As a sort of work in progress, draft for a possible future research, or simply as a trace of a significant and very rare viewing experience, I have decided to publish, unedited, the notes and reflections I took while attending the Noda Shinkichi’s retrospective, organized at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, in October 2023. A total of 38 films were screened in 5 days, here are my notes on the first two days (you can read the synopsis of each film here, notes on the third day here).
Day 1 Renovating Farm Houses (1941) Festivals in Tohoku Part 1 (1956 ) Festivals in Tohoku Part 2 ( 1956 ) Festivals in Tohoku Part 3 (1957 ) Impressive use of colours, especially in the second film, where the parade reminded me of Rio’s carnival.
Forgotten Land: Record of Life Series II (1958) Impressive film, especially on a formal level. Opening: the camera pans on the faces of students, who are telling their dreams, mainly to leave the village. The use of editing reminded me of soviet montage, for example: close-up of a fisherman, fast cut to the sea and wave, or when the woman is ploughing the soil, the editing is almost in rhythm with her actions. The soundscape has also a big part in the film: the sounds of waves penetrate each image, and each individual’s life, we are reminded that the sea is always there with its harshness On the Method of Avant Garde Documentary by Matsumoto Toshio was published in June 1958, in Kiroku Eiga, the journal founded by Noda, Matsumoto and others.
The Girl of the Valley (1949) Fiction with a heavy touch of realism. Making of charcoal is a theme recurring in all his movies about or set in Tohoku, signifying an old and severe way of living,
The Locomotive Kid (1950) The scenes about the train are beautifully filmed, I liked the transition from the kid looking at a photo of a locomotive to images of it. The tone of the movie is definitely lighter than the previous one. Of course the train is the kid’s dream but also, as always, symbolises progress, especially for a rural area. Slow paced. Noda is good at directing kids. The two movies and Work in Retail (1951) reminded me of the films of Shimizu Hiroshi, the kids of course but also the tone (a mixture of serious and funny).
Day 2
The Unforgivable Atom Bomb: The Singing Voice of 1954 Japan (1954) Impressive film that reminds us the importance of utagoe festivals, and utagoe culture more in general. As we’ll see in the next couple of movies, singing while protesting gives the people an identity, unifies them. Each union or group has a different song. Formally the film alternates long shots, when we see the stage and groups performing on it, with images filmed close to the performers. As the movie progresses the images of the auditorium with all the people singing and moving together are used more often. Very impactful scenes. Noda a couple of times cuts to images of strikes. Chinese and Korean groups are also performing on stage, it is a very transnational movement, highlighting class struggle first, in this it reflects the political atmosphere of the 1950s. Women are very present and a very active part of the unions, at least it seems so from the film. Utagoe as a convergence of popular and political is fascinating, it is popular before becoming pop (probably in the 60s)
On a side note, in the credits I’ve seen the name かんけまり Kanke Mari, she was a director of PR movies and documentaries active in the 60s and 70s (did a documentary on a railway workers strike screened at National Film Archive ), Noda writes about her in his book about documentary.
The Matsukawa Incident: Seeing the Truth Through the Wall (1954) Opens with images of a wall, silent, and then with organ music. From here we move to the court where we are explained about the incident, the official version. The film is constructed as a counter story of the incident and does so in a very modern way that feels very fresh even today. Interviews with the men wrongly accused, graphs and animation used to explain the movements of the suspects, scenes that feel almost reenactments (man walking along the railway). The film takes its time in explaining the facts and in depicting the wrongly-accused men. It is strange to say, but it feels like a crime novel, there’s even suspense.
The Workers of Keihin 1953 (1953) Film starts with the depiction of the workers on the way to their job place, bus, train and boat. Use of photos. During the demos, we often see the mothers with their kids. Preparation for May Day, all the different unions and some new ones are formed (department stores, mainly women). U.S. bases are considered responsible for the conditions of the workers, overworking, low salaries, etc. This sentiment against the US is added to the one against the war in Korea. As in the utagoe film, the events organised by the unions are horizontal in their scope, here we see a sports day organised for the Korean community in Japan. We also see support in China, Italy (just mentioned), and other countries. Important: the unions/workers are reaching to the farmers to get their support against the use of Japanese land by the American bases (this predates the documentaries about the Sunagawa riots by Kamei Fumio and of course Ogawa Pro). The farmer resistance of the 60s does not appear suddenly from nothing.
June 1960: Rage Against the Security Treaty (1960) Dramatic music opens the film, from the very beginning it’s very noticeable how the style has evolved: fast cutting, shaky hand camera, many shots are from street levels and in the action (Sunagawa and Sanrizuka style), close-ups, direct sound… Powerful scene: arrival in Japan of Ike, helicopter is landing among a sea of people protesting. Farmers are more present here in the protests, Miike mine workers are also showing solidarity. Spectacular images of protests in front of the American embassy and the National Diet Building. Death of Kanba Michiko, killed in the protests. After the tragedy the movie goes silent for a couple of minutes showing mainly photos of people beaten laying on the street, powerful and violent images. Photos of prime minister Nishi are often used and stay on screen for quite a long period of time.
The New Japanese Geography Film Series: Tone River (1955) The New Japanese Geography Film Series: The Roofs of Honshu (1957 ) The New Japanese Geography Film Series: Tokaido, Yesterday and Today (1958) The New Japanese Geography Film Series: Villages of the Northeast (1959) What I remember of the four movies is that in one it is said that the modernisation of Japan, while obviously necessary, turns every city into something similar. The specificity is lost.
Technique of Foundry: The Cupola Operation (1954) Experimental music used throughout. Images of melting metal are like abstract paintings, the camera stays on these images for long periods of time (considering it is a PR film).
Marine Snow: The Origin of Oil (1960) Well, a spectacle, the colours are amazing, the editing in a scene about the waves is almost jump-cut. Again, some images, are like abstract paintings, it’s science porn (like the rice ones in Magino). Grandiose music. Commissioned by a oil company, thus partly celebrating the petroleum industry, and yet…
Country Life under Snow (1956) The colour palette is tone down here, what I remember is the music being similar to the one used in Godzilla.
In the past days, the Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) has announced the official line-up for its 14th edition. Launched in 1998, the TIDF has slowly but surely become one of the most important festivals dedicated to documentary cinema in Asia. Held in various venues in the capital city of Taipei, the event will take place from May 10 to the 19, and will showcase the best non-fiction cinema produced in recent years —with a special attention and focus towards Asia, but also other parts of the world— through its four sections: the Asian Vision Competition, International Competition, Taiwan Competition, and TIDF Visionary Award.
This year, the festival will also commemorate two key figures in the development of documentary in Taiwan, Chang Chao-tang, author of works that are widely considered the first poetic and experimental documentaries in the island (The Boat-Burning Festival, Homage to Chen-Da), and ethnographic filmmaker pioneer Hu Tai-li (Voices of Orchid Island), who passed away in 2022. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, one day though, one day…anyway these are the sections and the films.
Taiwan Competition A Holy Family Elvis LU｜Taiwan, France
A Performance in the Church (World Premiere) HSU Chia-wei｜Taiwan
All and Nothing (World Premiere) LIAO I-ling, CHU Po-ying｜Taiwan
And Miles to Go Before I Sleep TSAI Tsung-lung｜Taiwan
Come Home, My Child (Asian Premiere) Jasmine Chinghui LEE｜Taiwan
Diamond Marine World HUANG Hsiu-yi｜Taiwan
From Island to Island (World Premiere) LAU Kek-huat｜Taiwan
I Must Keep Singing LIN Chih-wen, LIAO Ching-wen, CHUNG Hyeuh-ming｜Taiwan
Lauchabo TSAI Yann-shan｜Taiwan
Parallel World HSIAO Mei-ling｜Taiwan
Taman-taman (Park) (World Premiere) SO Yo-hen｜Taiwan
Pongso no Tao〜 Island of People TSAO Wen-chieh, LIN Wan-yu｜Taiwan
The Clinic Midi Z｜Taiwan、Myanmar
When Airplanes Fly Across LEE Li-shao｜Taiwan
Worn Away CHEN Chieh-jen｜Taiwan
Asian Vision Competition Atirkül in the Land of Real Men (Asian Premiere) Janyl JUSUPJAN｜Czech Republic
As usual, the list below is a reflection of my taste, interests, and viewing habits during the past year. Some works are from 2022, but became available here in Japan just in 2023. The synopses are taken from Letterboxd (films are in no particular order).
R 21 aka Restoring Solidarity (Mohanad Yaqubi) The growing struggle for Palestinian self-determination between 1960 and 1980 was supported by radical left-wing movements worldwide, also in Japan. This is illustrated by a collection of 16mm films by militant filmmakers from various countries, which were dubbed and screened in Japan. Their Japanese audiences felt oppressed by the US after World War II, and not only sympathized but also identified with the Palestinians.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel) An extraordinary adventure through the interior of the human body; or the discovery of an alien landscape of unprecedented beauty.
In the Rearview (Maciek Hamela) A Polish vehicle traverses the roads of Ukraine. On board, people are evacuated following the Russian invasion. This van becomes a fragile and transitory refuge, a zone of confidences and confessions of exiles who have only one objective, to escape the war.
Incident (Bill Morrison) Chicago, 2018. A man is killed by police on the street. Through a composite montage of images from surveillance and security footage as well as police body-cams, Incident recreates the event and its consequences, featuring vain justifications, altercations and attempts to avoid blame. Bill Morrison delivers a chilling political investigation in search of the truth.
Losing Ground (Anonymous) In February 2021, Myanmar wakes up to the sounds of a military coup. The hopes of an entire generation are extinguished. Protests are held, but the dictatorship is too powerful: arrests, imprisonments and threats of execution ensue. The capital becomes a large open-air prison, but a few anonymous voices still have the strength to cry out.
Raat: Night Time in Small Town India (The Third Eye Portal) What is that you can see at night? What is allowed, what is not? What do you become a witness to?
The Natural History of Destruction (Sergei Loznitsa) Is it morally acceptable to use the civilian population as yet another tool for waging war? Is it possible to justify death and destruction for the sake of supposedly lofty ideals? The question remains as pertinent today as it was at the beginning of World War II, and it is becoming increasingly urgent to answer, as countless tragedies have been caused by unethical political decisions.
GAMA 2023 (Oda Kaori) A storyteller of peace serves as a guide in the “Gama”—natural caves where many local people lost their lives during the Battle of Okinawa. The woman in blue standing by his side represents the intersection of the present and the past. Here my report from the screening of the movie last January.
Youth (Spring) (Wang Bing) This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children’s clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu.
Waorani Omede Beye Ante Nee Adani (Luisana Carcelén) For thousands of years, the Waorani women of the Ecuadorian Amazon have lived in perfect harmony with Mother Earth in the most bio diverse spot on the planet: the Yasuní. They have coexisted within this delicate ecosystem, allowing them to flourish while preserving their unique customs and traditions. However, the winds of change have swept through their lands, and now, the sacred place that grandmothers, daughters, and granddaughters have cherished as home stands under grave threat.
A couple of interesting documentaries I’ve watched recently, besides those I saw at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
Shot in four years, 越後奥三面 山に生かされた日々 Echigo Okumiomote: A Traditional Mountain Village (1984) follows the everyday life of Okumiomote, a mountain village in Niigata prefecture, near the border with Yamagata prefecture. The village, its inhabitants, the mountains, the forest and the rivers, form a fascinating ecosystem and microcosm of a life (1980-1984) dependent upon and regulated by natural elements and the cycle of seasons. This lifestyle and the specific traditions, customs and habits—performed, changed and improved throughout centuries by the inhabitants—would eventually disappear years after the documentary was filmed, due to the construction of the Okumiomote Dam (the area would be submerged).
The documentary has been recently digitally remastered and screened, together with other works by director and video ethnographer Himeda Tadayoshi, at a special retrospective organized at Athénée Français Culture Center in Tokyo.
While the film opens with one of the villagers talking about the anti-dam movement active since 1971, the entirety of the documentary depicts matter-of-factly the various customs and jobs done in the mountains and in the fields (hunting, gathering, harvesting). Only the last 30 minutes are more a direct reflection on the disappearance of the village, and on the act of documenting its existence and preserving its memory on film. The documentary is narrated, or better, commented, in a very friendly manner, so to speak, by Himeda himself. The presence of the director and his troupe is never hidden, once we even see a special meeting, requested by Himeda himself, when the village’s hunters are strongly opposing the presence of the camera during their upcoming bear-hunting trip. This film pairs very well, thematically but not stylistically, with Haneda Sumiko’s 早池峰の賦 Ode to Mt. Hayachine, filmed almost during the same years in the mountains of Iwate prefecture.
Echigo Okumiomote was accompanied by a publication of a huge volume about the life of the village, an ethnographic study and document of the area (I own it, I might return to the movie and the book in the future). Himeda would return to Okumiomote in 1996 to film a new work, 越後奥三面 第二部 ふるさとは消えたか Echigo Okumiomote dai ni bu furusato wa kieta ka, about the situation after the people of the village were forced to relocate. One of the discoveries of 2023 for me.
Nguyen Quoc Phi was a Vietnamese migrant worker, who on 31 August 2017 was reported for a car theft in Hsinchu County, near Taipei. On the same day, he was shot nine times by police officer Chen Chung-wen. He was left bleeding on the ground, and tragically died on his way to the hospital. A part of the public in Taiwan supported Chen’s use of firearms against the runaway immigrant who resisted arrest.
And Miles to Go Before I Sleep (Tsai Tsung-lung, 2022) is a documentary that asks the viewer uncomfortable questions, first by sketching the situation of immigrant workers in Taiwan (regular and irregular), and then by using images filmed by the body cameras of the policeman who shot Nguyen to death. These are very tough scenes to watch: after being shot, the young man lies down completely naked, slowly dying, with the officers observing and walking around him. It could be said that these scenes are exploitative, but as some viewers have commented, they also could function as a sort of “visual moral report”. I’m not sure I agree with the statement.
While as a document of a shocking and tragic event, the work has its merits, I think it meanders too much from the scene of the death, to others with the family of the deceased or where the conditions of immigrants are explained, losing in the end its focus.
While as an experimental film made of and about things, rocks, textiles, roof tiles, wood, and houses, Kyoto by Ichikawa Kon (1969) is extraordinary, also because of the experimental music by Takemitsu Tōru. As a documentary about Kyoto (or Japan more broadly ), the narration and the film itself are orientalist at best, even if it was written by a Japanese. In this respect, it should be noted that the film was commissioned by the Italian company Olivetti, so there’s the usual “I’m giving you what your image of me is” typical of some cultural products made for export in Japan. Ichikawa’s editing here starts (or perhaps it had already started before) to become almost subliminal. For more extreme examples, see his post Inugami Family’s production.
I watched the version with English and Italian narration. I would need to check out the Japanese version as well to properly assess the film.
Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring) was a fascinating viewing experience, for me also because of the long time it took to be completed: it was shot between 2014-2019 and edited/released in 2023. At the same time, I share some of the doubts expressed in this review, points that are not really about how the work is constructed or filmed, but more about the very meaning of the project itself (it’s only the first installment of a trilogy, apparently).
Sometimes the documentary felt like a Big Brother shot in a factory, that is to say, very performative in some of its parts. In the age of YouTube and tik-tok the young generations know very well how to behave when a camera is in front of them, thus, even though it goes against Wang Bing’s style, a certain dialogue with the camera (I’m sure there was, but was cut) would have made the documentary more “authentic”, so to speak. After watching the film, I had the distinct feeling that something was missing and had been cut out.
Having been filmed almost 10 years ago and for 5 years, I also would have liked to see the year of filming for each segment.
In 1979, after the Formosa Incident, Taiwanese politician Hsu Hsin-liang was forced to leave the country for his opposition to the ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), he would spend the following ten years in exile in the US. In 1986, after the first opposition party in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was created, and while the campaign for the upcoming election was getting to the heart, Hsu tried to return to Taiwan, flying back to his country via Japan. On November 30th 1986, thousands of supporters gathered at Taoyuan Airport to welcome back the politician. Not only was Hsu not allowed to repatriate, but the central government sent a large number of police and military personnel to the airport, attacking his supporters with water cannons and tear gas. The three national and pro-government television stations used the images of the clashes to craft a narrative in which the supporters were depicted as a violent mob attacking the police. A completely different narrative emerged from a series of videos that were shot on the ground, in the midst of the clashes, by a group of DPP supporters and activists. Images that clearly showed how it was the police that provoked and attacked the people, and not vice versa. These videos were edited together to create The Taoyuan Airport Incident (1986), the first documentary made by the Green Team, a group active between 1986 and 1990 in Taiwan. The collective was originally formed by “Mazi” Wang Zhizhang, Li Sanchong and Fu Dao, and later added members such as Lin Xinyi, Zheng Wentang, and Lin Hongjun. In these four years, the collective made more than 300 works, all of them shot using video camcorders. In their works the group documented the various movements and protests that swept and destabilized the social and political fabric of the Island, in the years soon before and after the lifting of the Martial Law (July 15th 1987).
In 1998, the Green Team handed over their videos to the National Tainan University of the Arts, and 2006 saw the creation of the Taiwan Green Group Image Record Sustainability Association (literal translation). This was done in order to digitize and preserve the original video tapes (more than 3000 hours), and to set up an archive and a searchable website. Moreover, in more recent years, the works of the Green Team have been presented internationally, circulating at different film festivals around the globe. The starting point could be considered the retrospective organized at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival in 2016, where 21 works of the collective were screened on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of The Taoyuan Airport Incident. Screenings at festivals around the world soon followed, in 2017 at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, in the Czech Republic, and two years ago in Rome during Flowers of Taiwan, an event organized to promote the cinema of the island. Furthermore, in the past years, the online platform DaFilms has made them available on streaming a couple of times in collaboration with Taiwan Docs.
Green Team’s videos mark a pivotal moment in the history of documentary and in the evolution of alternative media in Taiwan. During the forty years of Martial Law, documentaries were still produced in the country and enjoyed some success—the Fragrant Formosa TV series, for instance—however, practically none of them, even those produced independently, depicted and commented overtly on the social, let alone the political, situation in the country.
By documenting protests and fights related to environmental issues, indigenous self determination, and women rights, Green Team’s output opened a path that many Taiwanese documentaries would follow in the next decades. Another important novelty brought in the field by the group was the use of portable and low-cost video cameras, a technology that had become affordable and mass-produced in the mid 1980s.
The intersection of this technological shift and a mutated socio-political situation, made possible a novel documentary practice and an alternative media approach that was unthinkable only a few years before. At the same time, Green Team’s activity represented also an evolution of what had been happening since the beginning of the decade, when the media control exerted by the state started to show its cracks as a consequence of the Formosa Incident in 1979. In the aftermath of the event, political magazines critical of the government began to flourish, and in the second half of the 1980s, thanks to the aforementioned technological shift, this radical dissent took the shape of independent videos. To be in the trenches criticizing the government you needed now to bring your videocamera.
One of the VHS camcorders used by the Green Team (source)
On a purely aesthetic level, this approach resulted in works of low image quality and an almost amateurish look. After all, Green Team’s videos were never meant to be shown on huge screens and in cinemas, and by the members own admission, they never tried to make cinematic works in the first place. The group was more interested in using their videos ‘to break the barrier of media control and fulfil the concept of social practice” (Chuan 2014). This “video revolution” was made possible and successful also because of the adoption of underground distribution and exhibition practices, a clear break with what was done in the past and what was going on, at the time, in the mainstream media. I will return to this point at the end of this piece.
Labor battles and environmental protests
I have watched only a small fraction of the videos made by the collective, but two of them stood out for me, both for the topics covered, labor disputes and environmental issues, and for their construction as visual expressions. While I have touched on other videos as well, I have spent more ink, so to speak, on those two.
In 1987 alone, Taiwan saw as many as 1835 protests erupting in different parts of the island. Demonstrations and acts of civil resistance sprung up in all areas of social life: from environmental to labor issues, from student movements to indigenous rights, and from feminist fights to peasants protests. Farmers resistance is at the core of The 20th May Incident (1988), a work that documents the demonstrations of thousands of peasants in the city of Taipei, protesting against the government’s indifference to their rights and requests. It was the first farmers’ demonstration after the abolition of the Martial Law. The protest turned into an urban battle when the police stopped some farmers from using the bathrooms. Led by the Yunlin Farmers’ Rights Association and supported by a group of university students, the protesters fought back and some of them were arrested. At night, peasants and students marched to the police station, demanding the release of the people imprisoned. The police instead reacted by attacking them and arresting in total more than a hundred people.
Similar to the strategy employed during the events at The Taoyuan Airport two years prior, the national TV stations kept spreading lies through their channels, labelling the protesters as members of a conspiracy group. When the Green Team released the documentary with the images of what really happened, the government, fearing to be exposed, tried to seize the VHS cassettes of the video circulating around the country.
In 1985, the KMT government greenlighted the construction of a titanium dioxide plant, by American company DuPont, near Lukang, Changhua County. In the following months, the local residents organized a series of demonstrations that eventually caused the project to be cancelled. Lukang Residents’ Anti-DuPont Movement (1987) documents this historical victory through images of street protests, peaceful (and less peaceful) demonstrations, and discussions about broader environmental and civic issues. The work opens with a brief explanation of the situation, and interviews with the opinions of the people of Lukang. The work then moves on to show the march of the citizens in front of the presidential office to give the authorities a petition to stop the construction of the plant. Next, we see professors, poets and experts speaking at a special seminar organized in the city. This is the most insightful part of the video in my opinion, the points touched are very nuanced, complex, and more relevant than ever, even today more than 35 years later. Environment should be considered as a public asset and a collective right, says one of the speakers, and if the government is not able to protect it, it should be prosecuted. Environmental rights do not just belong to the people who are now alive, the current generation, the speaker continues, but to the citizens of the future as well. A professor of law adds that environmental rights are part of the right to life, basic human rights, and constitutional rights. In the same seminar another speaker touches on the division of labor on the global scale, that is, the exploitative nature of multinationals, in this case DuPont coming to Taiwan to use the resources of the land, without giving back anything but pollution and empty promises of “progress”.
These words provide a perfect philosophical background and set the table for what is coming on screen in the second part of the video, when we see the protests and clashes between the police and the citizens, as the distrust of the people towards the institutions has increased. It is particularly impactful to see how these demonstrations are somehow reminiscent of local folklore festivals (plus the rage). A big drum is rhythmically struck and accompanies the protest on the streets, it is often heard and seen at the center of the action, and even used as a battering ram, as it were, to break the security cordon made by riot police. Ending the video with images of a religious festival, held to express the gratitude for the success of the protests to the goddess Mazu, is thus a natural continuation of what we saw before, and a conclusion that emphasizes a reinforced sense of identity and belonging for the people of the area.
In the work, we see an organization of university students being involved in supporting the protests and in helping to do environmental research in the area. One of the major traits emerging from the works made by the Green Team, at least the ones I was able to watch, is the almost constant presence and involvement of students from various universities, but especially from the capital, in most of the demonstrations and acts of resistance that shook Taiwan at the time. This is the case with Labour’s Battle Song (Laid-off Shinkong Textile Workers’ Protest) as well, a work shot by the collective in 1988.
The film opens with a brief overview of the events that happened in Shilin district, Taipei, in 1988, when the closure of the Shinkong Textile factory left hundreds of workers unemployed and without a place to live. Some workers decided to self-organize in groups and to occupy factory spaces to express their anger towards both the company and the government. From the very first sequence it is clear how this protest is not only aimed against the closure of the plant, but also against the exploitative nature of the job. Women seem to be the ones who were more affected by the demanding labor conditions in the factory: they had to work for long hours to provide an income for their families, but at the cost of neglecting their personal lives. The documentary also sheds light on the inherent dangers of the job done in the plant and on the conditions inside the factory. This is exemplified by a very young lady without a hand, shown and interviewed during a demonstration, and who painfully recalls the incident that left her disabled.
One of the major driving forces behind the movement is a group of aboriginal students from Taitung and Hualien. As the female narrator beautifully put it, their traditional war dances and songs—performed joyfully on the street, together with factory workers and as a form of protest—bring not only a sense of needed solidarity to the workers, but have the power to “challenge the discreteness of the middle class”. Singing and dancing become fundamental elements of the workers’ identity, class identity, both during the demonstrations and in their recreational time in the occupied spaces. A particularly creative move involves turning the repetitive movements of the assembly line in the factory into a choreographed dance to perform on the streets.
On November 12, 1988, the plant workers took part in a historical event, a demonstration joined by others labor groups from across Taiwan to protest the government’s proposed amendments to the Labor Standards Act and Labor Union Act. This event marked a pivotal moment in Taiwan’s independent labor movement, with Shinkong’s workers playing a crucial role in the fight. The class divide is a common thread permeating the whole work and that powerfully emerges when we see the workers camping on the cold streets in front of the company’s head office. It is winter and they are preparing food to share with their comrades, while life in the rest of the city goes on as usual, indifferent to their struggle.
As time passed, challenges started to surface. The company cut off water and electricity in the plant and dormitory, leading workers to question their strategy and methods of dissent. By December 23, after more than two months, many workers reluctantly started to give up the struggle as SWAT teams were deployed at the protest site. The video cut to scenes of empty factories and rooms where workers used to live, the sense of defeat brings with it also a feeling of personal loss, a period of 75 days of resistance and labor fights is ending, but with it are also fading the memories of lives lived together for years. As a counterpoint to this mood, the film concludes on a positive note, with a montage of black-and-white photos, primarily featuring female workers, set to a labor song. While this specific fight has ended, the broader message remains clear: “Oppose exploitation. Fight for equality. Keep Fighting. Tomorrow will be better!”
Underground distribution and exhibition practices
The Green Team was not the only group of video-activists operating in Taiwan at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s, but was the one that lasted longer, and whose works had a lasting impact on future generations of Taiwanese documentarians. The importance of the group and its activities is deeply intertwined with the manner their works were produced and distributed. The group released their works through video dealers—more than sixty at the height of their activities—selling their VHS cassettes at video rental shops and at night markets, but also through branches of the DPP, and by organizing screening tours in the countryside. Free copies were also made and dispatched for political movement purposes, for The Taoyuan Airport Incident, for instance, about 2000 cassettes were produced and distributed around the country. When the videos were about the peasants’ protests, such as The 20th May Incident, the collective formed a group in charge of screening them in rural villages to spread the knowledge, spark discussions, and as a vehicle for social and political participation. The production method behind these works is also very important, at first the funding came from donations (but not from political parties), and later mainly from the sales of their videocassettes. After shooting the footage, the members of the group edited all the material and made the cassettes, when possible on the same day, and on the following day the videos were already dispatched, by car, to the selling points. This was the case for the first years of their activities at least, and since they could not stay up to speed with the official media, later on, the collective tried to set its own underground TV station, an event documented in Green TV’s Inaugural Film (1989).
The reasons for the end of Green Team’s activities are multiple. On the one hand, the technological advance that made their success possible in the first place, brought about also a cheaper reproducibility. Piracy, that is to say, copying video cassettes illegally, became a problem, and selling videos through the channels described above became, thus, unsustainable. This happened also because other groups of video activists operating at the time in Taiwan were selling their videos at a cheaper price. On the other hand, the end of the Martial Law contributed to creating a freedom of speech that allowed the traditional media, TV and newspapers, to cover social and political issues considered taboo before, making the Green Team’s videos less exceptional. In truth, the issues affecting people living at the margins of society remained still very much ignored by mainstream media, and became a topic to explore for filmmakers and groups in the next two decades.
In this new cultural landscape and mediascape, the Green Team, their videos, and their distribution and exhibition practices partly lost their raison d’être. In the second half of the 1990s, cinemas and TV became the main release platforms for documentaries, and while maintaining their independence, documentaries started to be financed by the “system”, television channels or public institutions. The average documentary filmmaker changed as well, more directors came now from film studies and were naturally more interested in making documentaries as cinematic art—the 1980s saw also the ascent of the so-called Taiwan New Wave, capped by Hou Hsiao-Hsien winning the Golden Lion for City of Sadness at the Venice Film Festival in September 1989. Not to mention the advent of the digital revolution—smaller, cheaper and more portable cameras—an event that would radically change, in the following decades, the field of documentary, allowing filmmakers to shift their focus towards more personal and individual themes.
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2023 wrapped up two weeks or so ago. It was a nice and enriching experience to attend the festival in presence again (the 2021 edition was held online only), and to catch up with old and new friends.
Most of my viewing time was cannibalized (and I mean it in a good way) by Noda Shinkichi‘s huge retrospective, a deep dive into the works of a pivotal figure in the development of documentary filmmaking in post-war Japan. I’m planning to write about this fascinating and almost overwhelming viewing experience in the following weeks, but today I’m going to focus on some of the other films I saw in Yamagata.
Three documentaries about the current socio-political situation in Myanmar, films shot in the country, were screened in the always interesting New Asian Currents program.
Losing Ground (anonymous, 2023) is a short film (23’ in the version presented in Yamagata) about the filmmaker’s own personal experiences in the protests that erupted in Myanmar, after the coup d’état brought chaos to the country, in February 2021. A somber, and beautifully shot, personal reflection on how the event altered his life and those of the people who joined the resistance. After actively participating in the demonstrations on the streets, the anonymous director was imprisoned for eight months, and once released, he was unable to return to his “normal” life. The film is a recollection of what happened in 2021 and a depiction of his current situation, trapped in his house, his dreams and those of his generation have been destroyed by the military regime. This sense of entrapment is expressed by images enveloped in darkness mainly shot in and from his home, also a way not to show the filmmaker’s face and thus guarantee his safety. After the time spent in prison, the director’s house and the city where he lives, Yangon, have also become a prison, a metaphorical but inescapable one. As the filmmaker states in the film, the sense of dread experienced during his imprisonment now pervades every fiber of his body. Just seeing a police or army vehicle from his window makes him feel nauseous and shake with fear. The sense of defeat and existential paralysis emanating from the minimalistic images is extremely powerful, and the whole movie feels like a desperate scream for help. It is thus very important that Losing Ground was awarded with the Ogawa Shinsuke Prize, and I couldn’t agree more with the comment of the jury’s members: “We want to send a strong message to this as well as other filmmakers who are similarly trapped or imprisoned, physically or metaphorically, that we see you. We care, and we are in solidarity with each and everyone of you.”
Conceptually and stylistically very different, but equally interesting, is Journey of a Bird (anonymous, 2021). Filmed in the days and months following the coup d’état, the short work documents the daily life of a group of young people, all in their early twenties, facing the lack of freedom brought after the military seized power. Shot with smartphones and a small digital camera, the film chronicles the daily life of a group of friends: organizing and protesting in the streets, changing apartments to avoid being followed, drinking and singing together, and dealing with their parents and the world of adults. While on the opposite spectrum of Losing Ground—it is a less reflective work and it feels like the director and his friends were thrown into making a film almost by chance—the situation depicted on screen reveals, in all its complexity, the struggle to keep living in a country under a dictatorial regime.
Also filmed in Myanmar, but not dealing directly with the consequences of the coup d’état, is Above and Below the Ground (Emile Hong, 2023). The work depicts events that happened before February 2021, and it is set in a peripheral area of the country, the Kachin region in the north of Myanmar, near the border with China. The life of a small community, the ethnic Christian minority that inhabits the area, is about to be disrupted by a soon-to-be-built dam, whose construction has been entrusted to a Chinese company. The resistance to the project and their fight for self-determination is described from the point of view of two of the women at the forefront of the protests, probably the better part of the documentary. To this storyline the film interweaves that of a local rock band invested in the demonstrations, a section too meandering and that lessens the impact of what the documentary is trying to say.
Women’s voices are also featured in two documentaries filmed in India about the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019), and more broadly on the political and social situation since Narendra Modi’s far-right government was elected in 2014. A Night of Knowing Nothing is an experimental documentary, screened and awarded at Cannes in 2021, directed by Payal Kapadia. The film has been critically praised internationally, a trend that continued in Yamagata, where it won the competition’s Grand Prize, The Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize. It was a very impactful viewing experience for me, the grainy black-and-white images perfectly convey the sense of horror and terror in which young generations of Indian students live in New Delhi, amid caste discrimination and police repression. However, it is a movie that I would like to watch again to better assess and appreciate the nuances and aesthetic choices made. I find the statement from the jury illuminating:
“A Night of Knowing Nothing adopts a fictional conceit in order to historicize the reality of a tumultuous present, crafting a portrait of a nation in crisis that is equally a story of love, friendship, memory, and youth. Marshaling a vast array of cinematographic techniques and technologies with skill and creativity, Payal Kapadia reflects on how and why images are made and what they can do. This enchanting and risk-taking film abandons all didacticism while retaining a political acuity that resonates intellectually and emotionally”.
Formally very different, Land of My Dreams (2023) addresses the same period and social tensions from a more feminist, more direct, and perhaps more articulate and critical point of view. Director Nausheen Khan, a university student, crafts a piece of resistance cinema that depicts, through interviews and images shot in the midst of the action, the story of the women who formed the non-violent movement against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act. Between 2019 and 2020, for over 100 days, the women of Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi, students, mothers and older women, protested the systematic repression against the Muslim minority, one of the pillars of nationalist propaganda set in motion by the government. Month after month these peaceful sit-ins spread to the rest of the capital, and eventually of the country, creating a broader movement that criticized the right-wing policies of Modi. In addition to providing a complex and dynamic picture of the socio-political situation in New Delhi, the film is also a painful reflection by the filmmaker herself on her identity. As a Muslim and as a woman, she finds herself at the center of personal tensions between the religious beliefs she grew up with, and her social experiences. The film (unsurprisingly, it’s Yamagata!), was awarded the Citizen’s Prize.
A special mention goes to Night Walk (Sohn Koo-yong, 2023), a work without sound, and with static images of night landscape accompanied with written poems on screen. An extreme visual experiment I could not completely connect with, but that still fascinates me. Predictably, many people walked out of the theater, but it was refreshing to hear, in the after talk, that many viewers were mesmerized by and could engaged with it. Again, the words of the jury come to rescue: “Night Walk might be called an anti-cinematic, anti-poetic, and anti-landscape-theory documentary.”
Today, October 21st, the National Film Archive of Japan organized a special screening of four films by Yamazaki Hiroshi, and 山崎博の海 The Seas of Yamazaki Hiroshi (2018), a short movie about the filmmaker and photographer, made by his friend and colleague Hagiwara Sakumi. The screening was part of the series of exhibitions and events connected to the T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL TOKYO 2023.
In addition to the screening, a series of panels, reproductions of Yamazaki’s photos discovered only after his death in 2017, were displayed in the Film Archive’s entrance hall.
I had already seen all of the films of the program years back, when the Image Forum Festival organized a bigger retrospective on the filmmaker. I also had the chance to write about Yamazaki’s masterpiece, Heliography (1979), and about his other experimental films he made during his career for this site. Moreover, a longer piece, where I draw connections between Heliography, Ogawa Pro’s Magino Village, and Matsumoto Toshio’s Ātman (1975), was recently published on Chute Film-Coop.
All of this to say that I went to Tokyo to revisit and rewatch Yamazaki’s films on a bigger screen, and possibly to experience them in a better quality. I had read, before attending the event, that the works would be screened digitally (ProRes), but I was a bit disappointed and sad to learn about the story of their condition and preservation. Of the four, a print exists only of Heliography, prints or negatives of the other three, Vision Take 1, Observation, and Motion are regrettably lost. To my surprise, the digital copies screened at the event were made from VHS tapes (!) Yamazaki used to show in the university where he worked.
the event
The after talk between Ishida Tetsurō, curator for the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, and organizer of Yamazaki’s last exhibition, and the aforementioned Hagiwara was casual, but interesting. Some anecdotes about Yamazaki’s life were shared, but most importantly for me, the two revealed some technical and conceptual aspects about Yamazaki’s filmmaking process.
Vision Take 1 (1973, 8mm, 4′) presents the viewer with the images of the sea, a constant in Yamazaki’s career, and a beach were a television stands. As soon as the landscape gets darker the TV set starts to light up with images of the same sea. This is probably the weakest of the bunch.
観測概念Observation (1975, 16mm, 10′) is a film that starts with a fixed and very dark image of the filmmaker’s neighborhood. Slowly and gradually the scene, a couple of roofs, antennae and the sky, with students and a small truck passing on the street at the bottom of the frame, turns whiter and whiter. The screen turns dark again, and from the upper left side of the screen, accompanied by a pulsating sound, one after another, many small bright “suns” appear drawing an arc of sorts in the dark sky above a house. However, as emerged from the discussion, probably this is not the arc drawn by the Sun in the sky captured in time-lapse, like in Isobe Shinya’s 13 for instance, but something different that Yamazaki created to make it look like the real thing. “It’s fiction” as said by one of the two people on stage.
Yamazaki himself was interested in photography and filmmaking in that “the world created through media is different from what humans see with their eyes”. For instance, the two half of Heliography, first the Sun filmed in time-lapse setting over the sea, and then, after a couple of seconds of darkness, the star resurfacing from a city seen upside down, were shot from two very different locations. If we think about it from a technical point of view, it is quite obvious. However, in the film it feels like the point of view is conceptually the same.
The after talk revealed also how Motion (1980, 16mm, 10′) was made, or better, how the two speakers think it was made, because Yamazaki was quite secretive about his methodology. According to Hagiwara, the film was made by shooting in a shower with a strobe lens. Motion is a fascinating film, without sound, composed of a series of tiny specks of liquid reflecting light, superimposed with layers and layers of more lights, sometimes edited slowly, sometimes faster. Besides Heliography, this was the film that impressed me the most. For the way it is constructed, but also for its trance-inducing quality, it felt like an experiment by Makino Takashi.
The event was interesting, but I wish there were more films screened, because to understand what Yamazaki was trying to do with images and light, one needs to be immersed longer and deeper in his world, photographic or filmic (also, I’d really like to see Sakura, his film about “dark” cherry blossoms again).
After the special online edition of 2021 (the in-person event was canceled due to the pandemic), starting from today the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is back in its regular format. For a week, October 5-12, the city in Northern Japan will be the capital of non-fiction cinema, with screenings, events, workshops, and meetings on and around the varied landscape of international documentary, with a special focus on Asia. If you want to have a look at the program, check the official page of the festival.
This will be my 5th edition (6th counting the online one), and the main focus for me will be following, as much as possible—but as usual everything changes during the festival—the huge retrospective on the works of Noda Shinkichi (1913-1993). A poet, filmmaker, film theorist, and an important figure to understand the different evolutions and developments of documentary filmmaking in the archipelago during the 20th century. Some of his works (industrial, science, and folklore films) are available on the NPO Science Film Museum‘s official homepage for free; or for rental, on the platform Ethnos Cinema.
この雪の下に Country Life Under Snow (1956), for instance, is a fascinating depiction of the harsh life in a rural area in Yamagata prefecture, while オリンピックを運ぶ Transporting the Olympics (1964), co-directed with Matsumoto Toshio, focuses on the logistics and the behind the scene of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. How things (boats, yachts, traffic cones, film reels, etc.) and animals (horses, pigeons) were transported from and to the capital.
One of the most relatively known works by Noda is マリン・スノー－石油の起源－Marine Snow – The Origin of Oil, co-directed by Ōnuma Tetsurō, a celebrated science film produced by Tokyo Cinema, sponsored by Maruzen Oil Co., and filmed using Eastmancolor. The short film describes the vertiginous span of time (millennia) in which sea plankton, through decomposition, turns into natural gas and oil. Commissioned by an oil company, and thus partly celebrating the petroleum industry— directly only in its last 5 minutes though—Marine Snow remains a visually astounding piece of science film, flawed by its own design and origin, but astounding nonetheless. You can watch here the version with an English narration (I prefer the Japanese one, for what it’s worth).
These films are just a fraction of what will be shown in Yamagata, in total the Noda’s retrospective includes 38 works, produced between 1941 and 1991. A Japanese/English flyer with summaries for each film is available here.
I really look forward to learn more about this towering figure in Japanese documentary, also because his contribution to the art of cinema does not stop with filmmaking, but it encompasses also books on the subject. One I’m particularly interested in is 日本ドキュメンタリー映画全史 Nihon dokyumentarii eigashi (1984), a history compiled by listing and analyzing the individuals involved in making documentary films in Japan, from the beginning of cinema to the mid-1980s. Having leafed through the volume, I could see names I had never heard before. I’m excited to discover more.
If I’m not mistaken, this retrospective in Yamagata originates from a special program organized in 2020 at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, an event that was unfortunately canceled because of the pandemic. One of the positive outcomes of this phantom retrospective was the publication online of a series of essays (in Japanese) exploring Noda’s filmmaking and his role in Japanese non-fiction cinema.
Naturally, many more works will be screened in Yamagata, the international competition, for instance, will present Self-Portrait: 47 KM 2020 (2023) by Zhang Mengqi, a friend of the festival who is bringing the newest entry of her ongoing film series shot in her hometown, and What About China? (2022) by theorist and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. One of my most anticipated works of the festival, the film was assembled using Hi8 video footage shot by the artist about 30 years ago.
New Asian Currents is usually a section that does not disappoint, and in past editions, it was a chance for me to make some big discoveries. This year, one of the threads of the program seems to be a special attention towards Myanmar and the ongoing resistance to the current political situation in the country. Losing Ground (anonymous, 2023), Journey of a Bird (anonymous, 2021), and Above and Below the Ground (Emily Hong, 2023) are some of the titles dealing with the subject. Also in New Asian Currents, Gama by Oda Kaori (I’ve written about it here), and the always interesting Miko Revereza with Nowhere Near (2023).
Other programs of this year festival are Yamagata and Film, Cinema with Us 2023, Film Letter to the Future, Perspectives Japan, Double Shadows 3, and View People View Cities—The World of UNESCO Creative Cities.
Usually the most impactful viewings I had at the festival in the past—at any festival, to be honest—are those that came at me unexpected and that I discovered by chance or by word of mouth. Hopefully it will be the same this year.
Tanaka Min is one of the contemporary Japanese artists I admire the most, both for his past as a butoh performer—a definition he has openly and vehemently refused to used in recent years—and for his connection with Gilles Deleuze and especially Felix Guattari, an encounter that resulted, in 1985, in the volume 光速と禅炎 Agencement ’85. Last but not least, I’ve always been fascinated by the turn that Tanaka’s career took around two decades ago, a change that made him a movie actor appreciated for his powerful and magnetic presence on screen. Not only a performing body in service of documentaries with an experimental touch, such as the beautiful ほかいびと 伊那の井月 Hokaibito: Ina no Seigetsu (Kitamura Minao, 2012), and the delirious piece of performance that is 始まりも終わりもない No Beginning, No End, directed in 2013 by Itō Shunya of 女囚701号/さそりFemale Prisoner #701: Scorpion fame. But also for his presence in more mainstream movies, and his work in voice acting for feature animations.
名付けようのない踊りThe Unnameable Dance (2022) is a documentary that retells, using Tanaka’s own narration and words, and in an episodic and at times syncopated way, some of the events and encounters that guided his life as a performer. Tanaka recalls, for instance, his meeting with Hijikata Tatsumi and the discovery of his revolutionary performances in the early 1970s. Or dancing in Paris in 1978, a trip that de facto launched his career, not only internationally but also in Japan. During one of his trips to France, Tanaka had also the chance to meet Roger Caillois, a writer and philosopher he strongly admired, and for whom he insisted to dance. The title of the movie, The Unnameable Dance, is, as a matter of fact, taken from a sentence Caillois used to describe Tanaka’s performance.
The documentary, directed by Inudō Isshin, covers also Tanaka’s debut as an actor in Yamada Yōji’s Twilight Samurai, an event that kicked off, at age 57, his career on the big, and small, screen. A part of the documentary is also dedicated to Tanaka’s work as a farmer, an activity very important for his philosophy, because, as he famously stated, “In agriculture one can find the anti-modern coming from the past. There you find the concreteness of the present.”
The recalling of all these experiences is interspersed with some of his more recent performances, always awe-inspiring, even when mediated through the camera. These performances were recorded in Japan and abroad, Paris and Portugal play a big role in the work, the latter is not only the place where the documentary begins and ends, but its music (Fado?) accompanies the whole documentary. Another fascinating quality of the film is that the performances and scenes with Tanaka on screen are interspersed with Yamamura Kōji ‘s beautiful and effective animation, used mainly to depict Tanaka’s memories and dreams as a child. Particularly significant is also how the documentary includes purposely the audience, their faces and their reactions, when filming Tanaka’s performances in public spaces. There’s not attempt to hide or cut out the people watching and taking videos and photos with their smartphones, since for the Japanese performer “dance cannot be owned; dance is born in the space between; the viewers become dancers too”.
I’ve been fascinated and captivated by Yamazaki Hiroshi’s works, both still and moving images, since the first time I discovered them in 2018, at the Image Forum Festival.
Reading about his approach to photography in the catalogue of one of his exhibitions, and finding ‘Ugoku shashin! tomaru eiga!‘(Moving photos! Still movies!), the book where he recounts part of his life and career, made me appreciate his artistic output even more.
Moreover, it a was a revelation to discover (how did I miss it!?) that Yamazaki was behind the time-lapse sequences shot for Magino Village – A Tale / The Sundial Carved with a Thousand Years of Notches (1986) by Ogawa Production, and that he worked as a cameraman in Matsumoto Toshio’s Ātman (1975).
Chute, an experimental film cooperative based in Istanbul and The Hague, offered me the chance to gather my thoughts on Yamazaki, Heliography (1979), and what I’ve called “the solar connection”.
In the article I’ve only scratched the surface of what could, and frankly should, be written about Yamazaki. His engagement with moving images, the relation between his films and his work in photography, his method, and his position in the history of experimental cinema in Japan.
Soon after the article was posted, more thoughts started to coagulate in my head, and I was also told that Matsumoto wrote a piece on some pre-Heliography experimental films by Yamazaki. The journey has just started.
Asian Docs 
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