Editors’ words: P.M.S. is a collective founded in Taiwan by a trio of art workers. Since 2022, the collective has curated film screenings centered on Indigenous and gender issues, with events held across Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan. The publicity of these screenings is determined by the context of the works, with most remaining private and followed by discussions. In this article, the trio reflects on moments of discussion and how these conversations transform into a collective artistic experience, sparking knowledge production and exploring embodied understandings of intimacy and intersectionality.

 

P for Posak

On a Flawed Screening in a Transnational Context

 

The collective practice of P.M.S. began as an intimate and casual screening salon, driven by our curiosity about the works and a desire to engage in discussions and learn from one another. We always envisioned it as a video or book club where we invited friends to join. Whenever possible, we also invited the artists to attend and participate. Over time, it evolved into a platform for exchange and in-depth dialogue between us, the peer artists, and our extended circle. For me, as an urban-based Indigenous female individual frequently moving between different cultural spheres and identity contexts, it became a channel for people from diverse fields and backgrounds to connect face-to-face through the works.

 

Therefore, prior to the project’s public debut in the summer of 2023, I hadn’t foreseen how its impact and the exchanges it ignited would be so direct and scaled up. Our relationship with the audience would need to be mediated, and gaps would need to be bridged between different cultural, social, and historical contexts. As we delved deeper into the works, we also sought to engage with the experiences of diverse audiences, transforming the concept of viewers into tangible interlocutors.

 

The screening event at Hoa Quỳnh Cinema in Hanoi.

 

The first public encounter of its kind occurred during the collective’s residency in Hanoi in 2023. We organized a screening and talk featuring three video works, some adapted for the screening format: Anchi Lin (Ciwas Tahos), Perhaps, She Comes From/To ____ Alang (2020), Truku filmmaker Rngrang Hungul’s I’m a Woman, I’m a Hunter: The Director’s Edition (2020), and my own work, Misafafahiyan / Metamorphosis (2022).

 

During the preparation phase, we focused on ensuring the scope was diverse in cultural perspectives and their respective cinematic styles. We thought conversations could follow the screenings. While Anchi and I were present, Rngrang couldn’t attend in person. However, since I was involved in the production of her work, I was prepared to discuss its details and background with the audience during the post-screening talk.

 

The venue was packed, and the organizer had to stop accepting attendees in advance. After a brief introduction, the screening began. I had the impression that everyone was focused, but as the person responsible for playing the films, I didn’t notice that some viewers left before the films finished and never returned to their seats. Later, Manman and Sophie mentioned that some viewers had left mid-screening. Though I didn’t take it personally, I assumed it was simply the nature of an open event.

 

Days later, during a casual conversation, local friends mentioned they knew some of the viewers who had exited early. They helped me gather feedback, and the visitors—filmmakers and researchers—expressed dissatisfaction with the music selection, the use of subtitles, and elements that implied a “colonial unconscious.”¹

 

It turned out that the viewers’ departure was a form of silent response to the event—something I only realized afterward. As the organizers of the screening, we could have provided the local audience with background information beforehand, explaining the intention behind the film selection and the differences arising from various social, historical, and decolonial contexts. For the artists who entrusted their works to us in their absence, it seems we missed the opportunity to properly prepare both the audience and the artists for the different contexts at play in this encounter. For P.M.S., this ultimately became a “failed screening,” with the blurred faces of the departing viewers now serving as shadows that continually remind us of the need for better preparation.

 

The works, the audience, the artists, and P.M.S.—multiple layers blending the known and the abstract—spark discussions, sometimes unexpected, that reveal the complexity of this fascinating dynamic. In our previous private screening salons, we gradually explored how, through joint discussions of the works and daily exchange with the artists and audience, the screening environment could become a space for open dialogue. However, in a more open setting, where the audience’s identity is more ambiguous, how can we still build real connections and dialogue instead of letting them go? In reflecting on the creation of social dialogue through the screening format beyond the work itself, the question “how not to fail?” remains a goal we continue to explore.

 

M for  Manman

On a Closed Screening Session with Si Yabosokanen: Exploring Intersectionality

 

How can intersectionality reshape film programming? An example is Tao Indigenous filmmaker Si Yabosokanen’s And Deliver Us from Evil (2001), a critically acclaimed film documenting the clash between traditional Tao beliefs and modern medical practices, which was halted from circulation by Yabosokanen herself for two decades.

 

Yabosokanen’s background was nursing. Upon returning to Orchid Island to work at the local health center, the island’s only medical facility, the nurses were overwhelmed with responsibilities, each providing medical care for over forty elderly residents. In the film, the elders believe that illness is caused by evil spirits, and anyone who comes into contact with them may also fall victim to these spirits. Out of reverence and a desire to protect their caregivers from misfortune, some elders even refused medical services. The film poignantly depicts the challenge of ensuring the elderly receive care, as they are isolated from their families and society.

 

In her hope to ensure that individuals could live with dignity, even at the end of life, the director began recruiting volunteers across the island to promote home care. The documentary not only records the process and philosophy for educational purposes, but also captures the conflicting dynamics—between the Tao’s traditional culture and Christian beliefs, between husbands and wives, and between caregivers, the cared-for, and their families.

 

Si Yabosokanen, And Deliver Us from Evil, color 54 min. Betacam, 2001.

 

When the documentary started to tour, it sparked heated discussions both for and against it. Despite careful editing, the film unintentionally reinforced cultural biases about superstition and filial piety when shown in non-Indigenous contexts. Meanwhile, during its screening on Orchid Island, some of the elders featured in the film had passed away, prompting a request for the film to be withdrawn. In an effort to prevent misinterpretation of her culture or its portrayal as subversive by scholars at the time, the Tao director ultimately decided to halt the film’s circulation.

 

During the past two decades interval, Yabosokanen’s presence in the community and her achievements in caregiving have made the community recognize the significance of her efforts in promoting home care. This has helped local residents shift from a clash between cultural perspectives and modern medical concepts to a place of understanding and acceptance, making it an integral part of their lives. In 2024, this culminated in the completion of the director's envisioned care center.

 

In August 2023, we visited the care center under-construction, where Si Yabosokanen shared her vision with us.

 

The re-circulation of this documentary in 2021 as part of the Taiwan International Documentary Festival carries profound significance. Originally created as a record to improve home care, it has transformed into a platform for dynamic negotiation, where recognition, conflict, compromise, and acceptance unfold. As time passes and the context shifts, so too do the interpretations and meanings of the work. In exploring the layered significance of the work, we attempted to contact the director for the screening. After learning that the director could not attend the discussion, we hosted a private screening in June 2023 with the director’s consent.   

 

As a screening that engages the audience in an interracial context, it’s crucial to contemplate the ethics of epistemic responsibility. The film’s journey—from initial misinterpretation to its eventual re-circulation—offers a rich case for examining how multiple axes of identity intersect, including culture, gender, age, and community dynamics. Initially, intersectionality was introduced by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw to address the dual oppression of race and gender faced by Black women, as any single-axis analysis risks erasing the possibility of recognizing and addressing discrimination. Over time, intersectionality has expanded beyond gender and race to encompass multiple social identities. Since 2010, the term has been widely used in academia and politics, often politicized and provoking critiques of identity politics. However, as an analytical framework, intersectionality helps us to uncover structural and institutional oppression beyond the immediate and personal level.

 

While the screening events has been focus on encouraging discussion and context sensitive. This approach emphasized the connection between the film and its larger social framework. It served not only as a point for deeper reflection but also showed how practice and experimentation can open new ways to understand both the work and our own lives. When viewed through the lens of intersectionality, the films reveal how different aspects of identity—such as culture, gender, age, religion, and even factors like geography, colonialism, and post-colonial situation may interact with one another.

 

S for Sophie

On a Closed Screening Session with Lee Tzu Tung and Forms of Intimacy

 

On March 2, 2024, P.M.S. screened the 2021 version of Writing the Time Lag by Lee Tzu Tung, an experimental documentary that began in 2014. The film chronicles her engagement in party politics, along with feminist and Indigenous movements, focusing on individuals from both grassroots fields who, overshadowed by the predominant national identity and democracy struggles, face oppression and personal challenges.

 

The film was produced by a team based on women and non-binary individuals, with Tzu Tung continuously gathering footage and editing versions in 2016, 2019, and 2021. The images of those filmed, along with the post-screening discussions, take place in a relatively safe environment, allowing for the smooth introduction and discussion of sensitive topics, such as the #MeToo movement in Taiwan.

 

In the documentary, Tzu Tung is both an observer and a participant. She chooses a highly complex field in terms of power dynamic—the massive campaign rallies and intense social movements—and places herself in it, with direct engagement and woven with idiosyncratic editing style that shifts between subjective and objective perspectives, constantly recalibrating her own position.

 

Lee Tzu Tung, Writing the Time Lag, 2021. Courtesy the artist.

 

The film navigates the long-hidden stories of feminist and queer Indigenous activists, agilely capturing the complex layers and inner contradictions of their circumstances, showcasing a strong sense of practice from the artist or the production team. However, this posture also carries inherent dangers, as Tzu Tung places herself in an observational space without much security, directly confronting the power structures at work––like a skilled swimmer being swept away by a strong current, risking losing her vigilance. For an observer who also identifies herself as a queer activist, this could lead to deeper trauma. Her actions also reveal how the artist navigates multiple identities and switches roles within this intertwined network, enduring self-doubt and internal tension.

 

In turn, this environment also highlights the resilience of the long-oppressed feminist and queer Indigenous activists. They carry multiple layers of trauma, from the aftermath of social movements, the persecution of patriarchy, to the identity burden of being descendants of settlers in a colonial society. These traumas permeate the screen in the forms of regret, self-blame, and self-mockery, leading to moments of vulnerability and tension. Their unhealed scars intertwine, forming wounds that have yet to fully scab over, fragile structures that may tear open again at any external force. This collective scar simultaneously mirrors the structural trauma produced by the intersection of gender oppression and societal systems, along with its ongoing impact.

 

In it, there is a candid dialogue and mutual faith between the protagonists and Tzu Tung herself, reminiscent of Judith Butler’s concept of “vulnerability.” This vulnerability is not merely an individual attribute or the simple exposure of one’s wounds, but a mutual interdependence that serves as the foundation for collective resistance. Once acknowledged and embraced, it became something the collective could confront together.

 

As they allow the weight and risk of revealing vulnerability to be dispersed and supported within the community, the stance of both the artist and the companions being filmed may seem dangerous. However, when vulnerability is fully acknowledged and transformed into collective practice, it becomes a network, like the one seen in Writing the Time Lag, rich with potential to rethink community and resistance. Trauma, in the emotional connection between the artist and the subjects, evolves into a politicized phenomenon—both a sedimentation of personal experience and a historical trace of structural oppression. In this way, vulnerability becomes a critical lens, exposing the power of oppressed groups in self-narration and resistance.

 

Lee Tzu Tung, Writing the Time Lag, 2021. Courtesy the artist.

 

Writing the Time Lag weaves together a tapestry of vulnerable narratives, spanning across time and space. At the outset of the screening, the team made it clear that audience members needed to obtain Tzu Tung’s consent before attending. While Tzu Tung did not object to the invitation list, and this measure may not have been strictly necessary, it was our deep empathy for the subjects in the film that turned this practice into a symbolic gesture. In doing so, we inadvertently created a space for dialogue that was safe for both the artist and the absent activists. 

 

The image of the activists and the post-screening discussions unfolded in a space that provided a sense of safety, enabling sensitive issues, such as the Me Too movement, to be raised and discussed. After the screening, I reflected on how the entire process was not simply a film screening but also a practice of care and respect for collective vulnerability. This subtly aligned with P.M.S.’s approach of creating an intimate space for dialogue. Beyond the interaction between space and people, the concept of “intimacy” can take on broader dimensions—it becomes an active foresight and response to individual and collective experiences, an acknowledgment of vulnerability, and an acceptance and respect for differences. Through this ongoing interaction, a shared space of safety and trust is gradually constructed, allowing the temporal and spatial experiences of all participants to overlap and resonate. I believe this is a direction P.M.S. will continue to reflect on and strive toward in its future endeavors.

 

This essay is a translated and adapted version from Traditional Chinese.