Amidst the political upheavals of a nation and the world, the filmmaker navigates cultural, geographical and linguistic distances in search of wisdom and hope from her 100 year-old Taiwanese activist grandmother (Ama).
This documentary explores the filmmaker's discovery of her grandmother's political sensibility just prior to her entering a full-care facility through the intimate details remembered by those closely associated with her, her award-winning autobiographical essay which was published in 1994 by the Taipei Women's Rights Organization, and the filmmaker's own memories. As the film progresses, we hear history being told from various perspectives. Eventually, twists and turns develop along the way - the expectation that the camera is a reliable witness, or that the translation is accurate, the many facts that Ama left out of her biography, or that the biography was even written by Ama. Thus, 62 Years and 6,500 Miles Between reworks the documentary form with its own set of expectations, while investigating historical, social and political phenomena via the personal.
The film also examines how a postcolonial people negotiate the memory and translation essential to the reconstruction and ultimately reclamation of a personal and national history. Translation and memory are the means by which we construct the past, yet both of these are delicate. For example, while emphasizing testimonials in light of an official history, I use images of contemporary Taiwan, instead of archival footage -- reflecting how a postcolonial people can sometimes only reimagine their past. Finally, in the telling of this history perhaps the film will spark dialogue about the nonfiction canon that is deeply driven by our desire to represent history - revisted or as a moment in time; a memory - however vivid or fleeting; and truth - whether perceived or felt.
