Park
Taman-taman- TAIWAN / 2024 / Indonesian, Javanese, Mandarin / Color / DCP / 101 min
Director: So Yo-Hen
Photography: Tien Zong Yuan, So Yo-Hen
Editing: So Yo-Hen
Sound: Nigel Brown
Producer: Liao Hsiu Hui
Production Company, Source: Your Bros. Filmmaking Group CO.
A pair of Indonesian poets converse in Tainan Park. The soon-tograduate exchange student muses about his school life, the family left behind, and the future ahead. As evening falls and their idle conversation drifts on, the park gradually darkens. In the quiet of night, they begin to read poems about fellow immigrants from their homeland. Soon, the two begin an imaginary radio show, with the security guard’s shack as the recording booth and the rocks scattered around the park as speakers. Speaking in their native tongue, the voices of these who left their homeland reverberate throughout the nighttime park, transforming it into a dreamlike stage. Who will those voices reach? In a world growing ever more exclusionary, the film quietly questions what “public” truly means. (YH)
[Director’s Statement] If we describe it with landscape painting, no matter how realistic it is, the painter cannot bring the scenery in front of them into the exhibition hall. However, looking at the landscapes that the painter has selected, modified, and embellished, sometimes the soul can be taken to a farther place. Or, the painting itself is already an independent landscape, which—whether as a whole or in detail—people yearn for or fear. Sometimes, when looking at landscape paintings, imagining the painter facing the scenery across this canvas, gradually, we also become a part of the scenery.
So Yo-HenAn art enthusiast. Attended the Graduate Institute of Arts at Tainan National University of the Arts and currently a member of Your Bros. Filmmaking Group. His creative work spans various mediums, and he approaches it without preconceived notions about what he’s doing. His previous films include Hut (2019, YIDFF 2019) and Dorm (2021, YIDFF 2021).