P.M.S. Screening - Writing the Time Lag

Writing the Time Lag 

Lee Tzu-Tung｜2021｜English Subtitle｜70 mins

Experimental documentary, 70 mins.

The film has 2016 (20mins pilot), 2019 (70mins), and 2021 (70mins) versions. Each year, artist Lee Tzu-Tung continues to re-edit the video clips they collected during their field research, to reflect and critic upon the change in Taiwan's political narratives over the years, writing the time lag through the cinema-form. 

Eager to answer Taiwan's national-related memories, Tzu-Tung Lee decided to make an experimental documentary on Taiwan politics in 2014. During years of field research, they worked in two Taiwan major parties, organized considerable gender and indigenous movements, attended UN meetings, edited a bilingual political magazine, and even pass into PRC's party members' reunion… to know each aspect of politics. 

The experience sums up the making of <Writing the Time Lag>. It introduced female and queer Indigenous activists who struggled and were suppressed in the process of Taiwan's democratization. The film promotes creative, participatory environments between filmmakers, interviewees, and the audience, as spectatorship often represents the power dynamic between colonizers and colonized communities. Therefore, the interviewees direct the film crew or the shots for their sequences. Subtitles were strategically placed to emphasize the spectatorship, etc.

The video clips collected are being re-edited each year, to reflect and critic upon the change in political narratives over the years, Writing the Time Lag so far has three iterations. Tzu-Tung Lee treated filmmaking as a performative writing process, writing the time lag through the cinema form.

*The film is completed by a female and non-binary-based film crew, and all the 50mm shots are directed or operated by the interviewees.

Tzu Tung' website

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