Post-Screening Talks
Arler KUO
is a documentary and television director, who has focused on children, youth and sports for years. Kuo Le-hsing and Lin Yu-hsien were classmates at university and have become long-term collaborators on documentary productions, working as cinematographer, director and editor. Kuo’s feature documentaries include The Turn of the Game and Jump! Men.
LEE CHIH-KAI
is an artistic gymnast and Olympic silver medalist (Tokyo, 2020). He is the first Taiwanese gymnast to medal in the Olympics. Lee was born in Yilan and started gymnastics at the age of 6. As a child he was the subject of the award-winning documentary Jump! Boys, and joins us today as a star of the sequel Jump! Men.
Paul CHU
(In his words):
I began my academic career dreaming of becoming an Astronaut. But my application was rejected from the Australian Royal Air Force fighter pilot for being too tall. When I struggled with the overwhelming math while studying aerospace at university, I realized my other dream - film-making. Perhaps I was always fascinated with the story of space rather than actually going there.
Seven years later, I started a production house - Gazing Element in 2010, with two close friends, and one of our very first projects was a 10-minute short documentary called “Cycling Angels”. The project evolved over the years to become a cinema release feature documentary.
Chueh-Ming MAI
is a Taiwanese director, a producer and a host for his program. Meanwhile, he is also a professional mountaineer, explorer, and a researcher for wildlife and human history. He worked on《MIT The Story Of Taiwan》for more than 18 years, and set a record of winning five Golden Bell Awards out of twenty nominations on this program.
Raye
With a degree from the Department of Radio, Television, and Film (Shih Hsin University), Raye has worked as a prolific editor over the past decade. Her strong style of storytelling and artistic flair have landed her a wide variety of work in short films, music videos, TV commercials and movie trailers. Raye has been fortunate to work alongside some of the most prominent directors in the Taiwanese broadcast and film industry.
Chia-chun HUANG
graduated in film from the Department of Radio, Television & Film at Shih Hsin University and earned an MFA from the Graduate School of Applied Media Arts at National Taiwan University of Arts. In addition to making documentaries, commercials and television dramas, Huang works on script, film and artistic creation. He has an acute sense of observing people and society, and his works are known for his warm-hearted approach and the depth and the power that move the audience. Huang loves tackling the issues that no one has explored and expects to quietly change the world in a down-to-earth tone.
Hung-Chi LIAO
Hung-Chi Liao (b 1957) is an essayist and novelist. Of Hualien origin, Liao graduated from the National Hualien Senior High School, and worked on coastal fishing boats. In 1996, he organized the Taiwan Cetacean Survey Group to conduct marine ecology research on whales and dolphins. He also initiated the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation and chaired the board of directors.
His prolific works include Qin Sheng Qin Shi (Life of Whale), Lai Zi Shen Hai (Coming from Deep Ocean), Piao Dao (Floating Island), Taiwan Dao Xun Li (Touring the Taiwan Island) (edited), Jiao Ji Chuan Hen (Footprints and Ship Marks), Hai Tian Fu Chen (Drifting along the Sea and Sky). Liao’s literature has won numerous awards, including the Time Literary Award in Prose, the Best Book of the United Daily News Literary Award, Wu Cho-liu Literary Award, and the 1st Taipei Literary Award.
Ray CHIN
is Taiwan’s first professional underwater photographer specializing in dolphins and whales, and winner of the London Natural History Museum’s 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice award. Chin majored in biology at university before pursuing a Master’s degree at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Life Sciences.
An avid outdoors-man, he began by researching the pointed-scaled pit viper, a species of snake found only at high elevations. Later, while serving his military service in Hualien, he got to know the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, through which his interest in chasing dolphins and whales was nurtured. He then spent all of 2001 at sea as a dolphin- and whale-watching interpreter. After finishing his Master’s degree in Taipei in/ 2007, he immediately entered a new chapter of his life, based in Hualien and chasing undersea mammals like whales and dolphins.
Minghua Hsiao (Moderator)
Minghua Hsiao is the Founder of Freedom Crossing Institute and Curator of the 2021 Freedom Crossing Film Festival. She is a former Visiting Scholar in the Center for East Asian Studies at University of Pennsylvania, and is Chief Editor of Freedom Publisher of Taiwan. Freedom Publisher was founded in 1953 and focuses on religious freedom through historical preservation of Daoist and Buddhist manuscripts and making these texts accessible to contemporary society.
Lee VANDIVIER (Co-moderator)
Lee Vandivier is a co-Founder of Freedom Crossing Institute. He works as a computational biologist at Arrakis Therapeutics (a Boston-area biotech), in dialogue with nature and hoping to uncover the secrets of RNA structure.