Taiwan Docs

This film documents the boat-building and rowing process from Tao Island to Taiwan, sponsored by the “2007 Dream Project: Rowing 2007 Ocean Etude.” It shows the essence of Tao oceanic culture. The director worked with his good Tao friend, Shyaman Vengaayen, as the curators of an exhibition project about the traditional Tao boat-building culture at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung. They asked Shyaman Vengaayen’s father how to tread those taboos and scared ceremonies in Taiwan. “Why are you so worried? There’s no our spirits in Taiwan,” Father said so. The Tao people are facing the double bind of traditional cultural discipline and modernization’s impacts. This film shows how they look at, reflect on, adjust to, and cope with the experience of reconciling tradition and modernity through the process of boating-building and sailing.

Source: Taiwan Int'l Ethnographic Film Festival
http://www.tieff.sinica.edu.tw/ch/2009/e-index.html