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Filmstill Divine Factory

Divine Factory

Divine Factory
Joseph Mangat
International Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Philippines,
USA,
Taiwan
2022
120 minutes
Filipino
Subtitles: 
English

When the time “when St. Joseph came” is mentioned in this film, it doesn’t refer to a religious phenomenon, but to the most popular product of TML Holy Crafts Incorporated. In the factory on the Philippines, the country with the third-largest Catholic population in the world, the employees manufacture statues of saints under exploitative conditions. Joseph Mangat portrays this place with a focus on the workers, including some from the LGBTQI community.

In the first scene, a plaster bust is uncovered layer by layer. This image could also serve to describe the approach of “Divine Factory”: From the shop to the workshop, from the entrepreneur to the simple worker, from the production to the uses made of the religious articles, this film reveals the social and economic facets of this institution. The Filipino director not only observes precisely how people work and trade there, he also involves the participants in frank conversations about love, wages and living conditions. The employees’ profit-oriented payment model reveals how economical and religious ideas interlock. The success of the company in the city of Antipolo near Manila, desirable for all, thus appears as nothing short of a divine blessing.
Jan-Philipp Kohlmann

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Joseph Mangat
Cinematographer
Albert Banzon
Editor
Ilsa Malsi, Joseph Mangat
Producer
Alemberg Ang, Stefano Centini
Sound
Duu-Chih Tu
World Sales
Lya Li
Nominated for: FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Interreligious Jury
Extended Reality 2022
Filmstill In the Mist
In the Mist
Tung-Yen Chou
A group sex scene in a gay sauna becomes a real-surreal stage for desire and reflection: on sex positive spaces, our own lust and our own sense of morality.
2020
Filmstill In the Mist

In the Mist

Wù jhong
Tung-Yen Chou
Extended Reality 2022
XR
Taiwan
2020
15 minutes
English,
Chinese

We find ourselves in the middle of a gay sauna. In search of physical contact outside ideas of bourgeois romantic love, we are part of a group sex scene. We look at the protagonists, just as they look at us. The space becomes a stage, both real and surreal, that provokes reflections: about sex positive spaces, our own lust and our own sense of morality.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Executive Producer
Chin-Hsuan Sung
Production Company
Very Theatre
Editor
Chia-Wen Huang
VR Developer
Ming-Yuan Chuan
Sound
Chin-Lun Kao
Score
Hai-Ting Liao
Performer
Jing-Yan Lin, Gryphon, Hsin-Hung Chen, Jack, John, James, Kai-Cheng Cho, Owen Wu, Chi-Yen Li, Luke, Barnie, Eason Lee, Ming-Fang Qiu
Director
Tung-Yen Chou
Cinematographer
Che-Yu Chou
Filmstill Kusunda

Kusunda

Kusunda
Felix Gaedtke, Gayatri Parameswaran
Extended Reality 2022
XR
Germany,
Nepal,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Taiwan
2021
23 minutes
English,
Nepali,
Kusunda

The Nepalese shaman Lil Bahadur and his granddaughter Hima have dedicated themselves to the revival of his native language, Kusunda. It’s about more than communication, namely identity, tradition and awareness of one’s own history. The interactive voice-control of this VR experience allows us to learn Kusunda ourselves. We learners become human archives of an all but lost indigenous language.

Lars Rummel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Co-Producer
Sönke Kirchhof, Philipp Wenning, Emma Creed, Aliki Tsakoumi, Kuan-Yuan Lai
Executive Producer
René Pinnell
Creative Producer
Felix Gaedtke, Gayatri Parameswaran, Mia von Kolpakow
Production Company
NowHere Media
Animation
Moritz Mayerhofer
VR Developer
Tobias Wehrum
Sound
Mads Michelsen, David Segal
Key Collaborator
Gyani Maiya Kusunda, Lil Bahadur Kusunda, Hima Kusunda
Director
Felix Gaedtke, Gayatri Parameswaran