SEEDIQ BALE and Chale's Notes

Last night we headed up to Alamo Village where AFS shows their weekly Essential Cinemas now that Alamo S. Lamar is being renovated.  Yeah, plenty of traffic and a 40 minute drive but so well worth it.  A Taiwanese film about the 1930 up-rising of aborigine tribes (Wushe Incident)  facing the heavily armed Japanese to preserve their land, their culture, their honor and  their ancestry.  The director, Wei Te-sheng, read about the incident in a history book and it stuck with him.  The courage of 300 natives facing off against a powerful army for 50 days is a story waiting to be told on screen.  And thankfully this filmmaker told it with the use of aboriginal descendants and the exquisite terrain of Taiwan.  A shout out to Chale Nafus, Program Director who provided us with 5 pages of historical background and filmmaking process.  Why wasn't Chale my H.S. history teacher?  He tells a story about people that I've never known anything about and keeps you awake at the same time!