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YIDFF 2005 Information

New Asian Currents


Total: 678 Films out of 49 Countries and Areas

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)

1
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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2
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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3
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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4
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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5
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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6
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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7
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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8
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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9
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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10
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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11
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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12
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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13
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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14
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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15
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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16
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.

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New Asian Currents Special Invitation Films
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 InformationJury CommentsInternational Competition | New Asian Currents | BORDERS WITHIN | all about me? | Yunnan Visual Forum | FullShot | New Docs Japan | Other ScreeningsScheduleMap of Venues | Tickets | AccommodationFAQ