Earlierthis year, Taroko National Park HQ’s aborigine documentary Echoing Taroko won a Merit Prize in the short film category in TheAccolade competition in California;then, in April, the film won a bronze medal at the 46th WorldFest-Houston; thesesuccesses have made the film the pride of the Taroko tribe.
EchoingTaroko is the first documentary to be made 100% in the Taroko’s native languageand to use musical technique to interpret the life and culture of the tribe andthe connotations of ancient tunes. WorldFest-Houston is one of the oldest filmfestivals in the US;this year over 4500 films from 33 countries took part and competition wasfierce.
Thefilm Echoing Taroko, commissioned by Taroko National Park Headquarters, has woninternational honors and acclaim. To preserve and pass on the essence of Tarokotribe culture, director Yang Xiang-wen was enlisted to make the film by TarokoNational Park Headquarters. The film was made over a two-year period and usestraditional music and dance to tell the story of the Taroko tribe, presentingimportant aspects of the tribe’s culture such as facial tattoos, fabricweaving, rattan weaving, mouth harp, the xylophone and hunting etc. The contentis based on careful research and each traditional Taroko tune tells the storyof the early migration of the tribe’s ancestors, and marriage and farming andother everyday but extraordinary aspects of life. All the performers in the filmare residents of Taroko villages and the narration is all in Taroko language,the film truly recording and preserving one of Taiwan’s precious cultural assetsas well as taking the opportunity to introduce Taroko culture to the world.
Taroko National Park Headquarters Director Tseng Wei-hung said that theTaroko tribe is a valuable asset of the nation so we should do our best topreserve culture in the park; the winning of these awards by Echoing Taroko has made the film thepride of the tribe. To allow more people to understand the Taroko tribe’sculture and to promote it, Taroko National Park is, inaddition to issuing Echoing Taroko onDVD, also taking group bookings for showings of the film at the park headquarters’ visitor center and Buluowan ServiceStation. It is hoped that this fine documentary will help more people take aninterest in aborigine culture and that they will visit to see the beautifulscenery of Hualien for themselves.

News issued by TarokoNational Park Headquarters
Translated by Kevin Lax