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The Poem, My Old Mother

In a small rural village in Jeollanam-do, senior ladies learn to read and write from Mrs. Kim at a 'Sall Library at the Road,' a community library and learning center. When they were young, they couldn't go to school because their families were poor. Getting married, they couldn't make time for their education while raising their children and supporting family. After the long and suffering years, they finally have an opportunity for education, a chance to tell their stories with their own words. Their beautiful works were published as a book in 2016. The documentary follows the senior poets' daily lives as they write about their lives of joy, laughter, tears, and happiness.

The Poem, My Old Mother

NR 2019
Raging Land 3: Three Valleys

After the anti-express rail protests, Choi Yuen Village’s struggle did not end with the railway project approval. Villagers shifted from fighting demolition to painstakingly relocating and rebuilding their community. In 2011, they planned the new village together—including house design, sewage, and land use—while facing government pressure to move out by November. Road access issues caused additional worries. As demolition began, villagers stood together to protect their homes and demanded time to build before moving. By May 2011, villagers left their longtime homes for makeshift housing on newly bought farmland, continuing their collective effort. Their unity in overcoming countless challenges set an example for other rural communities and shows that real resistance is a long journey requiring ongoing attention.

Raging Land 3: Three Valleys

NR 2013
Trial and Error

This Anti-ELAB (Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill) Movement documentary short takes us back to the airport occupation on 12 August 2019. Although this new form of protest soon turned into a crisis, it became an important lesson for the protesters. Compared to the tension inside the airport terminal, the long walk home at sunset on the Lantau highway, which connects the Hong Kong International Airport to the residential areas, felt like a reminiscence of a school field trip.

Trial and Error

6.0 2020
100 Million People Adrift The Ripples of China's Urban Upheaval

In 2014, under the "new type of urbanization" plan, a nationwide urban village renovation program was rolled out, affecting about 100 million people. At the same time, the residency permit policy, which is seen as a transitional means of "household registration reform," began to be fully implemented, claiming that it would give migrant workers benefits almost equal to those enjoyed by the urban household population, but the migrant workers, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries, were not convinced. For them, the massive demolition and relocation have destroyed their only cheap living environment in the city, and the price they need to pay to "become a city dweller" is too high for them to afford, so they prefer to wander without a home.

100 Million People Adrift The Ripples of China's Urban Upheaval

NR 2014
My Wedding Album

Wedding photos are the development of emotions. The unique cultural etiquette and true temperament of the Chinese society are all recorded in the wedding photos. It makes everyone believe that this is a dream factory that can exchange money for concrete happiness. Before entering into marriage, the prince and princess are looking forward to a happy and happy love and future. On the other side, the couple who are already in marriage, what they hear is a frank conversation between them. Looking back at the photo that symbolizes the marriage contract, what kind of form does the "intimacy", "happiness", or "love" between the two transform into?

My Wedding Album

NR 2019
A Pile of Ghosts

What is real and what isn’t in a replicated city? Ella Raidel made this penetrating ghost-town film in contemporary China, interweaving actors and ordinary people, sets and footage of the city. Aren’t the real estate agents, construction workers and investors simply playing a game? What remains of reality in a world dominated by the vagaries of capitalism? A Pile of Ghosts is a mysterious puzzle where the dividing line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred. In this strange world, subjected to speculation, it actually doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

A Pile of Ghosts

NR 2021
Shattered Dreams

There are more than 320 thousand migrant workers legally hired in Taiwan, among them more than half are from Thailand. To these migrant workers, working abroad in Taiwan is a risky gamble. If they win, they can pay back large amount of brokerage fee and earn some money to support their families. The three Thai workers from northeastern Thailand in this film, however, weren't so lucky. The electronic factory that they'd been working was suddenly closed down. The owner of the factory simply said that he could not afford to pay the salaries of the 100 domestic workers and 100 migrant workers. The Thai workers were eventually deported back to Thailand after fighting futilely for their rights with other migrant and domestic workers. Their dreams of earning money were totally shattered. Some of them were deeply in debt. Would they give up their hopes in earning money from working abroad because of their bad experiences in Taiwan?

Shattered Dreams

NR 2003
YP1967

Everyone has their secrets. Everyone has the past no one’s heard about. But what makes an entire generation sit in stunned silence with unmentionable hesitation to talk about their past? Even the past was 50 years ago. Five decades after the Hong Kong leftist riots, six ex-young prisoners speak out for the first time about their personal and unmentionable experience. Documentary film YP1967 is about their love and hate towards their country, their honour and dishonour as a convicted criminal, their condonation and condemnation of the parties involved, and their truth-seeking and reconciliation with the past.

YP1967

NR 2017
Under the Split Light

Hakka, a special and little-known ethnic group in Hainan, is a branch of the Chinese Hakka system that has been neglected. They are far from the mainland, and they are rarely mentioned. The relatively closed environment has allowed the Central Plains culture to be completely preserved. After that, it has formed a special change with the ethnic minorities such as Li Miao. However, this unique traditional culture is now fading away in the erosion of modern civilization.

Under the Split Light

NR 2011
When the Dawn Comes

Chi Chia-wei used to give away condoms during the 80s while dressing as Snow White, Jesus or the mummy. His activism received attention from the media and suffered discrimination from the general public. As a volunteer striving to make more people understand AIDS, he organized a press conference at which he came out, becoming the first person in Taiwan to do it. In 2017, a constitutional ruling made him a hero in the gay community. A 30-year struggle seemed to reach its final destination or a new starting point

When the Dawn Comes

NR 2021
The Spirit of 8

At the age of eight, the now 25-year-old director caused an incident, which has remained traumatic as he became older. Although it seemed just a trivial matter, something one might expect from children, he obstinately questions his family, friends and teachers about what happened at that time. Worrying over the thoughts of dishonor he saw in his family’s eyes then, he has fostered a self-hatred over the years. As if reconstructing the past with his camera, he attempts to free himself of this self-hatred, shedding tears for himself at times and opening his own wounds, then healing them. What he has discovered through filmmaking was his once sealed “self.” The question now is, where to go from here?

The Spirit of 8

NR 2003
The Other Hiroshima: Korean A-bomb Victims Tell Their Story

Living in a slum damaged by the atomic bomb and watching elderly first-generation zainichi hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) pass away one after another, Pak felt compelled to break their silence with this documentary, her first. Using up all her savings and going into debt, she teamed up with cinematographer Otsu Koshiro and collected these testimonials from zainichi North and South Koreans living in Hiroshima and South Korean hibakusha visiting Japan for medical treatment.

The Other Hiroshima: Korean A-bomb Victims Tell Their Story

NR 2005
A Time for Dogs and Cats

This year is 2017 and South Koreans are baffled by news reports about growing numbers of stray dogs gathering in packs in the capital Seoul. Sightings of these packs have been reported in hillside areas. A film crew investigates, heading to Baeksa Village. The village is one of Seoul’s last remaining hillside communities. It had been earmarked for redevelopment, but plans stalled. The crew discovers a village full of mainly abandoned houses whose owners have long since moved away. In many cases, the crew finds, owners have left their cats and dogs behind to fend for themselves. The film-makers capture the lives of these strays – as well as the efforts of musicians who hope a thrilling concert will make a difference. What will become of these poor cats and dogs – and the people trying to help them?

A Time for Dogs and Cats

3.0 2020
Hidden Contamination

The 20 km zone surrounding the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was designated an evacuation zone due to the radiation caused by the accident in March 2011. However, the thousands of people of Itate, situated just outside the zone, and those who had fled the area and taken shelter there were left to their own devices for over a month. Later on Itate became a restricted area and the residents were allowed only visits having to leave the area for good. The place became a ghost town, as it was too close to the Zone and many pets and farm animals are stranded there. There are said to be 150~200 dogs, 400~800 cats, 50 chickens and a pig although the exact numbers are unknown. The public interest in the accident has all but gone but there is one man who still cares what happens to those animals.

Hidden Contamination

NR 2015
The World of the Siberians

Tsuchimoto made this travelogue film in 1967, documenting a five-month journey from the port city of Nakhodka on the coast of the Sea of Japan, to Moscow on the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Beautifully shot in colour, Tsuchimoto moves the camera from celebrations and official parades to the expressions of ordinary daily life, portraying the experiences of young people in Siberia. This commissioned film was televised, but this theatrical version was never released, and it is rarely shown.

The World of the Siberians

NR 1968
Bursting Balsam Flower: My Chikuho, My Korea

Having spent her childhood in Dalian and Harbin in the former state of Manchukuo, Taeko Tomiyama carried within her the conviction: “As an Asian, as a woman, I will begin from the margins of beauty.” Noriaki Tsuchimoto, on the other hand, directed numerous films related to Minamata disease. He confronted the suffering of pollution victims head-on, continuing to convey the harshness of life with unflinching clarity. In an interview, Tsuchimoto once remarked: “Within Tomiyama’s narrative world lies something that could be called her eros, her utopia, her aesthetics of liberation. Why does she persist in creating such dark lithographs on the themes of Chikuho and Korea? And how is it that, while doing so, she can also simultaneously depict a world of such beauty?” This film not only reveals the allure of the lithographs themselves, but also centers on the dialogue between Tsuchimoto and Tomiyama. It is a portrait of two comrades, earnestly pursuing the meaning of artistic expression.

Bursting Balsam Flower: My Chikuho, My Korea

NR 1984
Along the Way

Childhood is a dagger lodged in the throat. Spending childhood under the pressure of academic success, there was no happiness to be found. It wasn't until I grew up and started filming my family that I discovered my mother's body and mind had long aged and shattered. As my heart broke with each merciless verbal attack, who could return to my mother her lost youth? A mother and daughter, loving and clashing, after over twenty years together, finally willing to face the long-standing issues between them.

Along the Way

NR 2024
Sinking Latitude

Considering the underground as both a metaphor and a manifest reality, Zheng’s film Sinking Latitude focuses on a myth about underground flooding. The city where the story takes place (Zigong city in the Sichuan province, China) has a history of salt mining that spans more than 2000 years, and generations of residents who have lived there have passed down a prophetic myth for centuries–that due to excessive mining, the city's underground has long been hollowed out and depleted, filling with salty brine, and that one day, when an earthquake occurs, an underground flood of salty liquid, the mine itself, will surge out and engulf the city.

Sinking Latitude

NR 2024
Everything That Connects Us

All That Connects Us is a documentary on the theme of transmission. It addresses the universal questions of our roots, our history, that of our family, the bond that unites and sometimes separates. How can we build ourselves and what can we pass on to our children when part of our past is unknown to us? This film is the story of the passing of the baton from a mother with her baggage as a Korean adoptee, to her teenage daughter, at a time when identity construction is at its peak, a pivotal and delicate period of breaking with childhood.

Everything That Connects Us

NR 2024
Thirty Something

In a small city in northeast China, few people close to their thirties, are facing their own problems: changing jobs, getting married, buy a house, job promotion ...... to face life, the reality, and face the change in China. How are they going to position themselves, and how are they going to respond. Perhaps their respective issues is not just about the individual, but as a generation born after the reform and opening up of China. When reaching their thirties, there is inevitably too much gap, unwilling and helpless. At thirty, thirty have to set it up in where? This year has already went past unknowingly.

Thirty Something

NR 2014
A Year in the Clouds

High in the mountains of Taiwan, is the remote village of Smangus. Inhabited by a unique group of indigenous people called the Tayal, Smangus is the only place in Taiwan that now practices common ownership of land and property. This is a place where nature and man have found balance. Now, witness every part of the lives of these people, through pain and joy, and experience the unique bonds formed with the ancient trees around them, in a film that documents A Year In The Clouds - a year amongst the sacred forests of this tribe.

A Year in the Clouds

8.0 2011