Director │Covin CHENG
Producer │Ruby YANG
My partner, Akashi, and I have experienced five miscarriages for the past five or so years. It is a journey we rarely tell our family and friends. After our first miscarriage, we quickly sought medical assistance. We have done artificial insemination, such as IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) and IVF (In Vitro Fertilization). Each time to no avail.
This 2018, Akashi and I will face a difficult question: will this be the last time for IVF? We have been through this process so many times. There was a lot of physical and emotional stress. Yet, she insists that she wants to do it again the natural way. It would mean a world to her to experience the joys of pregnancy. As a partner, I can only look on and support her pursuit for a fulfilling motherhood.
Director │Amber LIU, Mark PAN, LEE Kang-ling
Producer │Amber LIU
“When the moment of succession comes, it is less the love for the traditional industries that we face, but the decision that we need to make, over and over again, to struggle over reproduction or innovation, over inheritance or disobedience.”
Called as the “Strawberry Generation” and the “Silenced,” Taiwanese born in the 1970s and the 1980s deal with the hardest question: succession.
This young yet distressful generation is taking over the traditional industries, at a time when neither the future of the industries is promising, nor the success of their father’s generation is able to be achieved again.
This series demonstrates Taiwan’s traditional industries that have been planted and cultivated by American, Chinese, and Japanese powers. By interviewing and tracking the successors in the face of localization appeals, entangled geopolitics, and globalization challenges, this series reveals ways of development and the confession from the younger generation in Taiwan.
Director │GU Tao
Producer │ GAO Wei
With a focus on ethnicity, this documentary is filmed in the largest city in Inner Mongolia, Hohhot, where ethnic culture and modernization inter-mingle with one another.
For eight years, Hukefu has devoted himself to making a documentary about Buryat Shamanism. He feels being scolded by his ancestors; he longs for freedom after drinking, affected by a sense of loneliness...
Wurigen’s psychological world was shattered by the passing of his father. He considers returning to the prairies of freedom. Looking afar with a smile on his face, he fears that if he stops playing morin khuur, his father will be even more distant from him...
Suhe comes to the city from the prairies on his own. The dazzling lights on the stage cannot smooth away his loneliness. Embedded within the singing and management of his daily life is his solitude...
A sunny day, a cloudy day; youthfulness, depression—all in this city.
Director │CHEN Chang-qing
Producer │ GUO Heng-qi, YU Ying-ying
Songzhuang town in Beijing houses the largest group of contemporary artists by far. The filming period lasted nearly 5 years. In this film, you will witness the key role GuTao and three other artists’ real life. The story among them and the destinies of the four are overlapping and associated together. The audience can not only see a picture of this era, but also could strongly feel the irresistible tide of the reality.
The artists who play a role as the reminders and prophets of their time, as well as the documentary directors who are good at bringing other people’s life to the screen. What’s their life like when facing the hard reality, honor and fame?
Director │WANG Lei
Producer │ Jackie C. LIN
In the urban village named Pi Village, there are nearly 30 thousand migrant workers and their children from all over the country, who build Beijing with their hands.
This documentary tells the story of 4 people living in the Pi Village-a lover of art, a pupil, a girl who is going to break into a marriage by breaking through a lot of obstacles, and a young man who has been walking on the road to ask for salary and the pursuit of love.
With this film, we will record the hot youth and dream of the common workers in China.
Director │Sayun Simung
Producer │KUO Yu-nung, Hung Sung-ju
Grandpa Wilang passes away, but Grandma Yabay cannot face his death. Unable to accept the fact that her under-aged granddaughter giving birth to a child, Grandma Yabay refuses to let her come home. Despite the company of her family members, in the first year, Grandma Yabay still fails to recover from the grief over the loss of her loved one.
Gaga, the traditional habit of the Tayal people, bonds the everyday lives of this Tayal family. Through Spi (dream), the Tayal people connect with their ancestors and receive signs about life. After the leader of this family dies, one by one, the family members of the director dream about his return.
With the passing of time, we keep having dreams about Grandpa as if he never left us and continued to live with us.
Director │ DukarTserang
In his previous live, he was her husband. In this life, he is her grandson. He is the same person.
In her previous life, she was his wife. In this life, she is his grandmother. She is the same person.
This year, the ages of the two combined are one hundred years. They live together under the same roof.
Director, Producer │LONG Miao-yuan
Confucius died 2497 years ago, but his golden rules are still practiced by successors in contemporary China. Mrs. MENG from Northeast China found her life beacon shining from Taiwan at middle age. She soon gave up all her business and started a private school in Shenzhen (next to Hong Kong) to provide Neo- Confucianism education as alternative to families who can’t trust mainstream schools. MENG soon became nation-wide famous, but her private school was illegal in China. However, the force inherited from Confucius was so strong that MENG soon changed a sail. She is now targeting on 0~3 years old babies.
Director │ XU Hui-jing
Producer │ LIANG Yuan
Under the guidance of a 70-year-old guy, a group of orphans and problem children practice baseball in the suburbs in Beijing. MA Hu’s joining breaks the tranquility of the team. He gangs with others to fight and scuffle, becoming a thorn in the team members and the coach’s flesh. A huge fire in Beijing cleansed the city of millions of people, while their baseball field is ordered to move elsewhere in a limited time.
After half a year, the team is representing the Asian Pacific region to attend a world-class baseball tournament in the United States. Are they able to untie together, overcoming many a difficulty and achieving their self-breakthrough? What will happen to the fate of these children in future?
Director │ZHOU Hao
Producer │HE Shan
The three girls from the village in the mountains have their own dreams in their childhood. With the progress of time, they have to deal with more and more real-life and practical issues. One quits school to work at the age of 15, while one continues her schooling. The lives of the tens of millions of young Chinese people from the country might be completely documented in the film for the first time.
Director │LO Yi-shan
Producer │WU Fan
In the snowmelt season of 2017, Taiwanese trekkers LIANG Shen- yueh and LIU Chen-chun were found in a cave in Nepal after reported missing for 55 days. Chen-chun had already passed away, while the surviving Shen-yueh broke the world record of being trapped in the mountain before rescued. The media all over the world came to interview him.
Shen-yueh brought back Chen-chun’s last will. In one of the letters, she told me not to be excessively sorrowful, and to learn to love others. I therefore take up my camera to cope with Chen- chun’s unfinished wish. Things started to change, however, as I returned to school and Sheng-yueh began his new work.
In the snowmelt season, some things would be recovered under the sun, some forever gone with the water. After the incident, in what ways could we remember the past to walk forward into the future?
Director │ CHAN Ying-wai
Producer │ LI Man-chi
“Freedom through Art” is the motto gong-bi painter Wilson SHIEH believes in.
Wilson SHIEH was born and raised in Hong Kong. While he has been moving deftly in the international contemporary art market, SHIEH already foresaw the constraints from the market. His contradictory character constantly puts him in between the extremes: the traditional versus the contemporary, market concerns versus freedom to create, and individual versus society.
Facing the recent socio-political tension in Hong Kong, how would Wilson SHIEH go on?
Director │ Sean WANG
Producer │ ZHAO Jia
The camera follows a piece of white marble and records how it was cut and mined at the Greek mines and shipped to China. In the Chinese factory, it was made into a Greek-style tourist souvenir, and then sold back to Santorini via Yiwu, the Chinese town of the world commodity, to be purchased by the Chinese couple who are in Santorini for their wedding photography and be decorated in their Greek-style house in China. In the process of its return trip along the chain of international trade, this stone is like the ancient Greek hero Odysseus, who re-embarks on the Odyssey journey in the era of global capitalism.
Director │ Elvis LU
Producer │ LI Jian-liang
A-chi, my elder brother, was psychic since the age of twelve. From then on, he served as a medium at home to help others, and my questions about him emerged. I had my doubts because, despite the fact that many believers had received his help, he himself remained unable to lift the family out of poverty. My gambling-addicted father believed that gods would one day bless him with some lucky numbers via my brother; my mother, on the other hand, had sincerely prayed to gods for good health, yet her conditions simply kept deteriorating. Such helplessness had long detached myself from my family of origin. It wasn’t until I devoted myself to documentary filmmaking that I began to often ask myself, “When I make an effort to understand others’ lives, why don’t I try to understand that of my own brother, too?” And how would my family deal with my coming home and questioning?
Director │HAN Meng
Producer │ Vincent DU
Langfang, one of the most air-polluted cities in China, is located 40 kilometers away from Beijing. In order to safeguard the air quality of the capital, Langfang is under huge pressure. Director LI has instituted a series of controversial policies to deal with pollution; at the same time, as an outspoken local official, LI has published three novels featuring the smog. This documentary chronicles the power struggle between the people and the authority, as a city juggles the costs and benefits of its actions in its attempt to tackle smog pollution.
Director │JIN Xingzheng
Producer │ZHANG Chao
This documentary records the living experiences of seven armless artists and their realliving conditions at the moment. They share similar miseries in their lives, but they do not give in to the adversity and break forth with the courage and power to move forward. With their own mouth and feet, they strive for more valuable results and achievements; with their feet firmly on the ground, they prove their self-esteem through actions.
Eventually, these seven armless artists voluntarily hold a charity bazaar with their own works, as a way to pay back and offer thanks to the society. The revenue is to be used for the construction of a building in the impoverished mountain area in Yunnan: Qi Zi (lit. seven persons) Hall.
Director │ ZHANG Nan
Producer │QI Yu, Ansell Durwin Uy TAN
Modern China is restoring the ancient Great Wall. Amongst the northern mountains, a dilapidated section Xifengkou, historically known as a pivotal battle field during the anti-Japan war, welcomes a group of builders. Government officials, craftsmen, farmers and fishermen are brought together. Each with their own intentions and perspectives.
The LI and JIA families are neighbouring fishermen at the foot of the wall, yet they are stranger than strangers. Both see each other as “outsiders” but are forced to reconcile disputes due to conditions brought forth by the restoration project.
Civil engineer ZHU is a cautious man by nature. Leading the builder team based in the LI family homestay, he stumbles upon trouble and dissonance caused by the JIA family. Facing doubt from all sides, he must prove himself worthy despite the geographical and man-made barriers.
Within the wall’s borders, the WANG family’s traditional brick kiln has supplied the Great Wall and Forbidden City for generations. Differences in business approach causes conflict and disappointment between father and son. As an order of bricks for Xi-fengkou’s restoration project is placed, WANG puts his son through the test.
Director │LEE Kang-ling
Producer │ HSU Huai-min
In 1949, after WWII, a group of people followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan due to the civil war. They lived together in Single Veteran Dormitory. They believed that they could return soon, but the survivors live there to this day. However, their spirits drift on the narrow yet deep Taiwan Strait with questions: Are their parents, wives and children still alive? When cross-strait visits were finally allowed, they found their answers. Some answers brought joy, some brought tears...
It was a migration, pulled by the tide of the era. This is a story of those who are fading away. On the footsteps of a person carrying cremated remains of old veterans back home, we witness the despair and serenity of the era.
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