Nail + Rice Distribution (12+)

This double-feature screening will be followed by a hybrid Q&A session, featuring Dir. Tin Fu Huang (online) and Dir. Tammy Cheung (in-person), hosted by Dr. Fraser Elliott (in-person).

Nail 指月記

Taiwan / 2002 / B&W / 45 mins / No Dialogue

Nail is Director Huang Ting-fu’s year and a half long (a year of filming and six months of editing) look at life through the window of Taipei’s historic Long-Shan temple. Shot in monochrome, in an area of only 200 sq. m., the film immerses us in the daily passing of time that is life at Long-Shan.

An architectural blend of the ornate, the garish and the traditional, Long-Shan temple sits in the midst of a crowded working class area of Taipei, filled with a diverse mix of the old and the new, with cheap good food, ageing prostitutes, and places to just hang out and have a smoke and exist. The temple itself is not beautiful, nor does it have an impressive view, every day it is filled with visitors. Frequented mostly by the elderly who pass away their days sleeping, engaged in idle gossip, or just watching the other visitors, it is a fascinating place where scant attention is paid to time.

Awards:

Best Short Documentary at the 26th Golden Harvest Awards 2003
Best Audio Design Award at the Taipei Film Festival
Best Asian Film at the Syracuse University Film Festival

Director: Ting Fu Huang. Huang was born in Kinmen, a small island near Taiwan in 1961. He made his first film back in 1985 with his regular 8mm camera and he has been a devoted documentary filmmaker. He graduated in Broadcasting and Television from the National Taiwan College of Art in 1988. From 1989 to 2016, he was working as a film archivist in Taiwan Film Institute. HUANG currently works as a freelance filmmaker.

Rice Distribution 平安米

Hong Kong / 2003 / Colour / 35 mins / In Cantonese with Chinese and English subtitles

During the Ghost Festival, many Taoist organisations give away rice to the elderly and the poor. The rice distribution depicted in this film attracted over eight thousand people. Most of them waited over 20 hours.

Awards:

Grand Prize at the 8th IFVA 2003

Director: Tammy Cheung. Cheung is a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker who founded Visible Record Limited with other like-minded individuals from the fields of film, culture and education. In 2008, she founded the Chinese Documentary Festival. And in 2019, the festival was expanded into an international film festival now renamed as the Hong Kong International Documentary Festival.