Description

On August 1st of last year, Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen officially apologized to Taiwan’s indigenous peoples for “the four centuries of pain and mistreatment” they have endured. In this statement, recognition of governmental responsibility was quite clear, and actions for “true reconciliation” between the government and the indigenous peoples was fairly specific: for example, to delineate and announce indigenous traditional territories and lands in three months, or to set up an Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Commission under the Presidential Office in about four months. Reconstructing historical archives and memories was also highlighted as one of the most significant issues to “shine a light on the true history of the indigenous peoples.”

The series of actions taken by the new Taiwanese president has attracted the keen attention of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, and also gained widespread interest throughout the world. This upswell of concern, in conjunction with practices of pursuing transitional justice in Taiwan society in recent years, seeks reconsideration of Japanese colonial responsibilities as well as studies of historical injustice. This presentation is an attempt to engage in this work by focusing on the historical experiences of the indigenous peoples in Taiwan through an examination of the colonial war in records and memories.

Description

*The registration for this event has now been closed. Rush tickets will be available but entries are not guaranteed. Please arrive 30 minutes before the show at the Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave (entrance off of St. George St.).*

Japan 2017
95:00
English, Japanese with English subtitles
PG • Canadian Premiere

DIRECTOR
Megumi Sasaki

CAST
Jay Alabaster

In the once quiet seaside village of Taiji in Wakayama prefecture, the local whaling practice has become synonymous with animal abuse since Louie Psihoyos’s film The Cove won the 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary.

Years later, filmmaker Megumi Sasaki offers a more balanced examination of the small fishing community, focusing on points of contact and communication between both sides of the conflict—environmentalism versus tradition—in ways that The Cove did not.

A Whale of a Tale does not attempt to resolve what will remain an ideological deadlock between the foreign activists who have devoted years to their cause, and agricultural workers who have developed a long-standing tradition passed on to the next generation. Instead, in a global climate where opposing sides are communicating at each other instead of with each other, Sasaki succeeds in allowing us to give pause—and listen to what the other side has to say.

Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Megumi Sasaki was an anchor, reporter and news director for NHK Television, Japan’s public broadcasting network. Her first feature-length documentary Herb & Dorothy (2008), about legendary New York art collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, won top honors at the Hamptons International Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, SILVERDOCS and others. In 2013, she directed a follow-up documentary titled Herb & Dorothy 50X50, which had nationwide theatrical distribution in the U.S. and Japan. A Whale of a Tale is her third feature-length documentary.

The film screening will be followed by a conversation between the filmmaker and Professor Takashi Fujitani, Director of the Dr. David Chu Program in Asia-Pacific Studies, Asian Institute.

Please note, registration opens 30 minutes before showtime. Please arrive early as all tickets become void as of 15 minutes before showtime.

Description

In his new book Outcasts of Empire, Paul D. Barclay probes the limits of modern nation-state sovereignty by positioning colonial Taiwan at the intersection of the declining Qing and ascending Japanese empires. Outcasts chronicles the lives and times of interpreters, chiefs, and trading-post operators along the far edges of the expanding international system, an area known as Taiwan’s “savage border.” In addition, Barclay boldly asserts the interpenetration of industrial capitalism and modern ethnic identities.

By the 1930s, three decades into Japanese imperial rule, mechanized warfare and bulk commodity production rendered superfluous a whole class of mediators—among them, Kondo “the Barbarian” Katsusaburo, Pan Bunkiet, and Iwan Robao. Even with these unreliable allies safely cast aside, the Japanese empire lacked the resources to integrate indigenous Taiwan into the rest of the colony. The empire, therefore, created the Indigenous Territory, which exists to this day as a legacy of Japanese imperialism, local initiatives, and the global commoditization of culture.

Paul D. Barclay teaches East Asian history at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He is the general editor of the digital repository East Asia Image Collection and author of Outcasts of Empire: Japan’s Rule on Taiwan’s “Savage Border,” 1874-1945(University of California, 2017). Barclay’s research has received support from the National Endowment from the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Japanese Council for the Promotion of Science, and the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.