Aperture is dedicated to screening some of the boldest, most challenging and striking films from the Asian and Pacific regions, exploring issues around diversity and cultural identity, as well as the inherent links between and blurred boundaries within Asia and the Pacific. Aperture is the only festival in the UK to cover the whole of the Asian region and also to explore Oceania.

Presented by Day for Night in partnership with the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster.

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Programme 1: Poetic Voices: A Trip Through the Taiwanese Avant-Garde of the 1960s

Introduced by Dr Victor Fan, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King’s College London

The 1960s marked a period in Taiwanese film history, which for the most part was dominated by mainstream popular Taiwanese language films and strong censorship, amid a repressive political climate. However, a growing movement of young intellectuals and artists, increasingly influenced by Western avant-garde movements, began experimenting with film, challenging the boundaries of cinemas, and presenting their own bold responses to the concept of the avant-garde. The films in this programme were the subject of intensive research conducted by the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival curatorial team and were presented at the festival last year, formed of fragments and traces of unearthed works that defined a period of cutting edge experimental moving image works within Taiwanese cinema. read more

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Programme 2: The End of the Track

The End of the Track
Mou Tun-fei, 1970, 91 min
Mandarin with English subtitles

Banned during the Kuomintang regime for its homosexual undercurrents and likely for its political overtones, The End of the Track is a landmark in Taiwanese cinema. Friends Tong and Yong-sheng are inseparable. When Yong-sheng dies in an accident, Tong’s life plunges into darkness. read more

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Programme 3: Renewal: Artists’ Moving Image from New Zealand

This programme of artists’ moving image from New Zealand explores themes of (re)awakenings, endings, memories, and renewal. Curated by Mark Williams, CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand. read more

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Programme 4: Kuldesak

Kuldesak
Nan Triveni Achnas, Mira Lesmana, Rizal Mantovani & Riri Riza, 1999, 100 min
Indonesian with English subtitles

Introduced by Eric Sasono, Indonesian film critic and PhD candidate at King's College London.

An omnibus of four short films inspired by the Dogme95 movement, this film marked an important transition in Indonesian filmmaking and its aesthetics by providing an avenue to imagine filmmaking as a personal creative venture, and a departure from filmmaking as part of a socio-political disposition that was controlled by the dictatorial state. Portraying individualism, dreams and loneliness in an urban environment, this omnibus captures the artists’ aspirations for filmmaking to be a tool for personal expression as well as to redefine identity politics in one of the most ethnically and socially diverse nations in the world. read more

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Programme 5: Between the Living and the Dead

Introduced by May Adadol Ingawanij. Curated by May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross.

This screening presents a selection of recent works of artists’ moving image from Asia that stages a dialogue between human and nonhumans. These works see the beyond human as also entities that embody history, speculate futures, and tell their own stories. Together they question the assumption that humans are the only audience of cinema. read more