A total of 16 Taiwan Indigenous documentaries are screening March 10-14 at Anthology Film Archives in New York, according to the Ministry of Culture.
Co-presented by the AFA, Taipei Cultural Center in New York, and Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, the series titled “Indigenous with a Capital ‘I’: Taiwanese Indigenous Documentaries from 1994-2000” incorporates works by Indigenous filmmakers who studied in film academies, worked as journalists or attended local training camps on cultural or historical documentary production.
Highlights include “The Traditional Clothes of Raisinay Village” by Baunay Watan, “And Deliver Us From Evil” by Si Yabosokanen and “New Paradise” by Laway Talay. Director Mayaw Biho and TFAI programmer Chung Pei-hua are also scheduled to participate in post-screening sessions March 10-12 to introduce relevant background and cultural elements to audiences.
According to the series’ head programmer Wood Lin, these documentaries center on issues spanning class differences among ethnic groups, culture and land loss, identity crisis, and clashes between tradition and modernity. They also reflect the social and political situations Taiwan’s Indigenous groups are still facing today, he added.
Productions from this era are part of Taiwan’s first wave of Indigenous cinema, the MOC said, adding that the films preserve invaluable historical records that help people get a better understanding of the country’s ethnic makeup and social evolution.
Established in 1970, Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental and avant-garde cinema. (YCH-E)
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