Directors in Focus

Directors in Focus introduces two films by the highly regarded team of American ethnographic filmmakers Timothy and Patsy Asch and anthropologist Linda Conner. The two classics, A Balinese Trance Séance and Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali, are part of the filmmakers’ series on the beliefs and rituals of Bali.

TIEFF 2009’s Directors in Focus section also introduces Bilin Yabu, a member of Taiwan’s Atayal Tribe, and his two films that delve into Atayal culture and aboriginal identity, power, and conflict: The Stories of Rainbow and Through Thousands Years. These two films were produced 10 years apart. From them, we can examine how the director pierces the surface, digging deep into the varied intertwining relationships between cultural exchange, communication, and conflict the Atayal people face.

Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali

Cremation rites are the most elaborate rites of passage performed by Balinese householders. Poor families may wait years before accumulating enough resources to cremate their dead, who are buried in the meantime. This film is about a group of villagers in Central Bali who cooperated to carry out a group cremation. It had been 15 years since they last held

A Balinese Trance Seance

Bringing rice, flowers, and woven coconut leaves as offerings, clients visit Jero in her household shrine to figure out the cause of their son’s death. Jero ,the witch lights an incense brazier, sprinkles holy water, and recites mantras as preliminaries to trance. Several ancestors and the young son speak through her voice, revealing the exact reason of his premature death

Through Thousands Years

A team of film workers of Han descent went to Cinsbu and Smangus—two Atayal villages located in the deep mountains of the Hsinchu County—to shoot a film about the migration history of the Atayal people. This film brought conflicts to the tribe, including distrust of Atayal villagers against the Han outsiders and quarrels within the tribe. An aboriginal director recorded

The Stories of Rainbow

In the Atayal legend, the soul of a deceased person will arrive at the Atayal heaven via the rainbow after they die. And the face tattoo is the only way that they can rely on to get to the rainbow. This film is a documentary about the viewpoints of the elders who have tattooed their faces. It portrays how the