To Meet to Forget
SHIH Yu-lun
Taiwan｜2023｜Doc｜Color｜78 min｜Mandarin, Taiwanese
In 2016, Cheng Hsing-tse walked out of the prison as the first death-row inmate pending a retrial requested by prosecutors. Cheng Hsing-tse was acquitted at last. Yet he cannot forget the kid he met on the day he was led in shackles by the police to pay respects to the kid's father at the mortuary. The kid must have grown up by now. Cheng wants to meet him again to forget about each other.
Director
SHIH Yu-lun
SHIH Yu-lun has collaborated with Taiwan Innocence Project to produce documentaries about miscarriage of justice. Crossing’s End, his documentary feature debut, was selected at Busan International Film Festival, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Taiwan International Documentary Festival. To Meet to Forget is his second feature film.
11.11 ㊀ 20:00〡台南新光影城 4 廳〡★ Q&A session with the Director
11.15 ㊄ 10:20〡台南新光影城 4 廳
What can a documentary achieve? To provide answers? Or to pose questions? To open a dialogue, or rather end it? One of the mainstream arguments for the abolition of the death penalty in Taiwan is that “How can we comfort the victim’s family if the death penalty is abolished?” Yet, if we think the other way around, can the execution of the death penalty really help the family? We should build a holistic support system for the victim’s family instead of treating the death penalty as the only solution. However, the authority prefers the death penalty to the support system because it is the easiest answer to the problem. On the other hand, the public seems to be in favor of using the death penalty as comfort for the victim’s family because it might secure their feelings. This film questions the death penalty on behalf of Cheng Hsing-tse, who was wrongly convicted and given the death sentence. What he had experienced personally contrasts sharply with the authority’s obsession with death row inmates.
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