‘Monsoon’ Wins Gold at Taiwan East Coast Land Art Video Contest

WAGALIGONG STUDIOS TAKES 1ST PLACE.

Last summer WaGaLiGong was asked to enter the Taiwan East Coast Land Art Video Contest with a short 5-minute-long film centered on the East Coast. According to the East Coast Land Art Festival website: “In order to present the various aspects of the “East Coast Land Arts Festival,” we are inviting the general public to create videos to narrate the symbiotic culture and life aesthetics of the inter-tidal zone. All the selected footage will have the opportunity to be integrated with future Land Arts Festival’s promotional campaigns, which will also completely present various landscapes, ecological conditions and cultural gems of Taiwan’s East Coast.” Mmm..’symbiotic culture and life aesthetics of the inter-tidal zone’…sounds like something WaGaLiGong Studios could manage. I had just finished filming and editing ‘Monsoon‘, a 29 minute short about windsurfers and pizza (yes, they can be symbiotic). It dealt with life aesthetics and a lot of it took place in the inter tidal zone. Cutting it down to the 5 minute required length would be tricky but not impossible. But what was the film about anyway? Read on:

Hailing from the Italian island of Sardinia, chef Michele Ruju loves two things passionately: pizza and windsurfing. Having spent over 30 years of his life on the Mediterranean island, Michele travels thousands of kilometers east and ends up on another island, Taiwan. He falls in love with the wild beauty of Taiwan’s east coast, attracted by the strong Monsoon winds which blow from October and bring powerful waves. The wind and waves are ideal for windsurfing. It is here on the Mother Island that Michele reignites his passion for pizza making, and is able to pursue his passion for windsurfing right on his doorstep. As director I tried to show Michele’s cooking as a delicate and thoughtful art in itself . I wanted to attempt to document some of the intricacies which go into the making of handmade Italian pizza. While Michele is hard at work in his pizzeria, he daydreams about being out on the Pacific, pushed by the invisible force of the wind, a feeling which he describes as ‘a spell’. At the same time I wanted to showcase the rough beauty of the Mother Island’s ragged eastern coastline, which has been carved into its current majestic state by countless typhoons, monsoons and the waves that accompany them.

The film was cut down to the required length, submitten and forgotten about. When we were told it received the Gold Award we were rather surprised and also very stoked. Watch the full original version (29 minutes) below or the 5 minute submitted version above (if you’re a millennial).

CREDITS

Director: Mark Jackson
Written by: Mark Jackson and Michele Ruju
Narration: Michele Ruju
Camera: Mark Jackson
Edit: Mark Jackson
Additional Footage: Wenlin Hsiu (DSLR).Nicklas Sommerdal Bach(DSLR).Daniel Bush (Go Pro).Alberic Le Magnan (Drone)
Archipelago Artwork: Joel Joel
Chinese Translation: Yong-yi Chen
Music: “Chove Chuva Lua” BARAKA KADAFU (feat GABRIEL GRAS)
       “Let’s de-miramar” UFA
        “Archipelago – mixdown version” feat ALVARO TRUGEDA   
        (produced and mixed by ROBERT FARNON and TIENIE WESSELS)
        "巴豆腰" OTAKU3(三宅一生).