Wu Jun-Xian is a beekeeper from Zhong-Liao, Nantou. For him, beekeeping is more than a livelihood — it is a way of living with the land. Each harvest season, he moves his hives to avoid pesticides sprayed on orange groves, which can kill bees and disrupt the local ecosystem. Faced with these losses, Ah-Xian launches the Gan Yuan Initiative, encouraging consumers to choose pesticide-free oranges with natural blemishes and rethink the value of imperfection. Through his efforts, he shows how everyday choices can affect the environment. Where the Bees Belong is a story about bees, a beekeeping family, and one man’s attempt to restore balance between people and nature.
首獎
The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston is dedicated to showcasing Taiwan’s diverse cultures and social landscapes through cinema while fostering meaningful exchange between Taiwanese filmmakers and North American audiences. Since 2011, the New Taipei City Documentary Film Award has supported documentary filmmaking and encouraged creators to engage with their times, capturing lived experiences and social realities through the moving image. Together, the two organizations present this virtual film festival, featuring outstanding works from past editions of the Taiwan Film Festival of Boston and the New Taipei City Documentary Film Award. By bringing Taiwanese stories of ecology, culture, identity, and coming of age beyond geographical boundaries, this collaboration invites audiences around the world to discover Taiwan through the lens of documentary filmmaking and engage in cross-cultural dialogue. Through the power of documentary cinema, the festival seeks to foster greater cross-cultural understanding, celebrate the creativity and vitality of Taiwan’s documentary tradition, and strengthen connections between New Taipei City, Taiwanese filmmakers, and international film communities. New Taipei City Documentary Award Section Title | Habitats of Life Envisioning a Sustainable Future Where People and the Environment Thrive Together From oceans and forests to where Indigenous communities and cities meet, life seeks ways to survive, grow, and belong. Where the Bees Belong, Hearing from the Dolphin, The Elimination, A Tayal, and Childhood In Between explore ecological conservation, wildlife conditions, cultural heritage, and identity, revealing complex relationships between people, nature, and society. As habitats shift and generations change, each story shows how life responds to environmental and social challenges while seeking new possibilities for coexistence. Echoing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this program invites audiences to reconsider habitat not only as a physical place, but also as an ecological, cultural, and emotional home—and to imagine a more diverse, inclusive, and sustainable future.
