Documentary networking

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Rather than one curator’s brainchild, this year’s Taiwan International Documentary Festival (台灣國際紀錄片雙年展) is the fruit of international collaboration coordinated by Taiwanese festival director Jane Yu (游惠貞). The biennial showcase was mostly put together by the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan, the Asian Network of Documentary initiated by Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea, Doc Alliance in Europe and the Beijing Film Academy (北京電影學院).

In memory of Japan’s documentary heavyweight Noriake Tsuchimoto, who passed away in June this year, Yamagata Festival organized a retrospective program of the filmmaker’s 40-year artistic career. Tsuchimoto is best known for his series that records the lives of minamata disease sufferers, an illness caused by exposure to mercury. Not confined to his role as observer, the director and his camera come off as active participants in the victims’ and their families’ life-long struggle for justice.

A fine example of Tsuchimoto’s early works that vividly portray ordinary people, On the Road follows a cab driver who toils almost 24 hours a day and seven days a week during the 1960s. The film reveals a rarely seen Japan, one that was then on the road to developed nation status.

Films grouped in the Doc Alliance section focus on European societies, while Asian viewpoints can be found in the festival’s And program, which was launched in 2005 through collaboration between curators in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and China.

Past winners at the festival’s international competitions return with new works this year. Letter to Anna by Eric Bergktraut examines the life and death of the controversial Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006.

On a lighter tone, the festival will screen Maverick Mother, 39-year-old director Janet Merewether’s whimsical journey into single motherhood.

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