The seventh edition of the biennial Taiwan International Documentary Festival (台灣國際紀錄片雙年展, TIDF) returns to Taichung with a dazzling lineup of 140 films grouped into 12 programs, as well as a series of exhibitions, workshops, forums and lectures led by film professionals from home and abroad.
“When we tried to come up with a theme for this year’s festival, the word ‘memory’ came to mind. We want to explore the relation between what is documented, what is remembered and what actually took place,” the festival’s curator Angelika Wang (王耿瑜) said.
The results include A Film Unfinished by Israeli director Yael Hersonski, which lays bare the distorted reality portrayed in Nazi propaganda.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
In May 1942, Nazi filmmakers entered the Warsaw Ghetto, where the city’s Jewish population was imprisoned before being deported to death camps, and filmed a collection of real and staged scenes supposedly detailing wealthy Jews’ callousness toward their poorer brethren — well-dressed residents were seen ignoring hungry children and corpses abandoned on the sidewalk. For years after the war, the unfinished Nazi propaganda film was seen as an authentic documentary of life in the ghetto.
Hersonski intersplices taped interviews with a Nazi cameraman, journal entries from ghetto residents and the testimony of five survivors with the original footage to demonstrate the extent of the Third Reich filmmakers’ deception.
Meanwhile, Hunky Blues — The American Dream by Hungarian filmmaker and media artist Peter Forgacs documents the wave of Hungarian migrants that relocated to the US between 1890 and 1921. Forgacs uses clips of amateur home movies, archival photographs, personal diaries and footage taken from early American films. The movie’s segments of fragile old filmstrips conjure up ghostly, shadowy images that show moments of everyday life and blur the line between visual art and documentary cinema.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
Festival organizers took inspiration from the Republic of China’s upcoming 100th anniversary to put together a series of rarely seen official documentaries about Taiwan. Highlights from the section include propaganda films made in the 1920s, during the Japanese occupation, that portray the happy lot of local farmers after irrigation systems were introduced, as well as the island’s beautiful landscapes.
Other noteworthy items on the lineup include works from Filipino Kidlat Tahimik’s much-celebrated oeuvre. Born and raised in Baguio City, the Philippines, the artist’s films are praised for their witty and intelligent critique of neocolonialism.
Made in collaboration with Werner Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola, Tahimik’s feature debut, 1977’s Perfumed Nightmare, is a semi-autobiographic meditation on his life that can also be read as a commentary on US colonial rule of the country and its destructive aftermath. The film won the International Critics Award at the Berlin Film Festival.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
Internationally acclaimed Dutch documentary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann is lauded for her ability to emotionally connect with the subjects she films.
Her films Crazy (1999), which captures the pain and sadness of UN soldiers when they listen to music that reminds them of past traumas in places like Cambodia and Rwanda, and Oblivion (2006), in which Honigmann returns to her birthplace in Peru to tell the stories of the “invisible” residents that range from a bartender and waitress to street jugglers and shoeshine boys, will be screened at the festival.
Both directors will attend the festival to deliver lectures.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
The biennial festival is divided into two main sections: competition and curated programs. To view the complete festival program, visit the event’s bilingual Web site at www1.tidf.org.tw/2010.
Festival notes
What: The 7th Taiwan International Documentary Festival (台灣國際紀錄片雙年展)
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
When: Today through Oct. 31
Where: National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wucyuan W Rd Sec 1, West District, Taichung City (台中市西區五權西路一段2號), Cultural Affairs Bureau Taichung City (台中市文化局), 600 Yingcai Rd, West District, Taichung City (台中市西區英才路600號) and Wonderful Cinemas (萬代福影城), 38 Gongyuan Rd, Central District, Taichung City (台中市中區公園路38號)
Tickets: NT$30 at the door or available through 7-Eleven ibon kiosks
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
On the net: www1.tidf.org.tw/2010
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located