We are proud to announce the 10th edition of the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival (TIEFF), to be held in Taipei from October 4th to 8th in 2019. Founded in 2001, the biennial festival is Asia’s oldest and longest running international ethnographic film festival. For 18 years TIEFF has served to promote outstanding documentary films from around the world that are innovative, educational, and entertaining. These films, directed by both new and established filmmakers alike, all share a commitment to portraying stories and social practices from around the world in a culturally sensitive way. This year we selected thirty five films out of 1190 submissions (sent in from ninety nine countries). Those films are listed below. Please follow our Facebook page to be notified when the full program is posted to our website at TIEFF.ORG.
This year’s theme
This year’s theme, “Visions of Sovereignty,” explores our relationships with our land, our bodies, and with each other. Moving beyond traditional political-legal notions of the state, “Visions of Sovereignty” is inspired by the work of indigenous activists and scholars who have called into question the idea that sovereign entities are neatly bounded by clearly marked borders, and that everyone within those boundaries is equally beholden to the state. Instead they ask us to look at sovereignty as a process shaped by how we see our world and our unique place within it. Going back to Hobbes the state has long been thought of as a giant person, with the focus on the body’s head, occupied by a king or some other ruler. “Visions of Sovereignty” returns our gaze to the stories of the individual men and women who make up the body of the state, showing how they adapt to, challenge, and sometimes even change the very nature of sovereignty.
This year’s films
This year’s films are grouped into nine topical sections:
● Featured Director: The World
- Merata : How Mum Decolonized The Screen ⎮ Heperi Mita
- Bastion Point Day 507 ⎮ Merata Mita, Leon Narbey, Gerd Pohlmann
● Featured Director: Taiwan
- The Endurance to Become a Real Man ⎮ Uki Bauki
- The Spirit of Ancestors-Loyalty Palakuwan ⎮ Uki Bauki
● Visions of Sovereignty: Justice and Democracy
- The Maribor Uprisings: A Live Participatory Film ⎮ Maple Razsa, Milton Guillén
- Rituals of Resistance ⎮ Tenzin Phuntsog, Joy Dietrich
- The Good Change Poles Apart ⎮ Konrad Szolajski
- Last Exit to Kai Tak ⎮ Matthew Torne
- Tribal Justice ⎮ Anne Makepeace
● Visions of Sovereignty: War and Peace
- Demons in Paradise ⎮ Jude Ratnam
- Island Soldier ⎮ Nathan Fitch
- The New Generation ⎮ Chen Shi
● Visions of Sovereignty: Whose Land is it Anyway?
- Anote’s Ark ⎮ Matthieu Rytz
- BE’ JAM BE the never ending song ⎮ Caroline Parietti, Cyprien Ponson Around the Bed of a Dying Collaborator ⎮ Tal – Michael, David Ofek
- Unsettling ⎮ Iris Zak
● Visions of Sovereignty: Bare Life
- Notes from CARA ⎮ Filippo Gobbato, Alessia Foraggio, Claudio Selicato, Paolo Rosi, Giacomo Fausti, Sarah Mathon
- Revenir (To Return) ⎮ David Fedele, Kumut Imesh
- Pomelo ⎮ Swann DUBUS, TRAN Phuong Thao
● The Importance of Place
- Oyate ⎮ Dan Girmus
- Homecoming ⎮ Zeng Hong-zhi
- Green River. The time of the Yakurunas ⎮ Alvaro Sarmiento, Diego Sarmiento
- Le Ciel, la Terre et l’Homme ⎮ Caroline Reucker
● Our Bodies, Ourselves
- Heartbound ⎮ Janus Metz, Sine Plambech
- Nimble fingers⎮ Parsifal Reparato
- Our Happy Birth Day ⎮ Chen Yu-Ching, Angel SU
● History/Memory
- Winter Solstice in the Golden Wing Valley ⎮ Kongshao Zhuang
- 32 Km, 60 Years ⎮ Laha Mebow
- I See Red People ⎮ Bojina Panayotova
- Memory Beings ⎮ Sudha Padmaja Francis
- Wási ⎮ Sebastián Gómez Ruíz, Amado Villafaña
● Traditions and Rituals
- Tajen ⎮ Robert Lemelson, Alessandra Pasquino
- Muakai’s Wedding ⎮ Su Hung-en
- To No Longuer Die ⎮ Simon Plante
- The Feather Headdress of Ceroh (Ciopihay) | Fuday Ciyo