Mapping Taiwanese ecodocumentary landscape: Politics of aesthetics and environmental ethics in Taiwanese ecodocumentaries

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper maps the vibrant ecodocumentary making landscape in Taiwan. Documentaries addressing environmental concerns began to appear on the Taiwanese landscape in the mid-1980s. Since then, Taiwanese documentary makers have addressed a wide range of environmental issues and contributed significantly to environmental debates. Six renowned documentaries are discussed in this paper to demonstrate the spectrum and trajectory of Taiwanese ecodocumentary making. While the first phase of Taiwanese ecodocumentary making was marked by a strong activist orientation, the diversity of documentary styles reveals the filmmakers’ adventurous experiments with the documentary form in their attempts to intervene in environmental debates. A new phase of ecodocumentary making began to emerge around 2010 with the emergence of non-anthropocentric environmental discourse. Art films and commercial films also entered the picture, though activist documentaries remained a strong strand. The critical issues of ethics and aesthetics addressed in and raised by these Taiwanese ecodocumentaries invite us to think more critically about what it means to make, view and study ecocinema.