Sales
TAIWAN / 2000 / Chinese / Color / Video / 58 min
Director, Script, Photography, Editing, Sound, Producer, Source: Tseng Chi-hsien
Graduate Institute of Sound and Image
Tainan National College of Arts
66 To-chi Villege, Kuantien 720 Tainan Hsien TAIWAN
Phone: 886-931-167066
E-mail: fuliou@ethome.net.tw
Toyota car dealer Hwang chose his profession because he heard that “You get lots of time off.” But customers are fickle, the boss is sarcastic, and the sales quota is over the rainbow. Dressed for work in shirt and tie, he sings karaoke, takes his girlfriend out and plays with his infant son. Cell phone close at hand, there's no time for rest. Supported by a full cast of a (separated) wife who never reveals her face to the camera, a fearsome mom who grieves over her degenerate son, and a darling son whose twin brother was kidnapped to Japan, here’s the humorous and pathetic life of a salesman. The director is an old buddy from school who was asked to buy a Toyota four years ago.
[Director’s Statement] Actually, the documentary film Sales is about a man who talks with invisible customers and his girlfriend (also invisible) on his cell phone, and to me sitting next to him, in the narrow space inside a car. I think I made a “one-man talk show” documentary film, which is something producers always worry about and try to avoid making.
Tseng Chi-hsien
Born in 1968 in Pingtung, Taiwan. Graduate student in documentary film at the Tainan National College of Arts Institute of Sound and Image. He worked at Taiwan Star TV. In 1996, The Five Spy Fishermen Who Disappeared won the China News Literary Award and Judges’ Award. In 2000, Villages, Religion and Its Ceremonies was awarded the Council for Cultural Affairs Prize for Best Documentary. Other works include Composer Lu (1998) and the television program Warmth All Over the World (2000). |