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Schedule

Schedule

9/14 (Sun), 7:30pm

 

We are sorry to announce that due to the typhoon SINLAKU, Urban Nomad Film Program at the Taipei Biennial scheduled for Sep. 14 is cancelled and will be rearranged at Sep. 21 in Taipei Brewery Factory.
The film schedul is maintain the same. We are sincerely expect your participation.


Taipei Art Park, Zhongshan N. Rd, Sec. 3 -next to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Short Film by James Hong (35 min)
James Hong is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who has turned documentary into a discursive tool. His films do not attempt to show an objective reality, but instead present a highly subjective view of the world in a attempt to unveil and examine the concepts that underpin how we see the world in the first place. In this program, he turns his scathing eye towards the cross-cultural relationships between the West and Taiwan and China.
Films: Suprematist Kapital (5min), Portrait of a Sino-American Friendship (8min), Taipei 101: A Travelogue of Symptoms (23min)
Crossing the Line (94min)
(Daniel Gordon / UK / 2007)               
In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. This is the story of a man who found a happiness the global media tells us is impossible. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe, the last American defector in North Korea, is told.

 

9/20 (Sat ), 7:30pm
Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
The Voyage to Happiness (60min) * followed by director talk
(Artemis Wang / Taiwan / 2007)
A documentary about the human effects of women who marry their way out of poor Asian countries and into rich Asian countries, the film traces the modern history of foreign brides from Japan to Korea and Taiwan. A close look is given to how the trend began, the reasons governing the supply and demand of international marriage, and how this is changing things on both sides of the deal.

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Welcome to Nollywood (57min)
(Jamie Meltzer / USA / 2007 )
The Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood, has exploded as the most popular cinema in all of west Africa-even more popular than imports of Hollywood or Bollywood films- by shooting all films on digital video. Now almost a new film is finished almost everyday and Nollywood is the third-largest film industry in the world, Traveling to the country's chaotic capitol, Lagos, director Meltzer spent six weeks following three of Nigeria's hottest directors and examining the Nigerian video-film industry as a whole, its unique character and genres, as well as its impact on the culture of west Africa and Africans at home and abroad.

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9/21(Sun), 7:30PM
Taiwan Beer Factory
Short Films by James Hong (35mins)
James Hong is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who has turned documentary into a discursive tool. His films do not attempt to show an objective reality, but instead present a highly subjective view of the world in a attempt to unveil and examine the concepts that underpin how we see the world in the first place. In this program, he turns his scathing eye towards the cross-cultural relationships between the West and Taiwan and China. Films: Suprematist Kapital (5min), Portrait of a Sino-American Friendship (8min), Taipei 101: A Travelogue of Symptoms (23min)

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Crossing the Line (94 mins)
(Daniel Gordon / UK / 2007)
In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. This is the story of a man who found a happiness the global media tells us is impossible. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe, the last American defector in North Korea, is told. http://www.crossingthelinefilm.com/
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9/27 (Sat), 7:30pm
Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
The Campaign (120min)
(Kazuhiro Soda / Japan / 2007)
Forty-year-old "Yama-san" Yamauchi leads a peaceful, humdrum life until Japan's politically dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suddenly chooses him as its official candidate to run for a vacant seat on the Kawasaki city council. Yama-san had zero experience in politics, no charisma, no supporters, no constituency, and no time to prepare for the impending election. The film goes deep inside the old-boy club that runs Japanese-style “democracy,” and how Yama-san is indoctrinated into their ranks.

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10/4 (Sat), 7:30pm
Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
Filipino Activist Shorts 2005-2008 (30min)
In the face of enormous national problems, including government corruption, police brutality and abject poverty, Filipino filmmakers have banded together to create an opposition voice. One of the main collectives in called Southern Tagalog Exposure, and here we show their animations, the“Arrest Gloria Shorts,”and other films.

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Tribu (95min)
(Jim Libiran / Philippines / 2008)
For his first feature film, journalist Jim Libiran went into the most dangerous slum in Manila, and recruited real teenage gangsters to act in his film about the slum’s gang wars. The gangs model themselves on US hip hop stars, and view freestyle rapping as a way of life. By using real members of rival gangs as actors in the film, director Libiran both created an extreme sense of realism and brought about an even more real truce between the gangs.

1003a

 

10/11 (Sat), 7:30pm
Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
Odds & Ends (35min)
Odds and Ends is a collection of short films and music videos from Portland, Oregon in the US and curated by Karl Lind. Many of the videos are inspired by the thriving local indie music scene, and the aesthetic is a mix of liberal critique and trippy, highly stylized visuals. It’s the kind of grassroots media community we at Urban Nomad try to forge links with, as a way of increasing communication between dispersed global citizens with common goals for the planet.
The Yes Men (80min)
(Chris Smith, Dan Ollman, Sarah Price / USA / 2003)
The Yes Men is a movie based on the activist group of the same name, which is now a genderless, loose-knit association of some 300 impostors worldwide who agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, ask questions, then smuggle out the stories to provide a public glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of business. The film follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the world.

 

10/12(Sun)
Filipino Activist Shorts 2005-2008)(30min)
Tribu)(95min)

 

10/18 (Sat), 7:30pm
Taiwan Beer Factory, 85 Bade Rd., Sec. 2
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars (80min)
(Zach Niles, Banker White / USA / 2005)
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars is a group of six musicians who fled their home country to escape a decade-long civil war and ended up coming together to form a band in a refugee camp. The film tracks them as they tour different refugee camps, record their first album, and return to their ravaged country for the first time since the war. It is the story of a group of men rising from the ashes to inspire a nation to believe in the healing power of music.

refugee
Random Shorts (45min)
(Nichols and Charnoski / USA / 2004)
Skateboarding has become a bigger world subculture than maybe anyone ever thought it should be. Nichols and Charnoski make their skate films using 8mm film, which distills an aesthetic dimension of skating seldom associated with this sport-cum-lifestyle. We’re showing this as the last film on this series last night. So hang out with us and watch some skate movies.

 

More about the film program:
After five consecutive weekends of successful screenings, Urban Nomad Film Program wraps up this weekend 10/18 for a final screening. Films shown in previous weekends include documentaries, features and shorts from Taiwan and around the world that entertain while also speaking to movements for change and social awareness. Films cover subjects like an American defector to North Korea, Nigeria’s film industry, a Japanese election campaign, and anti-corporate pranksters. Several films offered new modes of activism, like Tribu, a drama about Filipino hip hop gangs that created a real gangland truce by bringing gang members together as actors in the film. Other films focus intently on issues like democracy, migrations, and our political/media environment. Most importantly, all of them approach issues from the level of the common man or woman. They carry a sense of practical idealism that viewers can take away with them, apply in their lives, and hopefully become better citizens of our world.  Urban Nomad is a self-funded platform for underground and indie films founded in 2002 and based in Taipei. Our immediate goals are to create community-level support for producers of short films, documentaries and narrative films, then to connect our local indie film community to others in East Asia and Southeast Asia. More generally, Urban Nomad is a place where people can come together. We want to use films to start discussions, not brainwash people with movies.

 

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