To See is to Act: The Death of An Undocumented Migrant Worker and Democratic Deficiency in Labour Migration in East Asia

The project consisted of screening of the movie ‘And More Miles to Go before I Sleep’, followed by discussion with the Director, Tsai Tsung-Iung. This project was funded by Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, which supported the screening at five universities in the UK between 21 and 24 March 2023, including the University of Portsmouth, School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham and University of Central Lancashire.

About the movie:
Nguyen Quoc Phi was nobody before he died, but now he tells his own story as a young migrant from Nghệ An, Vietnam, to Taiwan in this documentary. Phi was an undocumented migrant worker, or a ‘runaway’, in northern Taiwan before he was shot nine times by the police and left unattended by the paramedics on 31 August 2017. What made him ‘run away’ from his factory work? How did he find jobs in various construction sites? Why did he start taking drugs? Was he an imperfect victim? These are straightforward questions leading to complicated answers. And More Miles to Go before I Sleep (Nine Shots in Chinese) brings to the fore the nakedness of discrimination and the challenges to humanity if we choose to be bystanders indifferent to inequality and injustice.
The content of the film includes violent scenes.

Director Tsai Tsung-lung, National Chung Cheng University Graduated with a law degree in Bachelor from the National Chengchi University and a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, Tsai Tsung-Lung also holds a Master’s Degree in Film Studies from the University of East Anglia in the UK. He had worked as a journalist in print media, a special correspondent for the corporate TV industry, and a documentary producer of Taiwan Public Television Service (PTS). He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Communications of the National Chung Cheng University and works as an independent documentary producer and director. In 2006, He and several documentary directors organised the first labour union for documentary workers in Taiwan. Tsai is endeavouring to promote the visibility and understanding of documentaries and, as a lecturer, has dedicated to training filmmaking amongst students and amateurs. He takes a humanist approach to his works concerning human rights, environmental crisis, and culture diversities.