Returning Souls: Documentary Screening with Filmmaker Hu Tai-Li

The Institute of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley presents a screening of Returning Souls by filmmaker Hu Tai-Li

Speakers/Performers: Hu Tai-Li, Filmmaker; You-tien Hsing, Geography, UC Berkeley

An intimate family story within a politically charged historical framework, “Returning Souls” unfolds in an environment where ancient cultures grapple with the power of western religions, national land policy, and the local politics of Taiwan. In the most famous ancestral house of Taiwan's matrilineal Amis tribe, carved pillars tell the community's most cherished legends. Some forty years ago, a strong typhoon toppled the house, after which the pillars were moved to the Institute of Ethnology Museum. The documentary follows the efforts of young villagers who, with assistance from female shamans, challenged tribal members and village representatives to communicate with the ancestors residing in the pillars. They eventually brought those souls back--rather than the pillars themselves--and began reconstructing the house. The documentary explores issues of identity politics and the anxieties of a generation caught in the crosshairs of modernity.