Somewhere Over the Cloud
- Family
- Generation
- Youth
- Senior
Synopsis
A series of letters that the filmmaker wrote to her late teacher and mentor, the renowned American documentary filmmaker Robert KRAMER (1939-1999), is woven throughout the plot of the story as the boundaries of life, distance, language, identity and nationality are re-examined from the perspective of Elodie, her daughter. Elodie is half French and half Taiwanese; conceived in Indonesia, she was born in Taiwan. At her birth, her French father applied for an unpaid leave and arrived in Taiwan to stay for a year. After having returned to France, the webcam becomes the means by which they know each other; her real father is confined behind a small, virtual screen. The meaning of "Daddy" begins to change when Elodie grows up, from being the computer, to the mouthpiece of the teddy bear and the intruder who competes with her for her mother's affection...
Director Statement
The Internet is like a cloud without physicality, ceaselessly expanding and contracting. One minute or one hour can become an eternity.
Though Robert Kramer has left this world, to me, his e-mail address is forever the spiritual space of his existence. In Le Fresnoy, he guided me in the way of making documentaries. I maintained with him a relation beyond the clouds, further than death, further than the network.
In my preceding work The Falling Kite, the kite, whose line was broken, evoked separation and the nostalgia of the exiled person. The mixed origin of my daughter, Elodie, makes me tackle the question of identity on the cultural, national, and political level.
The Internet is a space of freedom, personal and public at the same time... real and virtual at the same time... immediate and foreign at the same time... it spans the past, the present, and the future... But can the Internet establish a new kind of family bond? Can a virtual love exist? Can the people of the 21st century no longer feel restrained by the borders of nations and identities? Can the technology of the 21st century put an end to the nostalgia of the exiled? By transforming myself as a mother into a passive camera, I ask these questions and wait for the answers.
Source: Yamagata Int'l Documentary Film Festival
http://www.yidff.jp/2007/cat043/07c063-e.html
Festivals & Awards
2008 Taiwan International Documentary Festival - Special Mention
2007 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival - Special Mention of New Asian Currents
2007 Women Make Waves Film Festival
Team
- Director
Gallery
