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Emerson Goo（古溢文）

@knottheory

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A SAM NEILL DOUBLE FEATURE: CINEMA OF UNEASE (Sam Neill & Judy Rymer, 1995, 56 min.) followed by POSSESSION (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981, 124 min.) Sunday, September 6 Hawai‘i International Film Festival Office 3512 Wai‘alae Ave Doors at 5:40 PM 6:00 PM: CINEMA OF UNEASE 7:00 PM: POSSESSION $10 suggested donation An essay by Hana Pera Aoake will accompany the screening. Hana Pera Aoake (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Tainui/Waikato) is an artist, writer and PhD candidate, living at the foot of Pūtauaki in Aotearoa. Hana has published three books, and a fourth book, “On how to be”, which will be released later this year with Discipline in Australia. Their writing is primarily concerned with criticism as a means of ensuring the ongoing recording of making within contemporary Māori art, writing and film. ----- Written and co-directed by the late Sam Neill, Cinema of Unease is a vital reflection on New Zealand film history. Playfully personal and intellectually subversive, Neill’s thesis of a national “cinema of unease”—defined by settler-colonial anxiety and insecurity, and anchored by the figure of the Man Alone against society and the wilderness—identified a Gothic, masculinist sensibility running through New Zealand cinema. 30 years on, it’s safe to say that a reputational change has occurred, with directors like Taika Waititi turning quirky comedies into some of the country’s biggest cultural exports. Yet Neill’s observations cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. They speak back to a film industry that remains eager to smooth over the contradictions of the past. We’re pairing Cinema of Unease with a profoundly uneasy film, Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession. Pallid and delirious, Neill and co-star Isabelle Adjani orbit each other in a collapsing, psychosexual Cold War nightmare. A fractured relationship, a monstrous presence, a divided, strangely vacant city, and the shrieks that echo through it: these are the (often imitated, never duplicated) elements which make up Żuławski’s abject cosmos. Presented in memory of Sam Neill and Leo Koziol. taken in Hawai‘i International Film Festival by @knottheory
2
a month ago
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Please join us at ‘Awa Hou on Saturday, September 5 at 6 PM for a free screening of ALIPATO AT MUOG, followed by a Q&A with director JL Burgos. Doors at 5:40. Presented with support from Anakbayan Hawai‘i, Filipino Artists Movement, Hawai‘i Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, and Hawai‘i Filipinos for Truth, Justice, and Democracy. Alipato at Muog is JL Burgos’s impassioned documentary about the nearly two-decades-and-counting search for his brother, beloved farmer-activist Jonas Burgos. Jonas was abducted by police in 2007 at a shopping mall in broad daylight, a brazen crime that brought his family face-to-face with powerful governmental forces. At the forefront of this search is Edita, his 80-year-old mother, and her other son, filmmaker JL Burgos. Presented through testimonials from their lawyer, a reporter, a former Justice Secretary and Human Rights Commission Chair, and witnesses who agreed to appear on condition of anonymity, combined with animation and never-before-seen footage of the family’s relentless search, JL pieces the stories together to uncover the painful truths about his brother’s disappearance. Initially censored in the Philippines with an X-rating (which banned the film from public theatrical distribution), Alipato at Muog has gone on to win some of the country’s highest film awards. JL Burgos is an independent filmmaker and visual artist whose work focuses on human rights. His full-length documentaries include Portraits of Mosquito Press (2015) and Han-Ayan (2017). Over 25 years, Burgos has worked on short films, experimental videos, public service announcements, web series, and a TV show, serving as a director, cinematographer, editor, scriptwriter, and producer. Burgos is also the proponent of Stop The Attacks, a campaign by artists for artists who have been victims of constant red-tagging and harassment by the state. He is a board member of Surian ng Sining, a national cultural institute of artists, writers, and cultural workers. taken in Awa Hou by @knottheory
3
a month ago
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Amidst the festival frenzy of constant reunions, meetings, gatherings, and shared drinks and meals and taxi rides, what I rely on the cinema for is a place to be lonely. I do not mean the loneliness of isolation per se, but rather the introspective solitude one feels even in large crowds, experienced as a divergent flow of time. A degree of loneliness is good for critics anyway, who in experiencing pressure to network with all manner of gatekeepers, must be vigilant about what notions of "community" and "belonging" are upheld and marketed by festivals, lest one mistake proximity to privilege and prestige as insight in itself. Critics need to find ways to access the "accidental outside" of festivals, to use Genevieve Yue's term, and that involves being resistant to being absorbed into their spectacle. This was something I tried to do in 2024 at TIDF, and it was harder to do this year, mostly because there were so many more people competing for my attention. But I kinda brought it upon myself because I also used this trip to evangelize UNDERCURRENTS, a mission I do think I was successful in—I gave away all my brochures! I don't think it would have been possible to predict that I'd be in the waiting room of an ER in Taipei from past midnight until dawn with Amarsanaa, Cici, Alifah, and Ananta after our dear friend Öykü was hit by a car (she's OK, but it was terrifying). I'm also so thankful for Wanling and Sunny from TIDF for being with us during this unexpected adventure, and all the TIDF staff who expressed concern afterwards. Walking out of the hospital into the twilight of a new day, I thought: there's nothing more important than the people you love. In the nearly empty streets of Taipei (even so close to one of the most tourist-y areas!) I felt, for a moment, far away from the festival, but that much closer to the people who matter to me. I think this is a kind of loneliness too (or at least it is for me), that of realizing that there are so few people that I would trust to go through something like this with. So: thanks for helping me feel lonely in such a big, busy city, and I hope it won't take another two years to meet again. by @knottheory
6
4 months ago
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Some snaps from our events to date. Mahalo to everyone who has showed up to and supported our screenings. Too many people to tag. More events on the way! 📸 by @knottheory @colelovesdog @alfrdbordallo Meme by @thememenos by @knottheory
6
5 months ago
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Excerpts from "The coming global food crisis" by Adam Hanieh, Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute and professor of political economy and global development, SOAS University of London. Published in the Financial Times, April 18, 2026. by @knottheory
0
5 months ago
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“This sense of adventure is what Two Seasons, Two Strangers shares most with the manga of the late Yoshiharu Tsuge, upon which the film is based. An innovator of gekiga (literally translated in English as “dramatic pictures”—a style of manga with grittier, more adult themes), Tsuge drew characters who often occupy society’s lower depths, and are sent on wild goose chases by strange occurrences. Their wanderings are less an escape from reality than an unveiling of it: a decisive break in the morose daily routines that smooth over the raw passions of life and the cruelties of our base impulses.” ⁠ ⁠ Emerson Goo (@knottheory) on Sho Miyake’s Two Seasons, Two Strangers, ahead of its weeklong run at Metrograph from April 24.⁠ by @knottheory
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5 months ago
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UNDERCURRENTS presents MILITARY FATIGUES, a program of words and films connecting Hawaiʻi, Guåhan, and Palestine. Aupuni Space April 18 / 6:30 PM (doors at 6:00 PM) $10 suggested donation (a portion of proceeds will be donated to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid initiative) Featuring Siobhon Rumurang McManus, Alfred Bordallo, and Razan AlSalah 6:30 PM: reading by Emerson Goo, from “The Shape of the Sky” by Siobhon Rumurang 6:45 PM: screening of DIGITAL CAMOUFLAGE (Alfred Bordallo, 2024) and A STONE’S THROW (Razan AlSalah, 2024) (total runtime: 70 min.) 8:00 PM: Q&A with Alfred Bordallo, moderated by Emerson Goo How do we chronicle the degradation of the environment through militarization? How does the infrastructure of warfare and occupation become part of everyday life? These films blend personal histories and sociopolitical analysis, assembling a counter-archive of military activities. In DIGITAL CAMOUFLAGE, Alfred Bordallo glitches the history of Guam into a polemic against its instrumentalization as a US base, reimagining the ways that CHamoru people have resisted and existed under American imperialism. A STONE’S THROW follows Amine, a Palestinian elder, who is exiled twice from land and labor — from Haifa to Beirut to a Gulf offshore oil platform. Through his story, Razan AlSalah narrates a semi-aqueous history of labor, tourism, and revolt that spans the Gulf and centers Palestine as a wellspring of resistance against petrocolonial infrastructures. To open the evening, UNDERCURRENTS curator/founder Emerson Goo will read an excerpt from “The Shape of the Sky” by Siobhon Rumurang. Siobhon’s essay originally appeared in the zine “the earth is our country” (2024) and is forthcoming in “Na’huyong: An Anthology of CHamoru Literature” (University of Guam Press, 2026). taken in Aupuni Space by @knottheory
8
6 months ago
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by @knottheory
1
6 months ago
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On Sunday, March 22, please join us at Third Space @3rdspacehonolulu for a screening of Sayun Simung’s new documentary feature, SPI (2025). We are delighted that Sayun will join us virtually for a Q&A with the audience after the film, moderated by Tiffany Beam! Third Space at Harbors Vintage March 22 / 6:00PM (doors at 5:30PM) followed by a Q&A with Sayun Simung $10 suggested donation Your donations keep UNDERCURRENTS running! In Tayal tradition, “spi”, which means “to dream”, is a way of connecting with one’s ancestors. After her grandfather’s passing, director Sayun Simung’s family is disoriented by grief. When her teenage cousin becomes pregnant, her grandmother’s disappointment reveals generational gaps and cultural divides. From time to time, the grandfather appears in their dreams. Weaving her family’s story and her own quest to revitalize her Tayal heritage, the director traces a route between modernity and Indigenous memory. Sayun Simung is a filmmaker from the Tayal Sqoyaw community in Taiwan. She graduated from the Department of Broadcasting and Television at the National Taiwan University of Arts. She established Taiwan’s first Indigenous Film Academy in 2022, aiming to nurture a new generation of filmmakers and strengthen cultural narratives through film. Her films have screened at festivals such as the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the Montreal International Documentary Festival. She participated in the Taiwan delegation at the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture in Hawaiʻi. Tiffany Beam is a child of the Taiwanese Hakka diaspora. She is an artist-scholar, curator, and educator based in Honolulu. Tiffany is getting a PhD in political theory at UH Mānoa, where she also teaches critical art theory. Her work takes a queer performance, hydrofeminist approach to cultural politics at the intersections of Asian diaspora and Pacific Indigeneity. Tiffany was a 2025 fellow in the Gwangju Biennale international curators academy. taken in Harbors Vintage by @knottheory
0
7 months ago
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by @knottheory
1
8 months ago
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Only yesterday (Yamagata, October 2025) taken in Yamagata-Shi, Yamagata, Japan by @knottheory
1
8 months ago
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Dear Bill Gates (Allan Sekula, 1999) by @knottheory
1
8 months ago
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