RAIFF 2021 - Shorts06 - Animals | Humans | Ritual
THESE FILMS WERE PART OF RAIFF 2021 AND ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
Close encounters with bees, cockrels, fish
Lives and Deaths Between Ebbs and Flows | 2019 | 14 min.
Director: Futuru C.L. Tsai
The Amis people of coastal Taiwan maintain a tightly-knit relationship with the ocean. Between the ebb and flow of the tides, the Amis, like the fish they seek to catch, rely on this intertidal zone for survival. Both are caught up in a gigantic marine casino of life and death, opportunities and luck, excitement and losses.
Competing for the RAI & Marsh Short Film Prize
Tajen | 2017 | 30 min.
Director: Robert Lemelson
Shot in the arid landscape of West Bali, Tajen follows multiple narrative threads of the ancient spectacle of the Balinese cockfight. Through attention to the blade, the rooster, and the cockfighter, the film conveys the intimacy, brutality, and festivity of the fight. The film, and its companion website, “Tajen: Interactive”, complement Clifford Geertz’s seminal piece “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”, and bring the study of the fight into the 21st century.
Out of competition
Okinami | 2019 | 24 min.
Director: Can Tamura (John Wells)
In a small, seaside settlement on the Noto Peninsula, Japan, a deity is said to have drifted for an eternity in the sea before finally coming ashore there. Each year, the people of Okinami perform a ritual for this deity with large, heavy lantern floats to ensure bountiful catches of fish and the safety of fishers at sea.
Competing for the Wiley Blackwell Student Film Prize
Wild Honey: Caring for bees in a divided land | 2019 | 30 min.
Director: Lisa Palmer
For more than a century, the island of Timor has been divided by a colonial border. Timor’s migratory wild honey bees challenge this division. In community honey harvest rituals, queen bees are courted in a ceremony by men who climb high into the canopy to sing nocturnal forest love songs. The film portrays a border community who are determined to maintain the bees’ movement across the region and preserve their shared identity.
Countries
Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan