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TERRA NULLIUS or: How to be a Nationalist

director: James T. Hong

original title: TERRA NULLIUS or: How to be a Nationalist

country: China, Taiwan, Japan

year: 2015

running time: 78 min.

synopsis

Even uninhabited archipelagos may be subject to drawn out territorial disputes if they are rich in oil deposits. However, the filmmaker is more concerned with how ownership issues reverberate amongst nationalists in competing countries rather than in the history of the dispute or its resolution, making it possible to present the patriotic pathos-soaked ceremonies of the Japanese, the efforts of Chinese authorities to complicate diversionary activities, and the expressive protests and bizarre rituals of Taiwanese activists. The desire to understand the situation leads the director to participate in several futile attempts to land on the islands. Although he finds himself on the frontline during an escalation in the conflict, he is able to maintain his distance as an impartial observer.

DETAIL:
“I´m an American by birth, and a Taiwanese and a Chinese by blood. This blood is ideological. For me, and for the long dead philosopher Bishop Berkeley, to be is to be perceived.”

biography

James T. Hong (1970), an Asian-American documentarist, founded his Zukunftsmusik production company in protest against the mass media’s practice of excessively trivialising reality. Thanks to his philosophy studies, he has a non-dogmatic approach to burning issues, including racial, social and national conflicts. His films 731: Two versions of hell (2006), This Shall Be a Sign (2007) and Lessons of the Blood (co-directed with Yin-Ju Chen, 2010) have been previously screened under the Opus Bonum section of the Jihlava IDFF.

more about film

director:	James T. Hong
producer:	James T. Hong, Freya Chou, Yin-Ju Chen, Wang Paizhang, Taiwan Public TV
photography:	James T. Hong, Yin-Ju Chen, Freya Chou, Herman Wang
music:	Robert Wagner

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