Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival (TIEFF, 2009台灣國際民族誌影展) curator Lin Wen-ling (林文玲) drew on her experience of illness to settle on the themes of this year’s edition: the body, disease and healing.
“Being ill changes the way one senses and perceives the world,” Lin said. “The dominant Western medial system is by no means the only model to care for the body. Different cultures have developed different ideas ... regarding the body, mind and soul.”
People Say I’m Crazy examines how schizophrenia is treated and understood in the US. The film’s director, John Cadigan, and his sister, who co-directed, will attend a question-and-answer session after tomorrow’s screening.
Taiwanese filmmaker Yang Jen-tso (楊仁佐) studied Hansen’s disease for 10 years, which resulted in the documentary Leprous Life (時間的牢籠).
Leprous Life complements Lady Camellia, a South Korean documentary about a former Hansen’s disease sufferer who, aged four, was quarantined on Sorok Island.
Shamanism takes center stage in several documentaries that fix the lens on traditional beliefs and practices linking the spiritual and corporal worlds.
Living With the Invisibles follows a group of Moroccan women who believe they are being targeted by malevolent spirits and practice rituals to rid themselves of the perceived affliction.
In The Shadow, Wana shamans from Sulawesi, Indonesia, diagnose diseases by observing patients’ shadows and cure them by insufflation.
Films made by Aboriginal directors about their own communities have become the focal point of the biennial festival, which aims to change the conventional perception of ethnographic filmmaking that consists of outsiders making documentaries on exotic groups.
WHAT: 2009 Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival: Body and Soul
(2009台灣國際民族誌影展)
WHEN: Today through Oct. 6
WHERE: Taipei Shin Kong Cineplex (台北新光影城), 4F, 36 Xining S Rd, Taipei City
(台北市西寧南路36號4樓)
ADMISSION: Tickets are NT$130 per screening, a festival pass costs NT$1,800 for unlimited screenings, both are available at the door or through tickets.books.com.tw
ON THE NET: www.tieff.sinica.edu.tw
Bilin Yabu of Taiwan’s Atayal (泰雅) tribe, this year’s featured Aboriginal filmmaker, has made documentaries about his community’s culture for more than 10 years. His The Stories of Rainbow (彩虹的故事) is an insightful study on the disappearing tradition of facial tattooing, which is closely related to the Atayal understanding of life, death and the universe.
In Men’s Ocean, Women’s Calla Lily Field (男人的海洋,女人的水芋田), director and Tao (達悟) tribe member Hsieh Fu-mei (謝福美) documents the boat-building tradition that is practiced by the men of her community on Orchid Island (蘭嶼).
Also on the lineup of 34 films, which will be screened over five days are Norwegian Sami director Ellen-Astri Lundby’s Suddenly Sami, which follows the filmmaker’s search for identity; The Captive (被俘虜的人生) by Chen Hsin-yi (陳心怡), which tells the unusual story of her father, who was a Communist soldier taken captive by the Chinese Nationalist Army (KMT) and brought to Taiwan but remained silent about his true identity until his offspring turned the camera on him.
An international forum titled Just How Close Can a Filmmaker Get? will be held today from 2pm to 5pm at Spot — Taipei Film House (光點—台北之家), 18, Zhongshan N Road Sec 2, Taipei City
(台北市中山北路二段18號).
For more information, visit the festival’s bilingual site at www.tieff.sinica.edu.tw.
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