蓮與子：混合紀錄片
Lian And Natsuko: A Hybrid Documentary

Written and Directed by LU TEHSING (盧德昕)

Lian And Natsuko is a hybrid documentary about a 98-year-old Taiwanese lady with two identities. Two decades ago, Shia-Lian showed a traumatizing videotape to her grandchildren. Turns out her previous identity, Natusko, was abandoned because of the cruel events shown in the videotape. Directed and initiated by Shia-Lian’s grandson, the film attempts to reconstruct Shia-Lian’s young and carefree counterpart, Natsuko, and the faded memory of the nationwide traumatizing events.

Lian And Natsuko is a new media hybrid-documentary about a 98-year-old Taiwanese lady with two identities. Shia-Lian is a typical grandma who enjoys cooking and gardening, who one day showed her grandchildren a shocking videotape about massacres and tortures leaving them traumatized. After almost two decades, her grandchildren revisit the videotape and re-enact the scenario with Shia-Lian. 

The film follows the interview between Shia-Lian, her daughter, and her grandson, where Shia-Lian reveals her other identity as Natsuko, which was abandoned after the cruel events in the videotape. Shia-Lian struggles to remember what happened during that time, while her naive, happier counterpart advocates not to forget our own history. 

The team aims to structure the film around this duality. While interviewing the present-day Shia-Lian, the faded memories of Natsuko are reconstructed with an LLM-driven artificial intelligence avatar and reconstruction of archival architectures in an almost hallucinating style. 

A Witness of A Century Of
Taiwan’s History

Chuang-Lin Shia-Lian, 98 years old, was born in 1926. She grew up, matured, and became a teacher during the Japanese colonial period. Her name wasn’t Shia-Lian, but Natsuko before the age of 23. 

Her father was a policeman and performed rigorous education since Natsuko’s childhood. She not only likes to play volleyball and basketball but is also a member of the choir. She has a strong interest in calligraphy and painting.

Natsuko was awarded a three-day boat trip to Kyushu when she was twelve years old. Even now, she still remembers seeing beautiful wisteria flowers in Kyushu.

Farewell to Natsuko /
Becoming Shia-Lian

In 1949, 23-year-old Shia-Lian had been teaching children to speak Japanese and sing Japanese songs in elementary school for five years. 

Natsuko witnessed the expectations and disappointments when China’s Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan. Her uncle was taken away by the KMT police. She discovered the body of her teacher on the street and heard the screams of his neighbor's daughter being executed at home. 

The Chinese Nationalist(KMT) Government recommended that people ditch their Japanese names and make Chinese ones. Shia-Lian was born.

A Silent Shia-Lian

Shia-Lian got married and had children, taking her husband's surname. Shia-Lian is a dignified and strict mother with four children and seven grandchildren. Shia-Lian always does everything by herself without relying on others. Shia-Lian is a lively, talented, and warm person.

Some of Shia-Lian's children went abroad for educations, and some also became teachers.

But Shia-Lian's children have never heard stories about Natsuko.

Natsuko Breaks The Silence

In 1999, Shia-Lian helped taking care of her grandchildren when her children were away. That day she brought a videotape and watched it with her grandchildren.

Unexpectedly, the film was full of massacres and executions. It shows footage of corpses on the streets of Taipei. Even though no blood could be seen in the black-and-white video, her grandchildren were terrified.

How could my genuine and kind grandmother show us such a terrifying thing? After the film ended, Grandma said: We must not forget our history.

I was seven years old.

My name is Lu Te-Hsing, I am Shia-Lian’s grandson and the director of Lian and Natsuko. I will use a hybrid documentary as the format to not only document the family’s verbal history but also use technical art and artificial intelligence to express my grandmother’s previous identity and the city’s memories during the Japanese Occupation.

Behind The Scene

Researches

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