Film Screening of Wawa No Cidal (太陽的孩子) & Q&A with the Leading Actress Ado

Speaker: Ms Ado

Synopsis

If only every child in the sun can be proud of herself;
If only every child in the sun can sing out loud her song in her own language;
If only every child in the sun can stand legitimately in her land, in the place where no one shall banish her.

How long has it since you've been home? Could it happen that someday when you thought about going home, you found that everything had changed?

The sapphire pacific ocean and the golden rice fields - that was Panay’s impression of her hometown as a child. To provide her father and two children a better life, Panay was struggling in the city alone until a sudden disease attacked her father. She rushed home only to find out that since no idea when, all the fields of gold had been turned into tourist hotels. She was worried that if this kept happening, what kind of land there would be left to the next generation. So she made the decision to repair the water ditches and restore farming. However, it was not so easy as there were all kinds of setbacks and tests in front of her. She taught her children in gentle but solid actions: Never give up! Our homelands are ours to protect.

Speaker's Bio

Ado, whose full name in her native Amis (Pangcah) language is Ado Kaliting Pacidal, is a singer-songwriter, the host of a music program on Taiwan Indigenous Television, and a writer of original literary works. She also recently played the leading role in the film Panay (Wawa no Cidal), so she has also become a film actress.

Ado has an unusually extensive educational background for a TV host or musician. She specializes in cultural analysis and ethnomusicology, and has extensively studied issues relating to indigenous society and culture, devoting herself to indigenous self-identification and cultural promotion. She also attempts to apply her academic knowledge and her various talents to her musical compositions and the music programs she hosts, giving the final works a multifaceted viewpoint.

The 2015 film Panay (Wawa no Cidal), in which Ado plays the leading role, told a story about Taiwanese indigenous people and their relationship to the land and accurately reflected Taiwanese indigenous social issues. Not only was it one of the most notable Taiwanese films of that year, it also earned Ado a nomination for Best New Performer at the Golden Horse Awards, and received accolades at many international film festivals, including Best Children’s Feature Film at the 8th CMS International Children's Film Festival in India and first place in the Jury Awards at the 6th Chinese Visual Festival in London.

In 2016, Songs on the Island Wind, a featured music program on Taiwan Indigenous Television that Ado produces and hosts, earned her a Golden Bell Award for Best Education and Culture Program Host, providing further affirmation of the fruits of Ado’s years of work in the fields of indigenous music, history and culture.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: bc18@soas.ac.uk