The New Taiwanese Documentary

By Robert Chi


Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 146-96


Documentary film and video is a provocative and problematic aspect of mass mediated culture in Taiwan today. More than a genre, style, or mode of film and video production, documentary encompasses textual strategies as well as social phenomena such as material circulations, representational politics, and collective experience. Rather than naming a particular movement, “The New Taiwanese Documentary” refers to this field of issues and practices. Documentary in this expanded sense is essential to recent developments in cinema and the public sphere. In particular the New Taiwanese Documentary provides a crucial contrast to fiction-feature cinema with respect to visibility, identity, and locality.