As the upcoming presidential election campaign begins to overshadow the aftermath of the 921 earthquake on Taiwan's news agenda, one group of documentary filmmakers expressed hope yesterday that their latest work -- sponsored by the Taipei Film Festival -- will help refresh people's memories.
The 1999 Taipei Film Festival invited five young directors to produce quake-related documentaries, which are scheduled to screen this Wednesday as part of the festival's ongoing activities, organizers said yesterday.
The selected directors, all previous winners in various international and national documentary competitions, include Chen Shou-yi (
Also being shown on Wednesday will be a 90-minute documentary on the quake produced by Pei Tsai-mei (裴在美), a Los Angeles-based Taiwanese writer and director who returned to Taiwan to shoot the film one week after the temblor hit Taiwan.
Edmond Wong (黃建業), director of the Chinese Taipei Film Archive and one of the festival's organizers, explained the rationale behind the project. "Originally we had designed a competition to invite Taipei residents to use their video cameras to shoot films on topics such as a day in Taipei," Wong said. "But the quake changed our minds. We hope these documentaries can help heal some of the wounds created by the quake, and can help us search -- once more -- for strength."
The five directors were provided the same raw materials to work with -- such as film footage taken by officials from the city's information department, fire department and Sungshan District police station of Taipei's Tunghsing Building (
Their end products, each 10-minutes long, display a great diversity of style. Tseng admitted it was "painful" to edit the footage, as much of it centered on rescuers working against time and stiff bodies being pulled from the rubble.
Speaking from her own observation at the Tunghsing site, however, Tseng said she hoped her audience could "feel the strength to hope" after seeing the documentary.
"I returned to the Tunghsing site to take some shots after the building was leveled. I saw people in the next building were moving about, so I knew they were busy rebuilding their homes," Tseng said. "I truly believe time can help heal the wounds and ease the pain."
Director Yang, whose film "I love 080" won a special recommendation award at the 1999 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan, used a different focus for his 10-minute piece: the accumulation of numbers and names.
"The death toll started with 100, climbed to 200, and onward past 2,000. And now, it's been over 1,400 hours since the 921 quake hit," Yang said.
"By presenting related numbers such as the passage of time, I wanted my audience to discover how our moods have changed over time," he added. The documentaries will be screened at 1:30pm, Nov. 24 on the 4th floor of the Taipei City Hall. Admission will be free.
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