2018
SXSW Film Festival
紀錄長片類評審團大獎
紀錄長片類評審團大獎
Film is one of the fastest ways to get to know a country. In just an hour or so, a movie can take you through its streets, speak its language, and tell its stories from the inside out. Don’t worry—we’re not here to dive into complex geopolitical debates. In this film program, you’ll meet a wild rock band raising chaos in North Korea, a group of Danish men who really love to drink, and witness the everyday madness of the Russian “warrior people” through dashcam footage. These films don’t aim to explain entire nations. Instead, they focus on the little things—the strange, funny, messy bits of daily life. And isn’t it exactly these small moments that, together, make up the kaleidoscope of a country?
In a society as warped as ours, who has the right to call themselves "normal"? Six teenage boys, locked inside their New York apartment for years, understand the world through their collection of 5,000 movies. An invisible army of overworked gig workers scrubs your social media feeds clean—out of sight, out of mind. Three adult women, posing as underage girls online, expose over 2,000 suspected child predators. In the U.S., a teen kills another—over a pair of rare, resold Air Jordans. Elsewhere, a group of people worship Satan—not to spread evil, but to resist the suffocating grip of far-right religious politics. So—are these people “normal”? Are they not? And who gets to decide what “normal” even means? Giloo presents 10 documentaries that explore the lives of those often labeled as “abnormal”—but who, in their own ways, might just be the most honest reflections of our times.
Behind the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive rhetoric and military intimidation toward the free world lies a darker truth—one that is hidden beneath the polished image of national “rise” under Xi Jinping’s leadership. In this heavily surveilled state behind a modern-day iron curtain, the people themselves have become mere stepping stones in the dictator’s grand imperial fantasy. It’s not only the marginalized who are oppressed, but anyone who dares to long for their inalienable rights—for freedom, dignity, and truth. Giloo presents a selection of independent documentaries from China, guiding you into a reality both dazzling and dark. Inside the borders built by walls, beware the quiet yearning of the soul—for freedom cannot be killed, only contained.
In 2019, the impact of COVID-19 fueled a surge in virtual concepts, sparking waves of discussion around the metaverse and beyond. But is technological advancement truly humanity's only path forward? When the physical body is no longer essential, where do we go from here? The balance between the virtual and the real is a question the entire world must confront—together.
Let us imagine the future through multiple perspectives: quantum physics and human consciousness, robots and humans, love and relationships, gene banks and the apocalypse, social networks and surveillance, nuclear fusion and artificial suns, climate crisis and geopolitics, eugenics, and extraterrestrial intelligence. Though this program is titled The Future Is Near, perhaps the future has already arrived. The more important question is: Are we ready?