New Asian Currents
New Asian Currents introduces stimulating and various selected 26 works of sincere and high-spirited Asian directors. Expanding the horizon of “Asia,” we hope you join with us in the fire of 2005 Asian documentary.
- Jurors:
- Pimpaka Towira (THAILAND, Writer, Director)
Murayama Kyoichiro (JAPAN, Film Critic)
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- Last House Standing
- CHINA / 2004 / Mandarin / Color, B&W / Video / 54 min
Director: Gan Chao, Liang Zi
Mr. Jiang has watched over Shanghai through the years. As a young tomboyish lodger staying at his soon-to-be-demolished house questions him, his remarkable life gradually unfolds.
- Blossoming in the Wind
- CHINA / 2004 / Tibetan, Mandarin / Color / Video / 60 min
Director: Sun Yueling
A blissful journey by young Tibetian Living Buddhas, their disciples and the director through snow-covered sacred mountains. Animals and human beings, all are full of life.
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- Keep the Change
- TURKEY / 2003 / Turkish / Color, B&W / Video / 27 min
Director: Ceren Bayar, Dilek İyigün, Elif Karadenizli, Özge Kendirci, Savaş İlhan
In 2000, the authorities intervened in a hunger strike of political prisoners, causing them to suffer memory loss. The film challenges a Turkish society that has forgotten the incident.
- Chen Lu
- CHINA / 2004 / Mandarin (Shaanxi dialect) / Color, B&W / Video / 29 min
Director: Lin Xin
Chen Lu, China, a town famous for ceramics. People’s faces when talking about their town, the landscape and the beauty of the ceramics are portrayed with artistic elegance.
- Fort of the Fabrications
- JAPAN / 2004 / Japanese, English, Others / Color / Video / 32 min
Director: Taki Kentaro
Boldly attempting to conceptualize the contemporary media world through “video media,” the video artist director explores possible methods for producing revolutionary film-based art.
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- Try to Remember
- CHINA / 2005 / Mandarin / Color / Video / 90 min
Director: Zhong Jian
As he travels with his mother to her home village, the director, at the height of his youth, records his mother’s childhood recollections of the Cultural Revolution.
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- White Tower
- CHINA / 2003 / Mandarin (Henan dialect) / Color / Video / 83 min
Director: Su Qing, Mina
The very first of its kind in China, this human drama of love and marriage revolves around deaf women and men. Their vibrant exchange in sign language creates a dynamism faster than sonic velocity.
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- Hammer and Flame
- UK, INDIA / 2005 / No dialogue / Color / Video / 10 min
Director: Vaughan Pilikian
At a demolition site in northern India, a tanker splits open into two. Shattering into pieces by a hammer, melting into flame, the beauty of this very human act is captured.
- President Mir Qanbar
- IRAN / 2005 / Persian / Color / Video / 70 min
Director: Mohammad Shirvani
Hoping to become the president of Iran one day, Mir Qanbar campaigns earnestly with his campaign manager and the film crew.
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- Innocent
- SINGAPORE / 2004 / English, Mandarin, Teochew, Hokkien / Color, B&W / Video / 27 min
Director: Gek Li San, Ho Choon Hiong
The director first found out about her aunt's suicide at the funeral. Discovering the truth by reading between the lines of relatives’ testimonies, a sense of stagnation in Singapore seeps through.
- Garden
- ISRAEL / 2003 / Hebrew, Arabic / Color / Video / 85 min
Director: Ruthie Shatz, Adi Barash
As Dudu and Nino, immigrant teenage prostitutes, course through the streets of downtown Tel Aviv’s Garden district, the camera painfully depicts their intimate friendship and hopes for the future.
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- The Cheese & The Worms
- JAPAN / 2005 / Japanese / Color / Video / 98 min
Director: Kato Haruyo
The director affectionately captures her sick mother’s final days with her grandmother and brother’s family. Soon, an angel descends to gaze on us all.
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- Dear Pyongyang
- JAPAN / 2005 / Japanese, Korean / Color / Video / 107 min
Director: Yang Yonghi
Second generation Korean-Japanese director weaves the threads of new spiritual ties as she inquires into her activist parents’ lives and visits her brothers who left Osaka for life in Pyongyang.
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- Yesterday Today Tomorrow
- JAPAN, THAILAND / 2005 / Thai, English / Color / Video / 90 min
Director: Naoi Riyo
The Japanese director closely followed two families in Northern Thailand for over three years. Despite being infected with HIV, these families look ahead to their future with their foot planted firmly on the ground.
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- Back to the Soil
- KOREA / 2004 / Korean / Color / Video / 85 min
Director: Kwon Woo-jung
South Choongchun Province, Korea. A young couple live their lives to the fullest as they struggle to adapt to farm life and against a fast-changing agriculture industry affected by the expansion of free trade agreements.
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- The Things That We Shouldn’t Do
- KOREA / 2003 / Korean / Color, B&W / Video / 5 min
Director: Kim Kyung-man
Taking Korean militarism sarcastically, this cheerful archival documentary was made to oppose the Korean military’s participation in attacking Iraq.
- Mad Minutes
- KOREA / 2003 / Korean, Vietnamese / Color, B&W / Video / 82 min
Director: Lee Mario
Testimonials from families of victims massacred by the Korean army during the Vietnam War as well as from former Korean soldiers recall memories of war in the face of Korean involvement in Iraq.
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- Fluiding Stage
- TAIWAN / 2004 / Taiwanese / Color / Video / 42 min
Director: Lin Chi-shou
The camera journeys with a traveling puppet theater as it quietly criss-crosses people and places. Here is the ambience of an era left behind by a modernizing Taiwan.
- The Sound of Footsteps on the Pavement
- LEBANON / 2004 / Arabic, French, English / Color / Video / 52 min
Director: Reine Mitri
The last days of cafe Modca, which once stood at the center of people’s lives in Beirut. The film takes on the challenge of embedding the collective memory of the withering city.
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- The Pot
- SYRIA / 2005 / Arabic / Color, B&W / Video / 12 min
Director: Diana El Jeiroudi
The roles and images of mothers and wives desired by Syria’s Islamic society are portrayed through four married women. They reveal their feelings and realities challenging society from within.
- until when . . .
- PALESTINE, USA / 2004 / Arabic / Color, B&W / Video / 76 min
Director: Dahna Abourahme
Following four Palestinean families living in Dheisheh Refugee Camp, near Bethlehem, the camera looks straight into the now of their day to day lives, full of sorrow as well as happiness.
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- Don’t Forget Me
- THAILAND / 2003 / Thai / Color, B&W / Video / 10 min
Director: Manutsak Dokmai
Two archival documentaries reflect on a northern Thai ethnic minority group in the 1960s and the crackdown of students at Thammasat University in 1976 are combined to project ‘truth.’
- The Island at the End of the World
- THE PHILLIPPINES / 2004 / Tagalog, Itbayaten / Color, B&W / Video / 106 min
Director: Raya Martin
Flying in from the city, a young director sets his foot on Itbayat island at the northernmost tip of the Phillippines. His camera loosely trails islanders' simple and carefree days.
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- Diminishing Memories
- SINGAPORE, AUSTRALIA / 2005 / English, Mandarin, Teochew / Color, B&W / Video / 27 min
Director: Eng Yee Peng
Director’s home village, Lim Chu Kang was demolished by a state’s development plan. Gathering the memories of former villagers’ memories, the film laughs in the face of Singaporean “history.”
- The Spirit of 8
- TAIWAN / 2003 / Mandarin, Taiwanese / Color / Video / 60 min
Director: Li Chia-hua
Since causing an incident at eight years old, the director held fast to a feeling of guilt. At twenty-five, his camera reveals the process of freeing himself from that burden.
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- Chronicle of The Sea, Nan-Fang-Ao
- TAIWAN / 2004 / Taiwanese, Mandarin, English, Tagalog / Color / 35mm / 98 min
Director: Lee Hsiang-hsiu
A Taiwanese fishing village, Nan Fang Ao. The ocean’s vast wilderness comes alive with the depiction of the local villagers and fishing vessel laborers from China and the Philippines.
| New Asian Currents Special Invitation Films |
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- Annyong, Sayonara
- KOREA, JAPAN / 2005 / Korean, Japanese / Color / Video / 100 min
Director: Kim Tae-il Co-Director: Kato Kumiko
Lee He-ja joins a lawsuit to have his father “de-shrined” from Yasukuni Shrine. 60 years after the war, the Korean director and his Japanese co-director travel to Korea, China, Japan and Okinawa on a journey to face the past.
YIDFF 2005 Information • Jury Comments • International Competition | New Asian Currents | BORDERS WITHIN | all about me? | Yunnan Visual Forum | FullShot | New Docs Japan | Other Screenings • Schedule • Map of Venues | Tickets | Accommodation • FAQ • |