An Alternative Passage to India — the making of a documentary film on Chinese diaspora: MfA International Workshop 3

An Alternative Passage to India

CHUNG Shefong

Thursday 25th September 2014, 2-5pm

About CHUNG's work

"In 2011, I finally arrived in Kolkata.  The dreams of visiting India had been accumulated since I was a teenage girl.   At the age of 15, I started draping myself with garments and accessories that made me look Indian, and forced myself into the shower of the hard-to-digest Hindustani music.  

The first passage to India did not lead me to the trodden path.  Instead, I was hosted by a Bengali filmmaker in a Kolkata suburban flat with two other companions.  The alternative route has brought us to the Bengali intellectual circle.  While meeting the Bengali elites, the physical difference of my Chinese look had always inspired the topic on Indian Chinese community. 

My passion on diaspora stories was soon aroused by the conversations, then ended up my journey at Tangra, one of the two “Cheena Para” (China Town) in Kolkata.  A film project was initiated, followed by a two-year research, fieldwork and filmmaking.  The result is the documentary film From Border to Border that I worked jointly with a film crew of multi-nationalities—India, Taiwan, Germany and Indonesia."

About CHUNG Shefong

CHUNG Shefong founded Trees Music and Art, a folk and root music label, in 1993. Trees Music and Art(www.treesmusic.com) collaborates with artists with similar mind and vision in producing quality music, and has developed to be one of the few indie music labels celebrating independent music yet growing internationally.

In 2001, Chung started Migration Music Festival, an annual music festival organized around the theme of “migration”, with the aim to provide a platform for integrating music and cultural issues, and sound experiments. Chung has also been commissioned to curate and produce music festivals in various regions/ counties in Taiwan.

In 2011, she made her first trip to India, which has brought her to continue a journey on documentary filmmaking. In 2013, she has completed her first documentary film From Border to Border on Indian Chinese community with a team of multi-nationalities. From Border to Border has been nominated for the 2014 Taipei Film Awards, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, Beijing Independent Film Festival, and Women Make Waves Film Festival.

Chung currently teaches at the College of Communication of the National Cheng-chi University (NCCU), and is acting as the director of the NCCU Art and Culture Center.