Film director Laha Mebow (陳潔瑤) tells stories of Taiwan’s Tayal people, with the hope of increasing awareness of Indigenous life among the larger Taiwanese community. The day after director Laha Mebow’s film “Lokah Laqi (Hang in There, Kids!)” (只要我長大) won top prize at the 18th Annual Taipei Film Awards in 2016, a news report omitted the film’s name, stating simply that the top prize went to “a film about Indigenous people.” This example illustrates the marginal status of Indigenous stories within Taiwanese society, something that motivates Laha Mebow to continue pushing stories of Tayal life into the mainstream. In this short documentary, Laha Mebow shares how she started out as an aimless high school student and ended up studying film in college. After graduation, she took a job at the newly established Taiwan Indigenous Television, a TV network with programming that caters to Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. For Laha Mebow, who had grown up knowing relatively little about her Tayal heritage, this career choice marked the beginning of a self-discovery journey that continues to this day. Her conversations with coworkers gradually inspired her to begin directing films about her people. As she discovered more about her family, Laha Mebow learned that the subject of the early Japanese film “Sayon’s Bell” (サヨンの鐘), a Tayal woman who tragically drowned, was none other than Laha Mebow’s great aunt. This inspired Laha Mebow to make her first film inspired by the story, a film titled “Finding Sayun” (不一樣的月光). This was the beginning of her journey as a director and her mission to rediscover her roots. Laha Mebow uses filmmaking as a way to share what she has learned about her people through this process of self-discovery. In 2022, her film “GAGA” (哈勇家) won awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Director at the 59th Annual Golden Horse Awards, demonstrating Laha Mebow’s and the Indigenous community’s increasing recognition within Taiwanese society. The Tayal people are a community of Austronesian people and one of the Indigenous communities recognized by the government of Taiwan. Laha Mebow’s films about Tayal life and values have earned her recognition as the first female Indigenous director in Taiwan. These awards have also thrust her into conversation with the global Indigenous community. Laha Mebow tells how she attended the largest Indigenous film festival in North America, called ImagineNative, where she met representatives from other Indigenous communities who were unaware of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. She also visited a Native American Mohawk tribe, where she witnessed and documented their community’s ways of life. Through these exchanges with other global Indigenous communities, and by telling the stories of her own people, Laha Mebow hopes that Indigenous films and stories can gradually become a part of everyday life for people both inside and outside of these communities.

• Heritage