Starting Points
Portrait of the second social housing community of Taiwan
Artist residence, documentary, 29 minutes,2019
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Together with the first residents, documentary filmmaker Floor Hofman moved into the second social housing unit of Taichung a few weeks after its opening. While living there for four months, Floor talked with residents about how social housing changed their lives.
This film brings the audience to a remote industrial area at the edge of Taichung, where the freshly painted social housing flat is located. Surrounded by factories and mountains the flat is a “Starting Point” for different groups of people.
Residents are coping with their new environment. Some start learning to live independently for the first time in their lives and encourage themselves to remain positive in this difficult time. Others feel reborn by leaving behind family structures and are excited to give shape to their new life full of freedom.
People in the neighbourhood become acquainted with the concept of social housing and meet their new neighbours. The government struggles with the strong stigma attached to social housing and the lack of government-owned land to build on.
Starting Points aims to weave complex social and personal situations into a quiet and patient narrative.
Screened at
Copenhagen Architecture Festival x Film, Denmark
Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival Guangzhou, China
URBAN VISIONS. Beyond the Ideal City Filmfestival Bologna, Italy
ArchFilmFestival Lund, Sweden
Venice Architecture Film Festival, Venice, Italy
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DOCFEED Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Film stills
Premiere for inhabitants who participated
October 6, 2019
Presentation of project to Taichung City Government
October 13, 2019
Exhibition
Documentary and drawings created by residents in the process of making the documentary, Dali Social Housing, October 6 - October 13
This residency was part of the project Small Talk by Happen Social Design
Project Designer: Willie Wong
Special Thanks to: NTIO Photos by DUO photography
Floor Hofman
Maastricht and Eindhoven, The Netherlands / Taipei and Tainan, Taiwan
Maastricht and Eindhoven, The Netherlands / Taipei and Tainan, Taiwan