Our Time on the Grass(HKAFF 2022)

In 2018, an artistic community dubbed the “120 Grassroots Self-Autonomous Zone” sprouted in Taipei’s Huashan Grassland. The settlement, established by 23-year-old Jhuang Yi-fan and the art collective Unregulated Masses, was meant to be an experimental space for artists to freely gather and create. However, a grisly murder and dismemberment case in the Grassland shut down the settlement for good, and turned public opinion against the artists. Director Hsieh Sheng-hung started out documenting an idealistic project by alternative artists seeking a different way of life. With the shocking turn of events, he ended up intimately capturing the rise and fall of a utopia, and the growth and loss of a group of young people.