Language Speaks Us
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2025 / 04 / 12 - 14:00
Chapter Arts Centre - BOOK NOW
(In collaboration with Nomad Reading. Supported by Wales Strategic Migration Partnership.)
Language plays a significant role in shaping identity, yet many languages have been marginalised throughout history or are currently under threat from dominant languages. This programme features four short innovative films featuring such languages: Cantonese, Welsh, Taiwanese, and Gaelic. The programme invites the audience to reflect on how speakers of these languages—particularly Hongkongers and the Welsh—are connected through the shaping of cultural identities rooted in languages.
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Hong Kong / 2015 / Colour / 13 mins / In Cantonese and Putonghua with Chinese and Engish subtitles / Dir. Jevons Au 歐文傑
In an imagined future in Hong Kong, Putonghua spoken by Mainland Chinese has become the only official language in Hong Kong. A taxi driver who speaks only Cantonese struggles to survive under a new policy. The short film was originally part of TEN YEARS, a short film collection that won the Best Film at Hong Kong Film Awards.
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Taiwan / 2013 / Colour / 12 mins / In Mandarin and Taiwanese with Chinese and English subtitles / Dir. Sung Hsin-yin 宋欣穎
A six-year-old girl starts her first day in primary school, where she has difficulties in coping with so many things. For example, she can no longer speak in Taiwanese but must learn to converse in Mandarin. Grand Prize Winner at the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, and with funding from the prize it has been developed into a feature length project that won the Best Animation Feature at the Golden Horse.
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Ireland / 2003 / Colour / 13 mins / In Gaelic and English with English subtitles / Dir. Daniel O’Hara
With a spin of a globe, Yu Ming decides that Ireland will be his new home. He studies hard to master Gaelic, Ireland’s official language, only to find nobody understands him when he arrives in Dublin. The film won 18 awards at film festivals around the world and was on the Oscars shortlist.
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UK / 2024 / Colour / 6 mins / In Welsh and English with English and Welsh subtitles / Dir. Gavin Porter
The short film comes from a project by Common/Wealth Artistic Director Rhiannon White and artist Ffion Wyn Morris, exploring the different relationships to the Welsh language in working class communities in North and South Wales. Artists from Cardiff who don’t speak Welsh and Welsh speaking artists in Bethesda worked for three days to find points of connection. They created work in response to these conversations, which were performed in the short film.