Taiwan Documentary Film Screenings and Lecture

The UCLA Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library and the Press Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles will jointly sponsor the screening of two Taiwanese documentary films.

Films:

Megastructures: EcoARK (2010; 50min.) is a film that presents the planning and construction of the EcoARK pavilion, a spectacular horticultural showpiece of the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, on an Olympic scale.  It records the challenges and eventual success faced by the architectural, planning, and building teams who labored on this incredible structure.

The nine-storey-high exhibition hall, covering an area of six basketball courts, is built largely out of more than 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles.   The concept of “environmental sustainability” is applied to the design of the pavilion, from the choice of building materials to natural ventilation and lighting.

Time for Dancing (2009; 60 min.) presents six works from three choreographers from different backgrounds, with varied training and expressing a diverse set of aesthetics.  These works range from analysis of the relationship between lovers to lyrical expression evolving from poetry, from explorations of music and the human body to dialogues with different types of space.  At the same time, the film explores why people have the urge to dance, and why some are only happy when they dance.

Lecture:
Prof. Robert Chi, Dept. of Asian Languages & CulturesThe screenings will be followed by a guest lecture by Professor Robert Chi of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA.  Prof. Chi will discuss the rich tradition of documentary film and video in Taiwan, and how these two recent documentaries explore questions about both Taiwan’s place in the world and the artistic and social power of documentary filmmaking today.