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All in The Reporter (報導者)
When Image Becomes the Salt of Life – Cutting through the Narrative of Heroization in Lau Kek-huat’s Taste of Wild Tomato
The Kaohsiung Film Archive commissions the creation of documentary films on the city of Kaohsiung, to exhibit “local people’s identification with the land, and display Kaohsiung’s local cultural scene through visuals”. Twenty-five documentary films have been made over the past ten years, which touch on aspects such as folk customs, industry, military dependents' villages, indigenous people, migrant workers, and landscape transformation. Taste of Wild Tomato, which was nominated in the 2022 Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) competition, is one of the latest commissioned works. The film breaks free of the longstanding framework of discussing and recreating the February 28th Incident, extending from this singular focus to the furthest realms of visual language. Through a loose and poetic narrative, the film casts light upon the multifaceted, uncertain and unstable history of the city, and indeed the country as a whole.
Sculpting Enlightenment: The Century-long Legacy of Huang Tu-shui’s ‘Water of Immortality’
In October 1921, two events rocked the Taiwanese arts and cultural space; the founding of the Taiwan Cultural Association, and Huang Tu-shui’s (黃土水) sculpture, ‘Water of Immortality’ (甘露水), was selected for the Japan Fine Art Exhibition. One hundred years after its birth, the long-since locked away ‘Waters of Immortality’ has been fully restored, and on December 18th 2021, MoNTUE will once again unveil her to the world.
Distance to the truth – Reinvestigation of migrant fisherman’s death in Indonesia, critical cross-border witness testifies
In late August 2015, Indonesian fisherman Supriyanto died on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, only three months after setting sail. December 15, 2016, The Reporter published the series “Fraud, Exploitation, and Blood on the High Seas,” tracking this case of “death from illness” which the Pingtung District Prosecutors Office speedily concluded within two months, unveiling the suspected mistreatment on the vessel, and the process of trafficking Indonesian fisherman to Taiwan by the shipowner and an agency. After the Control Yuan’s correction and the press' numerous reports, Pingtung District Prosecutors Office soon relaunched the investigation.
In May 2018, one and a half years after, the investigation showed progress. Under the assistance of labor unions from both Taiwan and Indonesia, a fisherman who worked on the same vessel with Supriyanto arrived in Taiwan and gave testimony in court. The testimony not only helped the prosecutor clarify the situation on board then, but also became one of the few successful callings of a foreign witness in the criminal cases.
Bringing Home the Dead, From Taiwan to Vietnam
It wasn’t until Nguyễn Văn Chac sat down on the airplane, that he finally had time to settle down, and talk to his brother.
In the early morning of 14 December 2017, his 20 year-old brother, Nguyễn Văn Trãi, died in a fire in the factory dormitory that he was staying at in Taoyuan’s Luzhu district - just a week before they were due to go see the Christmas tree again.