Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Hu, Tai-Li / All Films

Encountering Jean Rouch

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Encountering Jean Rouch
Buy Now: $275.00

This short film was shot in 2002 during Bilan du Film Ethnographic for the purpose of introducing Jean Rouch to the audience at 2003 Taiwan International Ethnographic film festival. Unexpectedly, Jean Rouch passed away in 2004. In this film Jean Rouch talked about his new marriage, his anger towards the moving of the artifacts of the Mankind Museum, his anarchistic nature, his dreams and fantasies, etc..

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Passing Through My Mother-in-law's Village

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:57:00 GMT

Passing Through My Mother-in-law's Village
Buy Now: $320.00

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.

This film was shot in a natural and intimate climate. During the annual two harvests, various activities in daily life and festivals were presented in the film that reflected the villagers' attitudes towards gods, ghosts, ancestors, women, farmlands, urbanization, industrialization, reclamation and resettlement. Through these shorts, the filmmaker attempted to reveal the Taiwanese way of facing drastic social changes.

In this unusual film—the first Taiwanese documentary to achieve commercial success—we are treated to a series of affectionate vignettes of life in filmmaker Hu Tai-Li’s mother-in-law’s village before large portions of it are destroyed to make way for the new East-West highway.

“Intimate family scenes are interwoven with a funeral... a spring festival and celebration of Chinese New Year, offerings to the gods and spirits, rice fields being tilled, small manufacturing factories struggling to get by, the election of the provincial governor, and graves being exhumed and their contents transferred to family urns so that they will be preserved and their descendants blessed. In the final scenes, Tai-Li stands by villagers as they witness their old homes being razed to the ground and take off for their new life in nearby urban developments.”
— Barbash/Taylor, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, November/December 1998

In After Passing (11 min, 2006), a follow-up (included on the DVD) of the previous documentary, Hu Tai-li returns to Liu Ts'o Village to screen Passing Through My Mother-in-law's Village for the village residents, and reports to her deceased mother-in-law the changes caused by the newly built expressway. In the wake of its construction, the Liu Ts'o villagers have created a new lifestyle under an overpass, exhibiting human beings' great ability to adapt to the changing environment.

This DVD contains both films and a 20-page essay, "The Emergence of Small-Scale Industry in a Taiwanese Rural Community", by the filmmaker, providing background ethnography of this project.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Gottingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany 1998

Parnu International Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival, Estonia 1998

Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York 1998

Ethno Filmfest Berlin, Germany 1998

Beeld voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam 1999

Significant Others: A Celebration of Cinema by Taiwanese Women, the Donnell Library Center, The New York Public Library 2000

The Women Behind the Camera: Celebrating Women Directors in Chinese Cinema, Center for Chinese Studies of the University of Michigan 2002

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Returning Souls

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Returning Souls
Buy Now: $320.00

The carved pillars of the matrilineal Amis tribe's famed ancestral house recount tribal legends such as The Great Flood and The Glowing Girl, and are home to the ancestral spirits of the Amis. The pillars, however, were removed from the village for exhibition in Taiwan's Institute of Ethnology Museum after a typhoon toppled the house 40 years ago.

This film follows a group of young Amis who seek to restore their people's connection with their ancestors. Working with female shamans, the Amis are successful in reconstructing the ancestral house. Their efforts for cultural revitalization, however, are complicated by the influence of western religions, national land policy and local politics. This documentary interweaves reality and legends in its presentation of a unique case of repatriation.

“Anthropologist and filmmaker Hu Tai-Li's Returning Souls is an intricate portrait of indigenous Taiwanese cultural revival and postcolonial negotiation of identity, religion, and the politics involved in the "return" of cultural heritage to its place of origin.”
— Kate Hennessey, American Anthropologist

“The film provides a moving record of the frustrations and triumphs experienced by the Tafalong villagers and sheds new light on a range of intellectual issues: the changing role of the museum, the complexities of cultural property claims, the tensions inherent in cultural revitalization projects-all of which have import well beyond this particular context.”
— Rough E. Toulson, Visual Anthropology

Screening History

Gold Remi Award, Ethnic/Cultural category, WordFest-Houston, 2013

Special Mention, Intangible Cultural Heritage Award, Jean Rouch Int'l Ethnographic Film Festival, Paris, 2012

Gottingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany, 2014

Association of Asian Studies Film Expo, USA, 2014

Moscow International Festival of Visual Anthropology, 2012

Society for Visual Anthropology Ethnographic Film Festival, San Francisco, 2012

Sole Luna International Documentary Festival, Italy, 2012

Women Make Waves Film Festival, Taipei, 2012

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The Return of Gods and Ancestors

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

The Return of Gods and Ancestors
Buy Now: $295.00

The Return of Gods and Ancestors is the first locally made ethnographic film in Taiwan. The film, captured with a hand-cranked Bell & Howell 16 mm camera, documents the most magnificent five-year ceremony in Paiwan tribe.

During the festival, the Paiwan people expect to receive blessings of the gods and ancestors by piercing rattan balls with extended bamboo poles; however, they also try to prevent any harm caused by evil spirits.

The Paiwan five year ceremony is not only the reunion of the dead and the living, but a meeting of the old and the new.

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Songs of Pasta’ay

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Songs of Pasta’ay
Buy Now: $320.00

The Pasta’ay, which means "the festival of the legendary little people," is a significant ritual held every other year in the Saisiat aborigine group in Taiwan.

Every ten years, they hold the Great Ritual. This film focuses on the Great Ritual in 1986. It tries to convey the Saisiat people’s affection for and belief in the legendary little people. At the same time, the film brings into light Saisiat people’s ambivalence towards tourist invasion, and their dilemma of being caught between tradition and modernization. Structured by the Pasta’ay songs’ movements, the film breaks down to 15 chapters. It carefully juxtaposes the visual with the aural elements, which are conveyed in the conceptual dichotomy between “the real” and “the artificial."

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York 1989

Bilan Du Film Ethnographique, Paris 1990

Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival, Manchester 1990

Houston International Film Festival "Gold Special Jury Award", 1990

Tokyo Global Environmental Film Festival, Japan 1992

Worldmusic in the Picture Film Festival, Amsterdam 1992

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Sounds of Love and Sorrow

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Sounds of Love and Sorrow
Buy Now: $320.00

Sounds of Love and Sorrow lets the eerie sounds of the Paiwan flutes including the nose flute, which legend says imitates the call of the deadly hundred-pace snake, mix in with the recollections of tribal elders and traditional tales to present a rich background of Paiwan life in Taiwan.

Tribal elders recall the days of the youth and their romances. They tell of the creation of the Paiwan people, and lament the end of tribal life, crushed by the irresistible and contradictory forces of government policies and alien cultural influences. Talking of love, both the charm and cruelty of a traditional society are revealed. For many of the Paiwan, love may be a high point of a young life – but it is also the gateway to sorrow. But in the end, it is the high spirits, the playful romances and the family spirit of the Paiwan which shine through.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Jury's Special Mention Award at 2000 Taiwan International Documentary

Festival selected for International Competition at 2001 Marseille International Documentary Festival

Film & Video Festival of American Anthropological Association Meeting, 2001

Asiaticafilmmediale, Rome 2001

Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris 2002

The Women Behind the Camera: Celebrating Women Directors in Chinese Cinema, Center for Chinese Studies of the University of Michigan 2002

RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, 2003

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Stone Dream

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Stone Dream
Buy Now: $320.00

This film touches the sensitive issue of national and ethnic identity in Taiwan. In the first Taiwanese observational documentary, “Liu Pi-Chia,” made by Director Chen Yao-Chi in 1965, the main character Liu Pi-Chia was press-ganged into the army in China and came over to Taiwan with President Chiang Kai-Shek. After several decades, the director Hu Tai-Li unexpectedly met Liu in a village on the banks of the Mukua River. This new immigrant village consists of mainland veterans whose wives are from different ethnic groups, mostly Aborigines.

Stones, the most important symbols of this film, link Liu Pi-Chia’s generation, who worked hard on the stony riverbed to reclaim land, and the new generation of Liu Pi-Chia’s son, whose interest is collecting rose stones for artistic and economic purposes. Liu Pi-Chia and his family are like rose stones, which are black and unattractive on the outside, but cut open or polished, reveal wonderful scenes. This film, accompanied by classical Chinese lute music, presents the flow of stone dream.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam, June 2004

Golden Horse Award- Best Documentary, Tapei Golden Horse Film Festival, 2004

Theatrical Release, multiple cinemas, Taiwan, 2004

Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2005

South Film Festival, Israel, 2005

Gottingen International Film Festival, Germany, 2006

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Voices of Orchid Island

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Voices of Orchid Island
Buy Now: $320.00

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. The film explores the complex and often troubled relationship the Yami community has with the outside world by looking in detail at three different cases of "invasion" it has experienced.

The film opens by directly addressing the suspicions the Yami have of outsiders. The visit of a Taiwanese tour group to the island is fraught with cultural miscues, sometimes humorous in their absurdity, but there are also sobering hints of exploitation. By the end of this scene, it is easy to understand why the Yami have forbidden tourists to photograph them. The second aspect the film deals with is the island's medical care. The film follows the one western-trained doctor on his rounds as he tries to introduce a basic level of modern medicine while confronting a firmly entrenched set of local beliefs and traditions.

Finally, the film documents the local anti-nuclear movement, the target of which is the nuclear waste dump the ROC government has built on the island. We hear representatives of the national government defend the site's safety while local people express their fears and concerns at having the site so nearby. Woven throughout the film are views of Orchid Island's rugged, gorgeous scenery and its vibrant festivals.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Best Documentary Film, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, 1993
Silver Plaque Award, Chicago International Film Festival, 1994
Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 1994
Gottingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany, 1994

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