RI CHANG DUI HUA (SMALL TALK)

RI CHANG DUI HUA (SMALL TALK)
D: Hui-chen Huang
TW 2016, 88 min., OmeU

Taiwan is considered to be one of the most progressive countries in Asia when it comes to the rights of LGBTs, whilst a bill for the legalization of same-sex marriage is currently under discussion in Parliament. Back in the 70s there was still no question of openness to alternative forms of living. Anu, grown up in a Taiwanese village and pushed into an arranged marriage, left her violent husband at young age to raise her two daughters by herself and live as she is: a homosexual woman. On the track, the relationship with her daughter, the filmmaker Hui-chen Huang. Together with her mother, Huang is going to a painful quest of her childhood within her documentary RI CHANG DUI HUA

Omnipresent there is an incomprehensible speechlessness within her family, who is still living in her hometown Anus, which seems to contain so many dreary memories. When her aunt is questioned “Did you know?…”, she preferes to do the laundry instead. Literally, speechlessness and distance, is tangible especially between Anu and her daughter. Hui-chen Huang confronts her mother with questions that torment her life-long, documented in long attitudes of bodyspeech as facial expressions and gestures, accompanied by helpless silence. What painful experiences the two divide, the viewer finally learns from a mother-daughter conversation, which brutally breaks all wounds.

Hui-chen Huang

The Taiwanese activist and documentary filmmaker Hui-chen Huang, born in 1978, supported her mother at the age of 6 as a Taoist priestess. Before she began filming documentaries, she worked politically with workers’ organizations and trade unions. Her short films about the needs of the domestic and migrant workers in Taiwan received international attention.

Filmography:
2009: Uchan Is Going Home (documentary)
2016: The Priestess Walks Alone (documentary)
2016: Ri Chang Dui Hua (documentary)

Genre: documentary
Director: Hui-chen Huang
Producers: Diana Chiawen Lee, Hsiao-Hsien Hou
DoP: Che Lin
Cutter: Jessica WanYu Lin

Festivals and awards:
Berlinale 2017: Teddy-award and Teddy-Jury award, best documentary
Golden Horse award 2016