13 Matches Found
A short experimental documentary directed by Chang Chao-Tang (張照堂) during his tenure at the China Television Company (中國電視公司) for the program News Highlights (新聞集錦). Using an abstract visual approach, Chang captures the printmaker Liao Shiou-Ping (廖修平) in his thirties, at the height of his creative vigor. The film is entirely without narration and is accompanied by composer Chou Wen-Chung’s (周文中) modernist piece "Cursive" (草書).
An intimate two-person portrait of painter Hsieh Hsiao-te (謝孝德) and his illiterate, self-taught sculptor father Hsieh Chin-shou (謝金壽), exploring urban-rural tensions, generational differences, and divergences in their choice of media. A short documentary from Chang Chao-tang’s (張照堂) tenure on the China Television Company’s News Highlights (新聞集錦) program.
Viewers are transported back in time to 1974 to see the annual Taoist celebration of the Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage. Thousands of participants accompany a statue of the goddess Mazu, who protects seafarers, on a 9-day, 8-night procession, stopping at several prominent temples along the way. The religious pilgrimage is a round-way journey from the Zhenlan Temple in Dajia, Taichung City to Fengtian Temple in Xingang of Chiayi County on the Western plains of Taiwan. The mesmerising festival takes place every year during the third lunar month and still attracts large masses to this day. The audio track of the film was once banned under the Kuomintang (KMT) due to the film’s inclusion of spoken Hokkien (Taiwanese), giving viewers at the time an altered and suppressed understanding of the event and its cultural significance in Taiwan. Viewers now can revel in the beauty of the Taiwanese language and see the film for the true spirit that it captures.
In this landmark 1977 documentary, narrator Ronald Eyre journeys to Taiwan to explore the vibrant and complex world of Chinese folk religion. Facilitated by the pioneering team behind ECHO Magazine—Linda Wu (吳美雲), Huang Yong-song (黃永松), and Yao Meng-chia (姚孟嘉) —the film captures a rare and precious glimpse of 1970s Taiwan, a time when ancient spiritual traditions remained deeply woven into the fabric of daily life. From the thunderous temple festivals and the mystical trances of spirit mediums to the quiet ancestral rites in family halls, "A Question of Balance" examines how the pursuit of the "Way" (the Tao) provides a sense of cosmic harmony amidst a modernizing society. It stands as a definitive visual record of a vanishing era, showcasing the enduring power of Taoist belief and its diverse pantheon of deities.
A short documentary directed by Chang Chao-Tang (張照堂) while working as a cameraman at China Television Company (中國電視公司), produced for the television program News Highlights (新聞集錦). The film documents the group exhibition “Womangraphy” (「女展」), organized by V-10 (Group Visual-10).
In the late 1970s, public concern over cultural heritage preservation began to emerge in Taiwan. During his tenure at China Television Company (中國電視公司), Chang Chao-Tang (張照堂) produced a special feature for the news program “Sixty Minutes” (《六十分鐘》), documenting sites including the Chen Residence in Yongjing, Changhua (彰化永靖陳厝), the Ye Family Octagonal House in Yanshui, Chiayi (嘉義鹽水葉厝八角樓), the tomb of Zheng Chonghe in Houlong, Miaoli (苗栗後龍鄭崇和墓園), the tomb of Wang Delu in Xingang, Chiayi (嘉義新港王得祿墓園), and the controversial relocation of the Lin An-Tai Historic House in Taipei (台北林安泰古厝). Filmed with Christopher Doyle (杜可風) and featuring interviews with Ma Yi-Kung (馬以工) and Lee Chien-Lang (李乾朗), the program documented the growing tensions between modernization, urban development, and historical preservation in postwar Taiwan.
When Taipei is still quiet and asleep, trucks after trucks emerge in the dark with fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood and meat. Intermediate wholesalers' auction chants rise and fall; the Central Market is getting ready to feed the city's population. The film offers a glimpse into the lively hustle and bustle of the Market in the 1970s, but was likely banned from broadcast due to its perceived display of the unhygienic conditions.
A train rolled into Tamsui, a charming harbour town full of historical and cultural complexity. European-style architecture tells its colonial past, while Fujianese immigrants' influence stays present in local people's everyday life. Celebrated photographer and cinematographer CHANG Chao-tang captured Tamsui in the 1970s on film, creating a nostalgic yet melancholic concerto played by missionaries, fishermen, and tourists.
Documenting Taiwan’s first large-scale postwar outdoor concert, this film revisits the 1978 Grass Field Charity Concert, an unprecedented gathering of over 4,000 people. Organized by singer and television host Yang Tsu-Chun (楊祖珺) during the height of the island’s folk song movement, the event foregrounded music’s relationship with everyday life rather than overt political messaging. Yet its significance was inseparable from the era’s tensions: Yang’s self-titled album had recently been banned for the perceived “left-wing” social consciousness of her lyrics, and despite the concert’s stated charitable intent, its scale and popular appeal drew the scrutiny of Kuomintang (KMT) intelligence agencies. Framed against late-1970s Taiwan, the film documents how music, public space, and cultural expression intersected under authoritarian surveillance, marking a pivotal moment in the history of popular music and collective gathering.
This short documentary portrays Chang Yingwu (1921–1984), a man whose extraordinary body became a site where medicine, spectacle, and state power intersected. Born in Beijing and later relocated to Taiwan, Chang lived with acromegaly, reaching a height far beyond ordinary human scale. Once exhibited, later enlisted, and eventually turned into a public figure through sport and media, his life traces how an anomalous body is disciplined, displayed, and normalized by social institutions. Filmed with restraint rather than sensationalism, the work observes Chang’s daily gestures and silences, allowing his presence to expose the fragile boundary between individuality and social gaze.
Archive / Lee Guang-Hui is a 30-minute compilation film assembled from footage independently preserved by Chang Chao-Tang between 1975 and 1979 during his work as a television cameraman. Documenting the final years of Lee Guang-Hui—an Indigenous Taiwanese former Japanese soldier who lived in isolation in Indonesia for nearly three decades after World War II—the film traces his return to Taiwan, brief media exposure, and death. Neither a conventional documentary nor a completed historical account, the work functions as an unfinished archive, juxtaposing official rituals, media spectacle, and moments of silence to expose the erasure of subjectivity and the unresolved fractures of postwar history.
Shot by Chang Chao-Tang and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, The Boat Burning Festival captures the ceremony worshipping Wangye（王爺）, the local god of plague, held every three years in Sucuo Village（蘇厝） in Tainan（台南）, Taiwan. Chang timed the work to "Ommadawn", a Celtic-inspired progressive rock album by Mike Oldfield. Defying genre conventions and deviating stylistically from television or ethnographic documentary, the film testifies to the tense and complex coexistence of traditional rites, local folklore, and discourses about modernisation and identity in 1970s Taiwan.
Once essential on rainy days in Taiwan, the handcrafted oil-paper umbrella from Meinung,was not only a symbol of local craftsmanship but also a major source of livelihood. However, as Taiwan rapidly shifted toward an industrial and commercial economy in the 1980s, mass-produced plastic umbrellas replaced these meticulously made paper ones. What was once a daily necessity gradually became a nostalgic cultural artifact. Today, a handful of long-established artisans continue to follow traditional methods. With patience and precision, they craft each umbrella by hand. Though its original function has faded, their emotional bond with the craft remains unchanged. Their dedication and skilled workmanship reflect a deep-rooted respect for materials and tradition, preserving a vanishing heritage one umbrella at a time.