During Taiwan’s period of Japanese rule in the 1930s, a group of pineapple farmers sailed to the Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa to start a new life. Over time, they became naturalized Japanese and thrived. Grandma Tamayo Tamaki was among the first-generation of these immigrants. In 2015, the Tamaki family reunited to celebrate her 88th birthday, taking her back to Taiwan to revisit her family, and reigniting memories of her quest for a better life.

From the basis of the Tamaki family’s history, HUANG undertook extensive fieldwork to represent the forgotten history of these island immigrants. Having experienced and observed many historical events such as Japanese rule, WWII and Taiwan’s retrocession, their identity as a Taiwanese faded with time. But by returning to Taiwan, questions of identity resurface. Like Shinsuke Ogawa, HUANG fully immerses himself in his subjects’ lives and environment enabling him to establish an intimate rapport with his subjects, while ample archive materials give depth to the story’s historical context.

The film is edited into two versions: a 131-min cut examining the Taiwanese diaspora in Japan and questions of identity in the scope of over-arching history, and a 96-min version that primarily focuses on the story of the family’s third-generation and memories of the Yaeyama islands. Both versions of the film are available for screening.

Available Formats: DVD, Blu-ray and DCP