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A Letter to A'ma

An art teacher returns to her childhood home to mourn the passing of her grandmother. As she pieces together the fragmented memories of her youth she finds herself coming face-to-face with the problematic issue of her country’s fractured history. Through an artistic duty that this teacher gives to students, a performance art process that has lasted for more than 10 years, a representational portrait of the island’s collective memory begins to emerge; and in so doing, these young artists have initiated a process by which Taiwan, an island forgotten by the world and in the midst of forgetting itself, can now remember itself and construct a new postcolonial identity through art.

A Letter to A'ma

3.0 2021
Will

Will is a kind of verbal symbolic balance sheet for life, in which we reconcile our material and immaterial possessions and pass on our message to the next generation. The poetic last words form the outline of the film composed of four segments reflecting in different ways on life against inevitable finality – whether it is a couple of young people walking through a Parisian cemetery, a video installation poetically pointing out the manifestations of mortality around us, a family filmed from the position of the grave while performing cemetery rituals, or the film director as the passive recipient of a farewell to life.

Will

NR 2021
With Each Passing Breath

Asakusa’s Mokubatei is the only theater in the Kanto region that regularly bills rokyoku—a form of narrative singing accompanied by shamisen. Backstage, a variety of lives intersect, and the art is passed down from practiced singers to the younger generation. The film’s main character is Minatoya Kosome. It follows Kosome from her growing enraptured by rokyoku singer Minatoya Koryu, then becoming the legend’s apprentice—until to the day she is formally announced as Koryu’s successor and namesake.

With Each Passing Breath

NR 2023
Chinbotsu Kazoku

In 1995, Hoko Kanou, a single mother, recruited people to jointly raise her children. About 10 people responded to the offer. Then, they decided the day in charge at the monthly meeting, and started joint childcare "Chinbotsukazoku" at an apartment in Higashinakano in Tokyo. It was Tsuchi Kanou, the director of this film, who was raised there. When he graduated from college, he met people who had raised himself, heard stories, and made films. That is “Chinbotsukazoku the movie”.

Chinbotsu Kazoku

NR 2019
Beijing Ants

Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji are the ‘main characters' in this very personal homemade documentary that's funny, angry, scary and stirring all at once. He's the Japanese director of the film; she's his wife and a prizewinning filmmaker in her own right. For independent artists and filmmakers, finding an affordable place to live with their young daughter is a never-ending struggle. A side effect of China's astonishing prosperity is sky-high property prices – about $10,000 per square metre in Beijing. The landlords, movers and neighbours they encounter seem bent on driving them nuts. But never underestimate the resilience, determination and lung power of enraged, protective young Chinese parents. Otsuka's sometimes concealed camera reveals intimately how life feels, from ground level, in urban China today.

Beijing Ants

NR 2013
Bangkok Beats: From Pop2Punk

In the capital of Thailand, the music-underground is exploding right now. That is what two German film makers found out during a two-month stay in Bangkok in 2003. The film portrays bands (Beargarden, Apartment Khun Ba, Som etc.) and labels (Smallroom, Bama, Panda, Hualampong Riddim) from the indie-scene, visits festivals and shows (Pattaya, NoisePop) and meets media (Fat Radio, Channel V), who support the Bangkok music scene. In interviews the highly creative protagonists of the local scene express their outlook on music, their conditions and what their work is about in their own words. The intention of making this film is to show to Western people what is going on in Thailand on the cultural side.

Bangkok Beats: From Pop2Punk

NR 2003
Standing on the Edge of Death

Unlike “trilogy on torn-down neighborhoods,” (The Sang-kye dong Olympics, Haengdang-dong People, and Another World We Are Making), Standing on the Edge of Death calmly describes how urban poverty was formed, how they live, and why more than 20 of them committed suicide at once in 1990. In this film, the director explains that people who moved from poor countryside formed urban slum, and because they did not have formal education or asset, they worked as day laborers. Residence was one particular problem they faced as they lost their main dwelling area due to redevelopment. They start their day at dawn and work till night. However, these hard-working people do not receive any recognition from the society.

Standing on the Edge of Death

NR 1990
Pai Niang Niang:  The Last Osmanthus Blossom

In March 1972, Rebecca Pan self-financed the production of the first ever Mandarin musical, Pai Niang Niang and performed for 60 times at Princess Theatre, Tsim Sha Tsui. This is not only a piece of history of Hong Kong art and culture, but also the most important milestone of Rebecca’s oeuvre. This work used the Broadway musical model to adapt the famous Chinese myth Legend of the White Snake. Bringing together Eastern and Western theatrical styles, the production combined Chinese traditional music, dance, costume and stage design with modern Western concepts. Despite this bold attempt, the resulting work was ahead of its time and was not a commercial success. Also, it was thought to have not been captured on film and faded into obscurity. In April 2023, however, a partial film record of the performance was miraculously discovered. The restored surviving footage has become the finale of this documentary, Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom.

Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom

NR 2025
Leo & Nymphia

The film focuses on Cao Liou, a 25-year-old drag queen. The explosive creative energy he delivers is stunning, but at the same time, he also displays his egotistical nature and wanton lifestyle. Director Pan Hsin An is the same age as Liou. He peeps into Liou’s life through a camera lens, questioning and exploring. During the filming process, the two often fail to understand each other, and each has his doubts about the other. But in the end, at opposite ends of the scale, they find the same desires behind huge differences.

Leo & Nymphia

NR 2022
Voodoo Girls

VOODOO GIRLS challenges Thailand's social taboos as filmmaker THUNSKA PANSITTIVORAKUL and his circle of college friends, talk openly about sex, gossiping and teasing each other as they discuss their past and present partners. Loaded with sexual innuendo, random objects and gestures assume new meaning, rendering even an artist's wooden mannequin a playful sexual energy. Roger Garcia Documentary in a form of home video, telling a story of the lives of 3 girl friends through a personal point of view.

Voodoo Girls

NR 2003
Almost Home

The feature directorial debut of Jiang Wenjie, cinematographer and editor of Keep Rolling, explores the inner lives of three female Hong Kong writers: Hon Lai-chu, Lee Wai-yi, and Human Ip. Though their styles and thematic concerns differ considerably, the film shows that their literary works are all informed by their immediate surroundings, whether that be a childhood home, the streets of Sham Shui Po, or the cattle and woods near Lai Chi Wo village. Time may inevitably erode everything in this city, but these writers continue to tell their hometown's stories in their own unique ways.

Almost Home

NR 2026
No Man Is an Island

From the world to Taiwan, 2020 has been filled with turbulent crises. This documentary records how anti-epidemic hotels play a vital role in the severe test of the COVID-19 epidemic, how they stand up, and what tests they encounter during the process. Director Chen Yujie spent 10 months recording the worries of Chinese people and students who returned from abroad when faced with an unfamiliar epidemic situation; the staff of the epidemic prevention hotel went from fear and fear to enthusiastic reception when they were entrusted with important tasks. From a perspective you have never seen before, every decision made in the battle against COVID-19 will be a piece of history deeply imprinted in your heart.

No Man Is an Island

NR 2022
A Whale of a Tale

Entering the political fray of environmentalism versus tradition raging a round the issue of dolphin hunting in Taiji, Japan since the 2009 release of The Cove, Megumi Sasaki’s documentary is the finely balanced film essay the frayed topic has been waiting for. Instead of propping up images of animal slaughter or beleaguered fishermen, A Whale of a Tale focuses on points of contact and communication between the two sides, foreign activists devoting years to the cause and agricultural workers who have developed a first-name familiarity. Sasaki (Herb & Dorothy) collaborates with journalist Jay Alabaster to examine the historical and material conditions that contributed to local whaling practice and the pressures of globalism and localism that keeps this issue in ideological deadlock—at least for now. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

A Whale of a Tale

9.0 2017
Howling into Harmony

Beijing is a city of endless noise, the roar of construction and gridlocked traffic never too far off. The capital is also home to a flourishing experimental music scene, where young Chinese respond to their surroundings with a cathartic racket. Howling into Harmony takes an intimate look at the lives of three local musicians and their parents, exploring the delicate balance between rock n' roll rebelliousness and family, Westernized culture and deeply-rooted nationalism. Using underground music as an entry point, the film explores the world of young Chinese in the big city.

Howling into Harmony

NR 2012
Mother, I've Pretty Much Forgotten Your Face

Pig heads, intestines, megaphones: all these and more have been thrown into crowds of loyal fans following the influential punk band THE STALIN or any of number of Michiro Endo's other bands since 1980. Taking a step in front of the camera, however, Endo offers a very different kind of encounter in this inspiring self-portrait. "Mother, I've Pretty Much Forgotten Your Face" follows the artist, a native of Nihonmatsu, Fukushima, on the 2011 nationwide solo tour celebrating his 60th birthday, which was interrupted by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Traveling, performing and talking with fellow musicians and activists, Endo reflects on the past and future of Fukushima, the legacy of Hiroshima, his upbringing and his feelings about his mother, communicated in the song from which the documentary is named.

Mother, I've Pretty Much Forgotten Your Face

NR 2016
Malaya War Record: A Record of the Onward March

A feature-length wartime documentary compiled by Nihon Eigasha, Malayan War Record: A Record of the Onward March chronicles Japan’s 1941–42 campaign from the Malayan Peninsula to the fall of Singapore. Built from Japanese newsreels and confiscated British material, the film depicts key operations and ceremonies surrounding the British capitulation at the Ford Factory, functioning as morale-boosting propaganda for home and occupied audiences. First part of the two-film Mare Senki series; the companion title is Birth of Syonan-to.

Malaya War Record: A Record of the Onward March

NR 1942