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  • [TAIWAN]

    Fluiding Stage


    - TAIWAN / 2004 / Taiwanese / Color / Video / 42 min

    Director, Photography, Editing: Lin Chi-shou
    Producer: Wang Hsiu-ching
    Source: Lin Chi-shou

    Two men diligently unload equipment and materials from a truck, put pipes together, and build a stage for a puppet theater. No matter how few people are in the audience, the show starts and ends as it always has. Convincingly, as if to impress it on our minds, the camera registers from a corner the dust-covered projector and film lying idle in a warehouse, and the presence of the men steadily going about their business. Quietly criss-crossing people and places with the camera onboard, giving way to cars on the farm road, the traveling puppet theater carries with it the ambience of a bygone era in Taiwan.



    - [Director’s Statement] At first, I just wanted to use my camera to film a gradually declining business—a traveling puppet theater—out of personal interest and a slight feeling of nostalgia.

    As I waited for the car to leave every day during the filming process, I gradually realized that what I had imagined was not as interesting as I had thought. My romantic nostalgia was based on hard and serious work of the people in the film.

    For me, making a film not only helps me to understand many people, but also allows me to constantly re-examine myself. I want to thank Old Master Chang, Master Chang and Sha Fong Jun’s kind help. I also want to thank Hsiu-ching, who always supported me no matter what happened. They helped me to believe in the possibilities of documentary, and I am grateful for everything that’s possible and not possible.


    - Lin Chi-shou

    Born 1971 in Taiwan, Lin Chi-shou worked in many different jobs as
    a student. He started making films during college, and won the Golden Harvest Award with his 16mm short film Cameraman’s Ring. He has continued making short documentary films as a graduate student. Works include The Start of Darkness, Close / Open the Door and Youngster’s Film, which also won the Golden Harvest Award and was screened at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival. Currently, he continues to create new films as he works as a lecturer in the Department of Communication, Fortune Institute of Technology.