“Asia” as the Methodology of Documentary: Participant Observation in Asia Documentary Co-production Project and its Workshops by Chin-Tong Tsai

Chin-Tong Tsai (2018). “ ‘Asia’ as the Methodology of Documentary:

Participant Observation in Asia Documentary Co-production Project and Workshops.” Communication, Culture & Politics, 8:165-190.

I. Introduction

The article is generally a field report of participant observation in Asia Documentary Co-production Project and Workshops, an ongoing project officially started from September 2015. As one of the founders and mentors, the author attempts to treat the regular official observation, forum, professional meeting, workshop and after-screening discussion and the irregular unofficial interaction, exchange and dialogue as an educational process in hopes of making an initial summarization of Asia as a way for documentaries from the perspective of action research.

Subsequent to the research topic concerning the relationship between non-fiction audio-visual programs and social changes in Taiwan, the author applied for and implemented the special research project of the Ministry of Science and Technology titled “East Asian Vision: A Comparative Research of Non-fiction Audio-visual Programs in Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and Japan,” aiming to widen knowledge and references of non-fiction audio-visual programs in neighboring Asian countries, especially how it was introduced from the West (or Japan) and regarded as a modern viewing technology and how it was practiced in respective histories and societies. 1

An unexpected gain in the transnational research across China, Japan and the Republic of Korea was the gradual connection of a cluster network of video education and its social relations, for instance, such institutions as national film libraries or centers, film festivals, film schools, neighborhood film centers and non-profit organizations.2 The cluster network and its social relations became a chance to further promote the Asia Documentary Co-production Project and Workshops.

It was started in September 2014 during the 6th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) when Kim, an executive member of the film festival, professor at Korea National University of Arts and veteran documentary director, 3 felt the new generation of documentary workers seemed to have inadequate knowledge and attention of Asia and thus proposed a supplementary forum to convene the Asian participants of the film festival. The author had the luck to be invited as a participant from Taiwan.

1   For research results, please refer to Cai Qingtong (2017).

2   Including the School of Ethnology and Sociology, Laboratory of Visual Anthropology and East Asia Institute of Visual Anthropology at Yunnan University, Yunnan Arts University and Yunnan FROM OUR EYES Rural Public-spirited Visual Project in China; National Film Center,Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Association for Film Preservation and IMAGICA in Japan;  National Film Data Museum, EBS International Documentary Festival, DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, MEDIACT, Korean Independent Film Association, Seoul Independent Documentary Film Festival, and Labor News Production in the Republic of Korea.

3  Dong-won Kim shot Sanggye-dong Olympic in 1988. It was about the residents forced to leave their lands and houses when the Olympic Games was held. The director sided with the residents, which was deemed as the start of independent documentaries in the Republic of Korea. For the introduction of Kim, please further refer to “Documentaries Starts from Poverty: an Interview of Dong-won Kim, a Korean Documentary Director,” Fun Screen, Vol. 614. (http://www.funscreen.com.tw/feature.asp?FE_NO=1708)

In addition to sharing respective development and current situation in documentaries, the forum specifically focused on the feasibility of co-production proposed by Kim. Fromm the perspective of visual education, the author made the following suggestion: since the original aim of co-production was to enhance mutual communication and restart Asian thoughts, it should start from a small and middle-scale experimental documentary co-production project based on the advantages of each film schools as permanent institutions and supported by annual film festivals as resource platforms.

After a year of deliberation, the idea was officially carried out in the 7th DMZ Docs in September 2015. After two workshops respectively held in Seoul in February 2016 and in Tainan in May 2016, the achievements of the first session of Asia Documentary Co-production Project were displayed in the 8th DMZ Docs held in September 2016.  The second session of Asia Documentary Co-production Project was kickstarted simultaneously, followed by two workshops respectively held in Tainan in June 2017 and in Seoul in September 2017.

As a matter of fact, documentaries as a type of films seemed to flourish throughout Asia from 1990s. Take the book compiled by You Huizhen (2014) for instance. It included the introduction of the current situation of documentaries and interviews of directors in over ten Asian countries(/regions) including Taiwan, described the development history of documentaries in Asian countries and reflected the similar fates, problems or common difficulties for documentaries in different countries as a Western technological medium.

Take film festivals as another example. From Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in 1989 to Taiwan International Documentary Festival (biennial) in 1998, CNEX in 2007 and DMZ Docs in 2009, they all offered various kinds of channels, opportunities and resources from solicitation, production, works, projecting, release and publication for documentaries in all regions of Asia.

For instance, Busan International Film Festival established Asian Network of Documentary in 2006 to offer Asian Cinema Fund available for application in the middle of every year as subsidies for shooting projects of Asian documentaries. In addition, CNEX would devise a topic annually, solicit proposals, evaluate and provide subsidies for production in hopes of surveying and recording the course of changes for Chinese in the contemporary society in a systemic and organized way.

Nevertheless, Asia to our knowledge is often a display and combination of different windows for different regions. It only offers a virtual traveling experience and exoticism for cultural consumption. The so-called subsidies for production projects are still confined to films in certain countries or by certain directors.  After lively meetings, we often returned to where we were originally from.  As for how it can live up to its name, it remains a question. 

As Qiu Guifen (2016) realized, a new wave of documentaries rose in many Asian countries successively in the mid-1980s in Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, mainland China, the Philippines and Indonesia.  A documentary different from previous ones appeared, which she called the Movement of New Documentaries.

In the section of Taiwan in the context of East Asian documentaries, she mentioned the phenomenon of new documentaries in Taiwan in the mid-1980s was not unique in fact. Ogawa Shinsuke in the late 1960s and Tsuchimoto Noriaki in 1970s in Japan and the independent documentaries and films about ordinary people in the late 1980s in the Republic of Korea were all catalyzed by fights with the “environment.”4 The Movement of New Documentaries in Mainland China started in the 1990s were concerned about the underprivileged at the bottom of society and constituted alternative documents for social changes.

In other words, Asia’s significance and importance as a region deserves attention in the field of documentaries; it inspires different introspections outside the field of documentaries. For instance, cultural researches in Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and Japan have started to make Asian discussions based on the reflection of Western-centrism and about how to break away from nationalism (Sun Ge, 1999).

They include “Asia as a method” (Takeuchi Yoshimi, 2007),  “China as a method” (Mizoguchi Kozo), “Asia as a support line” (KOYASU Nobukuni. 2008), “East Asia as an intellectual experiment” (Baik Youngseo, 2009), “Asia as a method” (Chen Kuan-Hsing, 2006), “Imagination of new Asia” (Wang Hui, 2010).5

To sum up, Asia Documentary Co-production Project and Workshops were initiated by a group of teachers who teach about documentaries in higher institutions.  Coming from such places as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and mainland China, some of us are research scholars and some are visual workers. We met in many official film festivals or unofficial gatherings, gradually forming a transnational and cross-field cluster network with social relations. At the same time,  an experimental initiative was further launched based on the attention of whether Asia could serve as a method for documentaries,  treating the cultural production from recording and text to watching as an educational process.