, released on November 27, 2002. The release serves as a documentary film covering B'z LIVE-GYM 2002 "GREEN ~GO★FIGHT★WIN~", which toured in support of their twelfth album GREEN. The second disc contains backstage footage of B'z LIVE-GYM 2002 "Rock n' California Roll". With the exception of "Taiyou no Komachi Angel", this release contains the full setlist.

a BEAUTIFUL REEL. B'z LIVE-GYM 2002 GREEN ~GO★FIGHT★WIN~

NR 2002
Holy Light

The melody of the hymn echoes in the old streets and alleys of the city. This is strange in a country that regards religion as a spiritual opium. The small, messy street was full of old people, and they began to pray with the sound of the room on the street. On the roof, a simple cross gleamed in the sun. During the Cultural Revolution, Christianity was completely eradicated. In China's political environment, Christianity has always been regarded as an extremely reactionary and evil thing, and openly believing in God would bring prison sentences. After the reform and opening up, Christianity also resumed activities. Although the Three-Self Church under official control is orthodox, house churches that are not under official control have also emerged in various cities. This film documents the activities of a house church in Nanjing.

Holy Light

NR 1998
Escape

Is being in a foreign land, separated from one’s familiar daily life and human relationships, another form of escape? Four seemingly unrelated footages from CHUNG Mong-hong's overseas studies represent a contemplation of the foreign land and self-identity. Fleeting images of the city, surrealist compositions, the multifarious landscapes and imageries presage CHUNG’s early experimental features. The monologue at the end narrates the absence of the father and the resulting solitude and regret, reflecting CHUNG’s delicate sensibilities towards family and human relationship. The local religious chants serve as a stark cultural contrast against the life overseas, highlighting the cultural barriers and loneliness brought about by estrangement.

Escape

NR 1993
Prison Circle

It took Kaori Sakagami six years to receive permission for shooting her documentary in a Japanese prison. In a unique project, a limited number of inmates can participate in a therapeutic circle in order to understand the mental and social conditions of their behavior. Even after being released from prison, former inmates are supported by psychologists and social workers. What is remarkable in the process: the inmates learn to support each other and to open up toward the experiences of others.

Prison Circle

1.0 2020
Ryoko, 21 Years Old

The filmmaker looks into problems of personal communication by focusing on the letters of a woman who has done enjokosai, that is, a young woman who agrees to talk with or meet or go to a hotel with (usually older) men for money. The director himself met Ryoko, the film's subject, via her telephone messaging system. Discarding the flood of sensational images found in the mass media, this film illustrates the thoughts of Ryoko and others from the perspective of those actually involved.

Ryoko, 21 Years Old

NR 1998
03:04

The sound of billiard balls on a table, a montage series from television shows, steam rising from a bowl of instant noodles, reflections in the window of a public bus, a sun dressed in drab army green, daze caused by intermittent sleep, and the words hidden in a telephone card. The old wait for their coffins, the young wait to leave the island, the recruits wait and count the number of days before discharge, the rocks wait for people to come back, and I wait for the end of the film.

03:04

NR 2000
2H

2H combines documentary and dramatic film techniques to depict the psychological passages of two Chinese expatriates in Tokyo as they attempt to accommodate their existence to the two universal events of life - birth and death. Ma Jinsan is a 95 year-old former Kuomintang general who defected to Japan nearly 50 years earlier, shortly after the Communist revolution. Bound to Ma by chance, circumstance, and emotional need, Xiong Wenyun is an avant-garde artist desperately seeking to fulfill an innate but inarticulate desire to have a child.

2H

7.0 1999
We Don't Wanna

This piece consists of two parts, a documentary and a short film. It is a realistic depiction of some girls aiming for their dream to become actresses! The documentary part starts with five girls who want to become actresses taking part in a "Make a movie" project under director Yu Katsumata. This is a real record of the days from the start of lesson until the announcement of the cast. The second half then contains the short film "We don't wanna", as five high school girls who don't want to grow up face anxious days, paths, love, dreams and the future... With all of this in their hearts, the five of them, head off on a "We don't wanna grow up tour". They take a slow train, headed for "paradise". It's only a one day trip, but becomes their battle diary road movie.

We Don't Wanna

NR 2019
Of the Unknown

A short visual meditation, OF THE UNKNOWN is set in Hong Kong where millionaires and the ‘working poor’ live side by side in one of Asia’s wealthiest and most densely populated cities. The film explores how our notions of freedom and happiness are shaped by the place we occupy, both literally and metaphorically, in our society. What is the importance of freedom when one faces a daily struggle for survival? Is it even possible to have dreams, or to dream, if one was never given any opportunities in life? https://vimeo.com/113548756

Of the Unknown

NR 2014