Screening of Yang Ming-Hui's Indigenous Documentaries Series with Director's Q&A

Yang Ming-Hui

As part of the 2022 SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies Summer School, we kindly ask that you register to attend.

*Please be aware that this session follows British Summer Time (BST) .

Abstract

Part One: 09:30-11:20 Screening of Yang Ming-Hui's Indigenous Documentaries Series (BGLT)

Part Two: 11:30-12:50 Director Online Q&A Session in BGLT (Online via Microsoft Teams )

1. "Song of the Wanderer" 流浪者之歌

| 1996 | 45 mins | Taiwan |

Song of the Wanderer features a group of 'voiceless people', a part of the indigenous community in which the filmmaker resides. Due to frustrations with work, divorce, and life in general, they are often subject to isolation, emotional breakdowns, and even self-harm behaviours. The filmmaker engages them in genuine conversations, while inviting the viewer to listen to these 'voiceless people' sing: In their songs are their true feelings.

2. "Please Give Us a Job" 請給我一份工作

| 1997 | 35 mins | Taiwan |

In the 1990s, foreign migrant workers began to occupy the Taiwanese workforce under the government’s new policy. Many indigenous labourers lost their jobs and were forced to return to their homelands, squeezing out a living on odd jobs, frustrated and powerless. Please Give Us a Job records their unheard voices against a backdrop of economic growth, and observes the rivalry and tension between foreign workers and indigenous workers.

Award

• 1998 Golden Harvest Awards - Excellence Award
• 1998 Golden Harvest Awards

3. "Too Young" 小夫妻的天空

| 1998 | 42 mins | Taiwan |

The film depicts a young couple who, having come from dysfunctional families, decider to form a new family of their own. It shows the kind of difficulties they meet with in real life, and how they deal with it emotionally and psychologically. Through the interference and influence of the filmmaker, the pair express and provide an alternative voice for their generation.

Director YANG Ming-Hui (Umin Howa) 楊明輝

YANG Ming-hui (Umin Howa), of the indigenous Truku community, was born in 1967 in Hualien, Taiwan. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at the National Hualien Teachers College, YANG has been teaching in Jingmei Elementary School in Hualien for over 30 years. He was one of the first indigenous directors who received documentary filmmaking training. The subjects of his films include indigenous people suffering from mental disorders, unemployed labourers, teenage problems, as well as ceremonies and rituals. Now he also uses painting to record more culture and history of the Truku.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: hl55@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: Taiwan Ministry of Culture & Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute X Taiwan Docs