The Lost Sea 刪海經

Synopsis

Set on Kinmen, a Taiwanese island just miles off the coast of China, The Lost Sea weaves together the stories of horseshoe crabs and the fishing community of Houfeng Harbor. Director Hung Chun-Hsiu depicts the many ways people and horseshoe crabs share their lives with the sea, through figures such as Hong Teh-sun (洪德舜), a self-taught marine ecologist, and Hong Mu-chu (洪木櫸), a fisherman who practices sustainable net-fishing and fertilizes his garden with horseshoe crab shells. Filmed over seven years, the documentary tells the story of a poorly managed government initiative to construct a commercial port in the harbor. Propelled by cross-strait Taiwan-China politics, capitalist ideologies, and elite economic interests, the port project severs people’s access to the coastline, destroying the horseshoe crabs’ habitat and undermining the livelihoods of local fishermen. Hung adopts a critical lens on coastal governance, examining local entanglements of ecology and politics amid a backdrop of international change.

Director Bio

洪淳修 HUNG Chun-hsiu  is a documentary filmmaker and an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Institute of Creative Video and Digital Media Industry, at National Taiwan University of Arts. Chun-hsiu’s films are set in cities and border regions, portraying the conflicts and contradictions that arise in these liminal spaces. He turns to humor to immerse audiences in serious issues, offering a delicate balance of lightness and depth. His documentary works include Bird and Us (2023), Remember Me (2022), The Lost Sea (2014), and Fishermen in the City (2006). He has received numerous domestic and international awards, such as the Golden Bell Award for Best Director (Programming), the Golden Bell Award for Best Documentary, the Taipei Film Festival Award for Best Editing, and the Green Award from the Green Image Film Festival in Japan. 

Distribution

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Contact: smcheng1220@gmail.com

I sometimes think that ocean documentaries in Taiwan tend to be distanced from people’s real lives. They focus on how intellectuals view the environment, the ocean, or Indigenous issues. But if you return to Indigenous peoples themselves, or the fishermen themselves, what they think about and care about might not be what you think, or what universities teach.