Stepping Stones on Ch'en Ching-k'ai's Path to Vindication | Visual Bricks: An Interview with Director Shih Yao-ch'eng

"Blind Spot," a documentary running less than half an hour, leaves an impression that transcends its duration and spills beyond the screen. The entire documentary revolves around Ch'en Ching-k'ai's life, stripping away the heavy legal undertones typically found in wrongful conviction documentaries and avoiding excessive emotional dramatization. Instead, it adopts a down-to-earth perspective to narrate how Ch'en Ching-k'ai strives to live as a "normal" visually impaired person.

As mid-term interns at the JRF, we feel fortunate not only to have engaged with the facts of the case but also to have met the director who filmed the documentary about Ch'en Ching-k'ai, gaining insight into why he was willing to invest his efforts in documenting the everyday details of Ching-k'ai's life.

From Blind Spots to Blind Spot

Documentary director Shih Yao-ch'eng majored in geography in college, seemingly unrelated to film or photography. However, driven by personal interest, he maintained exposure to photography and set a goal to pursue a career in visual media. Later, he enrolled in the graduate institute at National Taiwan University of Arts to further hone his knowledge of visual culture and film. Without setting limits on himself, he extensively and broadly explored screenwriting, producing, cinematography, documentary, and fiction film, ultimately graduating successfully with his documentary Blind Spot.

When asked why his graduation project touched upon and chose to document and present a miscarriage of justice,

he mentioned that prior to graduate school, he had already encountered a few wrongful conviction cases, though none had been explored in depth. It was not until he attended a writing workshop organized by the Taiwan Association for Innocence that he personally examined the case files of a wrongful conviction.

Throughout the process, he grew increasingly intrigued by the elusive and dramatic nature of miscarriages of justice. Even though trying to clarify the case through various means made it difficult to prove what truly happened, he stated: "The truth of a wrongful conviction is something the parties involved want to know, and the public wants to know, yet no one can quite pin it down. That is what makes wrongful convictions fascinating to me."

Initially, he had not intended to document the story behind the Ching-k'ai case; instead, he first focused on the judicial aspects of wrongful convictions. He collected numerous subjects related to wrongful convictions, actively interviewed lawyers handling such cases, and attended attorney strategy meetings and followed their itineraries through the Judicial Reform Foundation. "At the time, I didn't know what I was going to film either. I just followed along to see what events would unfold," Shih Yao-ch'eng recalled. It happened to coincide with the civil retrial hearings of the Ch'en Ching-k'ai case. After attending the court hearings with the lawyers, the case captured his interest.

"Because it involved legal, special education, and medical perspectives on the visually impaired, I thought to myself right then: 'Fantastic! I can graduate!'" He recognized the potential of the Ching-k'ai case as a filming subject and seized this rare opportunity. After deciding to film the case, Director Shih Yao-ch'eng watched many documentaries related to wrongful convictions and visual impairment. However, after gathering materials in these related fields, Shih Yao-ch'eng encountered a dilemma.

A Contradictory Choice? Dramatization V.S. Authenticity

"I feel that the public has a relatively low acceptance of wrongful conviction documentaries. Because everyone has their own version of the truth, it is very difficult for many wrongful conviction documentaries to fully account for the process and the outcome. Presenting only the process can be somewhat dry, yet the public wants to know what happened and tends to focus only on the result rather than the process. Even in a documentary, people still hope for some dramatic narrative." Faced with the choice between shaping dramatic appeal and reflecting procedural authenticity, he chose the latter. The content of his filming focused on Ch'en Ching-k'ai's life and his rehabilitation, rather than exploring the truth of the wrongful conviction or pursuing its outcome.

Once the direction of the documentary was locked in, the process of negotiating and communicating the filming content with Ch'en Ching-k'ai was also quite lengthy. "Although we filmed some footage, it was likewise a process of building mutual trust," Shih Yao-ch'eng believes. Communicating the filming content with Ch'en Ching-k'ai also allowed him to understand Ch'en's self-perception, while smoothly delving into the details of his daily life to achieve a more authentic record and portrayal.

How should Ch'en Ching-k'ai's life be presented, and from what angle? The stance of Blind Spot would inevitably exert some influence on public opinion regarding the development of the Ching-k'ai case. "I did have this thought at the time: should I deliberately film him acting more like a blind person? Then people would recognize him as blind. But to Ching-k'ai, that is somewhat absurd, because he is the one who worked hard for a long time precisely because he wanted to live like a normal person. Why should he be filmed to look like a blind person? And what does looking like a blind person even mean? Is it what we imagine it to be, or what a truly visually impaired person is like?" Nevertheless, Shih Yao-ch'eng believed that public impressions of the visually impaired needed to change. Through this, he examined his own preconceived notions about the visually impaired, which largely mirrored those of the general public. Therefore, to change such impressions, one must first understand the true living conditions of the visually impaired.

Breaking the Blind Spot: Using the Lens to Tell Everyone "This Is Normal"

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To supplement his foundational knowledge, Shih Yao-ch'eng attended the annual meeting of the Taiwan Disability Studies Association, observing and discussing various perspectives and viewpoints on disability, while also consulting academic research to better understand the visually impaired. He said: "Most blind people in movies are portrayed as marginalized characters who are bullied and mocked. People watch these movies and think that blind people have to be this way—walking clumsily, feeling around everywhere. People rarely have direct contact with them in daily life; they only encounter them through imagery and news media. Therefore, they have no concept of blindness or visual impairment, assuming that being visually impaired means you cannot see, and if you cannot see, you should stay at home and need someone else's help to accomplish anything. In reality, that is not the case at all, and Ching-k'ai himself does not want that."

During the filming process, Shih Yao-ch'eng accompanied Ch'en Ching-k'ai in his activities and participated in his life—whether cooking at home, interacting with family members, or playing blind baseball. He observed many details along the way and gained a deeper understanding of what the lives of the visually impaired are truly like. "I originally imagined visually impaired people a certain way, but after actual contact, I found that they are not much different from us. They just have some visual inconvenience, yet they can do many things very well. Why should we use preconceived notions of disability to restrict them, deciding what they should or should not be able to do?" Shih Yao-ch'eng believes that these frameworks narrow the possibilities for the visually impaired, overlook their diversity, and generalize individual differences among them.

Yet in Blind Spot, the footage documenting Ch'en Ching-k'ai's life contains quite a few scenes that deliver a shock to the viewer—such as accurately catching a flying ball, playing table tennis fluently, and even precisely embracing his child during family interactions. Such extraordinary behaviors often lead people to instinctively doubt whether Ch'en Ching-k'ai is truly blind.

While filming closely alongside Ch'en Ching-k'ai, Shih Yao-ch'eng was likewise struck countless times by his "overly normal" behaviors. However, as a visual storyteller, he maintained an open mindset, avoiding pre-set positions or deliberate emphasis, instead authentically portraying what the "person" behind the case is truly like. Although these impacts were not presented through overly dramatic techniques, the steady and unpretentious atmosphere seemed to tell the audience: this is completely normal.

What is the Root Cause of the Blind Spot in the Director's Eyes?

While the question of whether he is genuinely blind is central to the case and the primary query for the general public when viewing the entire matter, "Everyone has their own perspective. Lawyers have their perspective, special education teachers have their perspective, doctors have their perspective, and Ching-k'ai himself has his own perspective. Thus, I felt that there are indeed different angles from which this issue can be approached." Shih Yao-ch'eng believes that when these entering perspectives differ, the standards and definitions applied to the visually impaired will vary, and when these viewpoints fail to intersect, a blind spot arises.

In addition to documenting Ch'en Ching-k'ai's life, Shih Yao-ch'eng also interviewed Attorney Chien Kai-lun and visual impairment rehabilitation counselor Yeh Chao-ling, among others. What each of them focuses on—ranging from case progress to personal life rehabilitation—represents quite different dimensions, adding diversity to the audience's choices of perspectives when viewing the visually impaired. Broadening the angles of various viewpoints may perhaps diminish the expanse of the blind spot.

Shih Yao-ch'eng reflected, "Why have we always cared so much about whether he can see or not? It is because his behavior differs from our established impressions and imagination; we imagine visually impaired people to look a certain way." Moreover, various fields define the visually impaired in vastly different ways. Evaluating and appraising the same event through different reference bases is bound to produce differing results. Which of these varying outcomes is the truth? And which is closer to the truth?

In this regard, he believes that even if one understands everything, reads all the case files, and interacts with the person in reality, it is still impossible to know what the absolute truth is. "The reality for me is that I actually came into contact and interacted with Ching-k'ai; that emotional connection is real."

Blind Spot shifts its focus onto Ch'en Ching-k'ai the individual, rather than obsessing over the pursuit of an answer. Shih Yao-ch'eng candidly admitted that he too holds a perspective, and the friendship formed with Ch'en Ching-k'ai during the filming process was immensely important and precious to him. Yet he also believes, "If we approach this from the perspective of a human being, you will try to understand his entire journey—from losing his sight to changes in family relationships and self-perception, and how he walked through this period. When you look back at the case then, the entire perspective might look somewhat different."

Where There is a Perspective, There is a Blind Spot: The Journey from Recognition to Understanding Blind Spots

When asked whether he ever harbored any doubts about the case, Shih Yao-ch'eng answered without hesitation, "After observing and participating, I knew he was blind." He added that he rarely dwells on this question; instead, he cares more about how Ch'en Ching-k'ai re-acquaints himself with himself, his environment, and society, and how he reconstructs his life. "That is what I am more curious about and concerned with. I believed in him from the very beginning of this case."

Discussing the understanding of disparate viewpoints, Shih Yao-ch'eng acknowledged that grasping these perspectives is truly no easy task. For him, they represented entirely new territories, requiring him to study more related knowledge to film successfully. "I needed to understand how science views visual impairment; to comprehend special education's take on the matter; and to learn how these fields conduct assessments and rehabilitation. It was extremely complex, and I had to understand every single link."

From this, he also believes that to a certain extent, he is similar to a judge. Yet judges cannot thoroughly delve into and understand every perspective from scratch, and can only adjudicate from a legal viewpoint. When judges lack sufficient understanding of science and special education, misunderstandings easily occur. Perspectives contain elements that are difficult to fuse with one another, and having an intersection does not mean blind spots cease to exist.

"The point of entry for each field into this intersection varies, but ultimately, established institutional stances still underpin their understanding of other fields, so blind spots remain." Shih Yao-ch'eng confessed, "I have my own blind spots as well, and visually impaired individuals have their own—how they view themselves, how they re-recognize themselves, and how I re-view them all involve blind spots. Therefore, let us maintain an open mind to understand."

The Ching-k'ai case involves numerous fields, and intersecting perspectives seem to highlight the omnipresence of blind spots, testifying to the very essence of wrongful convictions: even without blindness of the eyes, blind spots persist; seeing with one's own eyes does not equate to grasping the full reality. The documentary Blind Spot reveals the stories behind the Ching-k'ai case and the essence of blind spots by presenting a reality that exists beyond preconceived stereotypes.