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Grace Period

Combining documentary with experimental video, "Grace Period" documents the activities of female sex workers in the Yeongdeungpo red-light district in Seoul, South Korea. Facing constant police crackdowns and the threat of permanent closure following the opening of a massive shopping complex adjacent to their workplaces, the women of Yeongdeungpo band together in protest. Archival footage, mostly shot by the women themselves, shows their collective efforts as they organize with other sex workers from brothels across the country. In creative and daring acts of resistance, they launch a series of demonstrations that trace a lineage to Korea's democratic union movements of the 1980s-- denouncing the government and corporate interests, demanding decriminalization, and declaring their rights as workers.

Grace Period

NR 2015
My Grandfather Liu Wencai

In the first 30 years of the PRC, in order to maintain and consolidate CCP’s rule, political campaigns were frequently launched. Landowner Liu Wencai’s home in Sichuan province became the "Landlord Manor Exhibition Hall," serving to educate people about the class struggle. Tens of thousands visited daily. The cluster of sculptures entitled "Rent Collection Courtyard" was the subject of a documentary film and the prototype for copies of statues exhibited across the country. The overwhelming media publicity turned Liu Wencai into the representative of the "heinous crimes" of the landlord class and he became a household name, influencing several generations. Liu Xiaofei, grandson of Liu Wencai, has suffered from injustice since his childhood and began his interviews and investigations into this catastrophe for his family twenty years ago, in order to “clear” the charges against his grandfather and restore the historical truth.

My Grandfather Liu Wencai

NR 2023
Wonderpole

​At 46 years old, she's been supporting her children and husband. Kyung-ah, a housewife who wants to be a woman instead of a mother! Ji-young, a Korean language instructor who has been naturally frail and sickly since she was a child! After meeting pole, she becomes a master pole dancer! Hwa-young, an actress who was most afraid of her talent at the audition! Pole dancing is now her specialty! For them, pole dancing is no longer just a hobby, but a way of life! Follow the ups and downs of the average 40-year-old pole dancers as they face the challenges of the 2021 PICK Pole Dance Competition!

Wonderpole

NR 2023
Classmates

Twenty plus classmates look back into the past, tracing back through a 30 year history. One after another adapts to the random events that come to shape their lives, to the four seasons of life and nature. The years they were about experience coincided with the reforms and opening up of China. Floating in the changes of the new era, some experience compromises and the loss of ideals, whilst some keep struggling ahead with great determination. Thirty years later, Lin Xin encounters his old classmates, and records their individual lives and history; the ease of monotony, the loneliness of success, the weariness of a life of plentiful, the helplessness of poverty... all come forth in the lives of these group of people, becoming an epitome of the lives of ordinary people in small to middle-sized cities in this era, and at the same time reflecting on a generation that advances forward undefeated.

Classmates

NR 2009
Self Portrait: Birth in 47 KM

Between 1959 and 1961, more than 35 million people starved to death because of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies. To avoid censorship in China, this painful period is now euphemistically referred to as the “Three Years of Natural Disasters.” This courageous oral history, directed by Zhang Mengqi, tells the story from the point of view of her grandfather’s village, to which she returns every winter to interview survivors. Central is moving voice-overs from a grandmother who details harrowing pregnancies and lonely births during the Great Famine and her granddaughter, a migrant worker. In this agricultural village, the landscape is stark yet beautiful with plenty of room for contemplation. When a hand appears in front of the camera, Zhang transitions into a delightfully playful territory, incorporating a uniquely participatory experience that extends beyond the screen.

Self Portrait: Birth in 47 KM

NR 2016
White Elephant in the River

"Was it the President who ordered the rivers to be six meters deep?" In 2008, under President Lee Myung-bak's administration, South Korea's Four Major Rivers Restoration Project turned the country's beautiful rivers into scenes of devastation. What were once pristine first-grade waters became lifeless rivers, choked with toxic green algae emitting foul odors. Crops irrigated with this contaminated water are now served on the table of Korean people. The government disguised a grand canal project as river restoration, and the media turned a blind eye — together enabling one of the greatest environmental destructions in Korean history. The consequences of this deception will be borne by future generations. To ensure that future generations can once again run freely along the rivers, we must act—now. We must make Korea's rivers flow again.

White Elephant in the River

NR 2025
Nude at Heart

A background study of a dying amusement culture, filmed in slovenly dressing rooms in front of badly polished make-up mirrors. – That’s how far editor Mary Stephen follows director Yoichiro Okutani’s montage interpretation of his own footage about the Japanese strippers called Odoriko. But Stephen’s editor’s cut begins fully dressed: a tastefully lit stage overture in costume, starting from which she rearranges or rather sheds the material, reintegrating image and sound sequences originally discarded by Okutani, for example the titular statement of an Odoriko explaining her choice of profession: “It was about being nude at heart.”

Nude at Heart

NR 2021
Rip It Up!

It is criticized that the resident card, which has been implemented since 1968, is in fact only a fascistic system of state power to classify and control the people. Fingerprinting is the most essential part of the control process, and the work explains that only after completing the humiliating fingerprinting process can you enjoy your rights and duties as a 'citizen'. The director is a person who has participated in the opposition to fingerprinting since May 2000. The movement of the work follows Lee's struggle leading up to the administrative lawsuit, intersecting the arguments of the government and the logic of opponents of the resident card.

Rip It Up!

NR 2001
Divine Doctor

Guan Kuanyi is seventy-six years old this year, and is the only surviving shaman of the Elunchun. Every first or fifteenth day, Guankani put tribute on the throne and worshiped the gods in the traditional way. After recovering from an illness, Guan Kuanyi had a mindset and hoped that in his lifetime, he could find a shaman's heir and inherit this ancient religious culture. But the young people no longer believe in the gods, which has become the biggest obstacle for Guan Kanni to find his heir. She focused on her daughter, Daisy, and her son, Rongrong ... Recording Notes November 22, 2007 In the morning, the world has become quiet, silent, simple and pure. I began to enter the state, into the world of shaman.

Divine Doctor

NR 2011
HOMECOMING

In a city that worships money, there is a group of people who still insist on living the philosophy of "people are not living on food alone." Instead of choosing to live in seclusion, they choose to actively enter the world, improve their hearts, and influence others through artistic creation. Their innovation has not only driven the art world in Hong Kong but more importantly, through their enthusiasm for creation, they have made us understand that as long as we have a "heart", no matter how difficult the environment is, we can persist in a "love".

HOMECOMING

NR 2014
Indie Games in China

The filming of the movie began in 2016, starting at the closing ceremony of "indiePlay China Indie Games Competition". The movie focuses on independent game developers, some of whom won the prize at the ceremony while others didn't, and their dissimilar life experiences afterwards: disbanded or reorganized, bankruptcy or fortune, achieved hilarious comeback or withdrew from public. They all once dedicated to make games they love, but their future varies on their thoughts.

Indie Games in China

5.0 2018
Rainbow Cruise

Many people lack knowledge of sexual minorities, and even hold prejudices about and discriminatory attitudes towards them. This public welfare documentary focuses on the life stories of sexual minorities. The characters are at different stages, including those who have come out, those who are married, and those who are waiting for the legalization of gay marriage to obtain certification. This film promotes knowledge of sexual minorities in society, advocates for healthy living, and helps exual minorities realize their self-identity, hoping to reduce the occurrence of social prejudice and enhance understanding, trust, and tolerance between people.

Rainbow Cruise

7.0 2020
The Speech of Prime Minister Tanaka

The only surviving film produced by Showa Kinema, the first company of pioneering sound-film producer Yoshizo Minagawa, records a speech by conservative Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka, who served from from 1927 to 1929, when he resigned after a dispute with the Emperor. The film features Tanaka standing in front of black drapes, talking directly into the camera as he presents his position on issues ranging from the economy to diplomacy and foreign policy. The identity of the cameraman is unknown, as is the exact date of shooting, but the film passed state censorship on February 6th, 1928, shortly before elections for the House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s Diet. As a historical record, the film is important since it not only constitutes Japan's earliest surviving sound film, but also provides a record of concerns central to Japanese politics in the late 1920s.

The Speech of Prime Minister Tanaka

NR 1928
SWA: Source Within Inner Wealth

SWA: the ‘Self’ is metaphorically hidden in a multi layered 5 sheath formation of interlocking caves we lose touch with our true subtle selves, when we identify with a fluctuating mind and the multiplicity of a manifest reality the film explores a vision... to experience and merge with the Universal Absolute; is the culmination of Inner Spiritual Wealth we need to be at peace with ‘Wholeness’ thus in our lucid states of meditation... our consciousness experiences a joyful sharing of the same space as the ETERNAL INFINITE; an eternal infinite, that supports all mutations... the effortless sublime state of ‘Samadhi’ we are enlightened... as the film, elevates human consciousness

SWA: Source Within Inner Wealth

NR 2021
South of the Mountains

The sandstorm has covered the land and sky as far as the eye could see. As it wasn't viable to leave the task until the next day, the salt finder and the rock finding team continue their work in the Gobi Desert, dispatching smaller units to gather at the temporary transfer station. When it came close to supper time, the sandstorm has engulfed the entire base. The sky appeared a magenta color and grey green. Spinning at the tallest point of the mountain was a giant white cloud. Going from the cloud downwards, at the south side of the mountain, was an endless Gobi Desert, where a 750 hectares (1800 acres) ecological base was slowly being constructed. Video practice, sampling the topography, where does the depth of field lead in the image and sound? In the immortal desert, nothing decays. Everything weathers and turns to dust.

South of the Mountains

NR 2019
All Live, Olive

Wizdan lives in the rural village of Sebastia. Both their parents are olive farmers. With the expansion of Israeli settlements, Wizdan's and Nidal's parents are losing their farmland, but the problem is not theirs alone. But many Palestinians have been living in refugee camps for almost 70 years, and the fourth generation of refugees are growing up in refugee camps today. They struggle to guard their land despite repeated humiliation, and the film focuses on the resistance of such ordinary Palestinians including Wizdan's family.

All Live, Olive

NR 2017
Underground Chinese Hip-Hop - The Rap Pioneers of China

'Chinese Hip-Hop Underground' is an insider documentary following the story of Weber - one of Mainland China's first rappers. Weber's uncanny musical talents allow him to spearhead the creation of Chinese rap music - a free form of creative self-expression that spreads like wildfire amongst those struggling the most; young working class students and grassroots migrants left out of the country's meteoric rise. Even while Weber's music electrifies China's youth and gains a huge following, he is challenged by enemies posing a threat to his musical existence: state censors, on the one hand, and armies of state-backed pop stars seeking to steal the name of hip-hop for their own gain, on the other. Can Weber and underground musicians like him survive this assault? Will Underground Chinese hip-hop survive?

Underground Chinese Hip-Hop - The Rap Pioneers of China

NR 2012
Forgotten Warriors

A documentary about the unconverted long-term women prisoners who had been captured as communist guerillas in South Korea and despite decades of imprisonment and social ostracization continue to uphold their cause of reunification and national democracy. The film follows the women as they attend reunification rallies, meet with a new generation of activists, march in protest of the war in Iraq, visit the DPRK to take part in the Inter-Korean Women’s Reunification Rally, reminisce with their comrades, tend to their families, and bury their comrades.

Forgotten Warriors

NR 2005