Petr Chromčák

Director’s summer memoir. His personal dreamy short offers viewers an original insight into the Taiwanese karaoke culture, which has been making locals happy for generations. The viewer has the opportunity to feel the atmosphere of Jiantan Mountain, where the ancient meets the mundane, the natural meets the civilized, and where karaoke is as normal as the blowing of the wind, the sleeping Buddha or the singing of cicadas. The film with elements of traditional karaoke music video as a simple ephemeral impression of Taiwanese poetics and rituals in the context of China’s inherent threat.

An emigrant musician can’t recall the stories of his birthplace. A mother keeps the restaurant open, hoping her son returns. A cowboy wonders what’ll become of his cows. A widow cares for a chapel no one visits. And the oldest woman remembers everything—especially that—Estantegas. Under the burning sun, a strange figure roams the empty landscape of Portugal’s Minho with a boom pole, meeting the remaining inhabitants and capturing their memories on a sound recorder. An ethnographic ghost documentary about a future of a place that belongs to the past.

Director’s summer memoir. His personal dreamy short offers viewers an original insight into the Taiwanese karaoke culture, which has been making locals happy for generations. The viewer has the opportunity to feel the atmosphere of Jiantan Mountain, where the ancient meets the mundane, the natural meets the civilized, and where karaoke is as normal as the blowing of the wind, the sleeping Buddha or the singing of cicadas. The film with elements of traditional karaoke music video as a simple ephemeral impression of Taiwanese poetics and rituals in the context of China’s inherent threat.

An emigrant musician can’t recall the stories of his birthplace. A mother keeps the restaurant open, hoping her son returns. A cowboy wonders what’ll become of his cows. A widow cares for a chapel no one visits. And the oldest woman remembers everything—especially that—Estantegas. Under the burning sun, a strange figure roams the empty landscape of Portugal’s Minho with a boom pole, meeting the remaining inhabitants and capturing their memories on a sound recorder. An ethnographic ghost documentary about a future of a place that belongs to the past.