The Asian Network of Documentary

For independent filmmakers fundraising and distribution can be quite a nightmare. An example of a joint effort to support documentary filmmakers in these areas is the Asian Network of Documentary (AND) which takes part in the festival with the program ‘Mirror of a festival: YIDFF & AND’.

Starting with the inauguration of biennially held Yamagata Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) in 1989 several film festivals serving as showcases for documentaries popped up in Eastern Asia during the 1990’s. At the same time repressive governments (as in Taiwan and Korea) were overturned and the digital revolution expanded the accessibility to filmmaking. “We witnessed the birth and vibrant growth of independent documentaries all across eastern Asia and recognized the necessity of networking” says AND executive manager Hyosook Hong who is currently also a programmer at Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF).

AND started as a network of documentary film festivals in 2004; since 2006, it has been able to offer around 110 000 US dollars annually in production support to up to fifteen Asian documentary project through the AND Fund. Filmmakers who have their projects selected are invited to the Pusan International Film Festival. There they get the chance to show each other, as well as to senior filmmakers, their rough cuts of works in production in order to share their opinion. “The meaning of the fund is not only about receiving a modest cash prize, but also to offer some kind of moral support for a filmmaker in the midst of a project” says Hyosook Hong. Eventually, the results of the projects co-funded by AND are brought to different parts of Asia and Europe by the ‘AND Showcase’, as for example here at the festival.

Amongst the films screened in Tehran is Korean director Misun Park’s Daughter Of Chorolque, a visually and socially engaging story about the heroines working in a Bolivian mine 5,600 meters above sea level. Also Korean, Kim Jin-Yul takes on female emancipation from another perspective in optimistic Jin-ok Sister Goes To School that portrays the life of a women with cerebral palsy. In one of the Japanese films, A Permanent Part Timer In Distress, Hiroki Iwabuchi records himself in his doubts about ending the “part-timer life” he, as a third of all Japanese workers and a growing number of people all over the world, experience today.

By Anna Weitz