Awake Before Your Gaze

Through the lives of four generations of women on Matsu Island, this film traces how decades of militarised rule transformed the notion of impending war into a defining identity for an entire archipelago. Moving from an era of simple fishing livelihoods to the lived experiences at the height of the Cold War and into a contemporary mother-child relationship, the film weaves together intimate interviews that speculate on reconciling with a traumatic past and on uncertainties about the future. In one thread, a mother attempts to explain the meaning of war to her young daughter, a dialogue that encapsulates central questions of the film: how do personal stories bear witness to official history, and how does a new generation move forward from a loaded identity?