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Tsai interrupted his pre-production for The River to make this pioneering documentary for Taiwan's nascent AIDS-awareness campaign. Ignoring instructions to 'play down the gay angle', he centres the film on his own very candid conversations with two HIV+ young men. Sadly the identities of the interviewees have to be concealed, and so the freewheeling camerawork focuses most often on Tsai himself; but the sense of rapport between the director and his 'new friends' is palpable and very moving, even to Western viewers already only too familiar with these issues.

Entry on Taiwanese new-wave filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien for French television's "Cinéma, de notre temps" series, directed by Olivier Assayas.

In June, 1993 , the gravestone of Hsu Ching-Lan was finally found in Liuchangli by his brother after 40 years of searching. Hsu was killed by the KMT during the 'White Terror,' the organized suppression of leftist activities in Taiwan in the 1950s.

My Nostalgia, My Songs is a poetic documentary centered on Lin Hwai-min’s landmark dance work for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. The music, curated by iconic photographer Chang Chao-tang, weaves Taiwanese folk melodies into reflections on urban migration and collective memory. Through the cinematography and editing of Christopher Doyle, the stage becomes a cinematic space, transforming performance into a sensory meditation on Taiwanese identity and cultural displacement in the 1980s.

A disturbing close portrait of a young man who, like all other men in Taiwan, must enlist in the army. Dreaming of saving enough money to enter an Australian art college after having been discharged, he is gradually crushed by the corruption, the verbal violence, and the hypocrisy that festers in the military hierarchy.

Short film by Yi-wen Chen.

The Petrel Returns is the story about the pioneer of Taiwan modern dancer Ms. Tsai Ruiyue, who was born in Tainan, and had been educated in Japan. After she came back from Japan, she had met the famous poet Mr. Lei Shiyu, soon they were engaged and married while Ms. Tsai Ruiyue had decided to devoted her life to dance art and education.She has founded the first dance theater: Chung Hua Dance Theater which has encouraged many potential Taiwanese dancers after WWII.

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.

Since the early 1990s, there had been a deep concern in Taiwan about the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant (aka the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant). In 1994, a local referendum at Gongliao, where the nuclear power plant was to be built, was held and 96% of voters voted against its construction. Chung Mong-hong combined images from the resistance with that of Taiwan's local festivities and religious ceremonies. Juxtaposed in an experimental style and accompanied by Christian chants, these images appear fragmented but reference each other, before transitioning to a more social realist style. The work depicts the shifting urban landscape of Taipei, capturing the collective memories of the locals, demonstrating Chung’s unique and astute observation of the society.

The story of frivolous and lecherous emperor Qianlong's search for a morally upstanding person is told in a fashion that smartly fuses the puppet proscenium with the conventions of cinematic language. While everything is obviously arranged on a stage, the camera moves freely around in this environment, getting close to the puppets or setting them up in deep focus shots. The result is deeply enchanting, with the puppets soon feeling like living creatures of a very special kind, whose presence and company one cheerfully enjoys.

A documentary of an indigenous artist Pavavalung Sakuliu, who devotes himself to the cultural renaissance of the Paiwan culture, which is endangered throughout the past century when modern economy was introduced to Taiwan by the Japanese colonial government in 1895 and by the Nationalist government which took over Taiwan in 1945.

In this short filmed during Chung Mong-hong's study in the United States, a giant cross hovers above, as floating images of the city segue into the vast expanse on the beach where an exorcism is underway, with people holding crosses and self-flagellating, contrasting with the skyline on the other side of the city, the nostalgia and alienation of the sojourner. During the exorcism, a voice-over relates the varied reactions of the bystanders. What is ‘exorcism’, and how do symbols, sounds and imagery relate to each other? In this highly experimental work, Chung compares the director’s montage with the process of exorcism, offering an alternative interpretation and reconstruction of the film’s structure and narrative.

Following the lifting of martial law in 1987, Taiwan entered democratisation as grassroots movements flourished. Proposed by director Lee Daw-ming and funded by the Public Television Service, the film interviews key figures shaped by the Lukang Anti-DuPont Movement. Intended for broadcast, the film was suppressed by authorities and finally screened at the 2002 Taiwan International Documentary Festival.

This landmark dance film presents *Portrait of the Families*, a defining work by Lin Hwai-min and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, directed for screen by Chang Chao-Tang. *Portrait of the Families* is a mournful elegy for loss. Dancers move amid projections of nearly 200 historical Taiwanese photographs collected by Chang Chao-Tang and the voices of oral histories, evoking the deep scars and pain left by the 228 Incident and the White Terror. This film captures the original staging from the work’s 1997 premiere.

A documentary of taiwanese writer Lai He.

This is Taiwan's first documentary about comfort women. The audience gets a glimpse of history as 13 "grandmothers" speak of their unspeakable past, unknown even to their family, in front of the camera.

After the 921 earthquake, seven faculty members and students from Tainan National University of the Arts took cameras and went to six disaster-stricken areas to document and interview. They captured 13 hours of footage, which was structured into ten segments reflecting the grief, resilience, and lessons inspired by the earthquake.

In 1968, Taitung Hongye Little League defeated Japan's Wakayama Little League 7-0, which was a legendary story of that era. The barefooted children of the Bunun tribe used stones as balls and sticks as sticks to win Taiwan the glory of defeating Japan. But what's the truth behind the legend? Where is the legendary young player now? This film goes into the fog of the premature death of more than half of the players, not only the stigma of impostor, but also the lament of underappreciated talent, and the baseball dream of the next generation of children.

[Installation Art Decade Series-Crossing Huashan Wall (History, Ready-made Objects 1998) The Huashan Winery in Taipei City was designated as the first installation art exhibition of the Art and Cultural Special Zone. The background of abandoned factories and warehouses brings a special atmosphere to the film and is also fully utilized by artists.]

This documentary is about a group of people led by the anti-high artistic attitude of the underground culture of the end century during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1995 for three consecutive days and two nights, supported by the unprecedented courage of the Taipei County Cultural Center; the planning is broken.

My sister Pei-ling went through with an unexpected pregnancy. The child was nicknamed Angoo. In three years, Pei-ling broke up with the child's father, met a new boyfriend, left Angoo in my parents’ care to move in with her boyfriend, until she finally moved back in with our family due to the disapproval of her boyfriend's brother. The parent-daughter relationship was strained at first, but gradually things changed; understanding and love returned between them.

Part oral history, part reflection on a culture at risk of being erased, this documentary presents a deep dialogue between a 93-year-old Pangcah chieftain and an indigenous filmmaker. Through words and songs, hunting trips and weaving of vines, the elderly chieftain lives and embodies the ways of the Pangcah people. He also recounts his frustrated attempts in defending traditional culture against Taiwan's encroaching modernity.

The film explores the leadership system in lives of chiefs such as Rangalu who was sworn in as the Head of Santiman District, Taiwan, which consists of 10 villages with the population of 70,000, most of whom are indigenous Paiwan. The Paiwan people live in the mountain area of southern Taiwan. Their rich oral traditions and cultural traits are revealed in this unique film. The two director, Daw-ming Lee and Sakuliu Pavaavalung, exchange their views on political and economic issues.

Director TSENG occasionally began to record the daily life of her mother, out of the need of completing her documentary assignment at school. The films presents a mother's persistence when facing difficulties and her love for her children. In the meantime, interactions and conversations between mother and daughter are revealed spontaneously.

A documentary of taiwanese writer Yang Kui.

Wa-wa was my college classmate and we were in love. She dreamt about opening a shop at that time, so we returned to Guishan after graduation to fulfil her dream. I began to document the process with my camera. In the end, the dream was fulfilled and yet the dreamer was forever gone.

Charged with violation of the Water Act, the indigenous community living under the San-ying Bridge was forced to witness their shelters and homes being torn down by the government every year, while the sand and gravel processing plant on the east bank grew larger and larger; the garbage mountain on the west bank higher and higher. This absurd cycle became so familiar that the children of the community began to build and demolish make-believe houses as a game.

The first public gay wedding in Taiwan has stirred up considerable controversy, including a local campaign to ban this film. It tells the story of Yosheng and Gary, the first gay couple to have a public wedding in Taiwan. Their wedding was held in conventional Taiwanese fashion: a wedding banquet with friends and family and even the mayor of Taipei as the promised wedding moderator.

The East-West Highway was soon to be built in central Taiwan. It would pass through the village of Liu Ts'o, and many homes and rice paddies would be destroyed. The filmmaker, Hu Tai-Li, went back to her mother-in-law's village Liu Ts'o, where she did anthropological research from 1976-78, to preserve some images of life at that moment - forever.

An indigenous couple married young with a child when they were only 16 and 19 years old. The financial burden and challenges in life were so heavy for them that quarrels were unavoidable. As their former elementary school teacher, the filmmaker recorded the young couple’s daily life, while trying to give them a hand in their time of need.

In 1999, the Indigenous Culture Club at the National Taiwan University held a series of annual ceremony activities as a tribute to traditional indigenous rituals. Unfamiliar with their native languages and cultures, however, the student organizers found themselves in an awkward position that brought them into conflict with the school administration. Where would they find the “salt”, an in-depth understanding of their cultural identities and backgrounds?

A self-destructive and anxious 30-year-old man and his 26-year-old friend with a camera. It's a personal film about their relationship in the last years of a life - battling the HIV virus. The flamboyant man flirts with the camera while the filmmaker is tormented, forcing himself to go on filming. Their sincerity when facing the undefeatable facts is moving.

After restoring their Ceremony of Ancestral Spirits, the Atayal people of the Raisinay Village, Miaoli County, were distressed by the absence of their traditional garments. Yuma Taru, a researcher of Atayal folk costume, decided to trace back their history by conducting interviews with the elders, learning weaving techniques from them. This documentary captures the passing down of the weaving art, and the younger generation’s yearnings for revival of their traditional clothes.

Free market capitalism has not only effected the flow of capital but also the global migration of labor. Laborers cross national borders to “developed” or “developing” countries and take on low-paying job in the service sector. The growing number of international laborers and new immigrants, usually of various nations and ethnicity, has now begun to have certain impact on the host society. For example, in Taiwan, the lure if high income might subject them to the employer’s exploitations. And policy makers and employers rarely take into account their sense of displacement.

Mabanan is an Atayal settlement in Miaoli County, where the filmmaker was born. During the Japanese colonial rule, most of the indigenous community's land was expropriated and registered as state-owned forest. The Kuomintang (KMT) government later imposed even more restrictions on the use of the land. How would the Mabanan community reclaim their homeland when the government still refused to recognise proofs of residence of their ancestors?

A group of Pangcah people left their homeland in the eastern Taiwan to seek jobs on the western coast. They drifted from one construction site to another, until they finally settled on a temporarily unclaimed clearing behind a university, building a community far away from home. Despite the instability of work and earnings, they lived life to the fullest catching fish, growing vegetables, singing and dancing, even electing leaders of their community in this 'new paradise'.

Voices of Orchid Island focuses on the Yami on Orchid Island, a small island located 45 miles off the southeast coast of Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean.

Beginning with a woman describing traumatic scenes in her family, the film uses a non-linear and mise-en-abyme narrative to make it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction.

Around 1992, when Taiwan's documentaries had not yet sprouted, Chen Yingzhen produced a documentary about the 228 Incident, titled "Testimony February 28th", and compiled the testimonies into a book by Yeh Yun-wan.

Song of the Wanderer features a group of 'voiceless people', a part of the indigenous community in which the filmmaker resides. Due to frustrations with work, divorce, and life in general, they are often subject to isolation, emotional breakdowns, and even self-harm behaviours. The filmmaker engages them in genuine conversations, while inviting the viewer to listen to these 'voiceless people' sing: In their songs are their true feelings.

In 1949, the Nationalist government safely arrived in Taiwan, but the war between the Nationalists and the Communists continued to ravage the island of Kinmen. Situated between the two coasts, Kinmea was bombed by the Communist Chinese government on every odd-numbered day for over 20 years following the Battle of August 23. This island with an area of 140km^2 endured more than 970,000 bombs. Working with donations from over 300 island residents, local filmmaker Dong Cheng-Liang reveals this hidden history from the residents.

The Pangcah people living in the urban area used to compete and win the dragon boat race every year, but only as hired agents in a festival event of the Han Taiwanese. In 1995, a team of Pangcah contestants decided to compete in the race under the names of their community and homeland, 'C'roh of Yuli, Hualien', striving for glory to honour their true origin.

The abandoned farmhouse beside Shuangxi outside Taipei seems to be wandering on the edge of the city. This is the base of Ruiming Band. During the day, these people have their own identities. The lead guitarist Zheng Zhaoting (Abo) is in the daycare class, the bassist Yang Dongliang (Dong Niang) is a photojournalist, the drummer Han Ligang has no specific job, and the rhythm guitar player Dai Chongyuan (Senior) drives a taxi. Every night on holiday, they come here to rehearse. With their dreams of music, they relieve their discomfort with society. Can music be a meal? Is there any other meaning to life besides making money? The director fell into this fog with them, revealing nihilistic yet true confessions.

The entire world was thrown into war in the 1940s. Taiwan, still a Japanese possession, was swept into the war when Japan started the War of the Pacific. Hundreds of thousands of youth from Taiwan were conscripted into the army, and sent to the South Pacific. The cruel experiences of war are unforgettable in all their life.

Suna and Bunny, a lesbian couple, are planning their wedding on the last day of 1999. They want to invite their close friends to join the celebration of their love. However, the wedding is called off after their sudden breakup. When the ex-lovers get together for the documentary shooting, it seems like they still have feelings for each other…

In the 1920s, a Kavalan family took refuge in Hualien. 70 years later, the filmmaker, a third-generation member of the family, embarked on a self-searching journey to recover his lost identity, producing the first documentary ever made by a Pingpu descendant. Through depiction of traditional Kavalan ceremonies and collective memories, the film asks us to recognise Pingpu peoples’ place in Taiwanese history, as well as their suffering and feelings of inferiority during years of forced migration.

In the 1990s, foreign migrant workers began to occupy the Taiwanese workforce under the government’s new policy. Many indigenous labourers lost their jobs and were forced to return to their homelands, squeezing out a living on odd jobs, frustrated and powerless. Please Give Us a Job records their unheard voices against a backdrop of economic growth, and observes the rivalry and tension between foreign workers and indigenous workers.

In the Atayal mythology, the souls of the deceased arrive in Heaven by way of the rainbow, yet only the ones who have the traditional face tattoo would be welcomed by the Ancestral Spirits. Seeing the decline of this Atayal tradition, the filmmaker interviews tattooed tribal elders, capturing their longing for lost family, friends and homelands, as well as their feelings about their impending return to the rainbow.