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Asian Studies


Asian Studies



PLANET OF SNAIL

Directed by Seungjun Yi

Planet of Snail is a mesmerizing documentary about an accomplished young poet who can no longer hear or see and his relationship to the world around him.

Young-Chan is deaf and blind. He learned to speak when he was very young, but soon after lost his sight and hearing. He lives with his wife, Soon-Ho, who is his soul mate, an inseparable part of his life, and a window to the outside world. They communicate with one another through finger braille, a unique form of touch-based sign language in which words are tapped on each other's hands.

Young-Chan and Soon-Ho rely on each other completely. Even simple domestic tasks require complex collaboration, like the changing of a light bulb on the ceiling. And everyday moments that most of us hardly notice become tender shared experiences, like feeling the bark of a tree, smelling pine cones on a spring morning, or the sensation of raindrops on the skin.

However, Young-Chan must be able to survive on his own. One day, as Soon-Ho waits anxiously at home, Young-Chan embarks on the biggest adventure of his life.

Breathtaking imagery coupled with Young-Chan's personal writings create a transfixing portrait of life on what seems like another planet, where touch communicates everything and love conquers all.

Reviews
  • "Palpably inspirational...This beautifully photographed documentary is a poetic meditation on refined sensory perception". Stephen Holden, The New York Times

  • "Simple, direct and magical. It will win you over as well if you give it the chance. It is both a pleasure and a great privilege to be observers in their world... An elegant, minimal look at life as it is lived." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

  • "Powerful. A significant testament to the potential of the human spirit and the power of love." - Indiewire

    Awards
  • Winner, Best Documentary Prize, International Film Festival Amsterdam
  • Winner,Sterling Award for Best World Feature , SilverDocs Film Festival

    DVD / 2012 / 87 minutes

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    DAY HE ARRIVES, THE

    Directed by Hong Sangsoo

    Seongjun, a film director who no longer makes films, goes to Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, Seongjun begins to wander the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some young film students, then, against his better judgment, heads to his ex-girlfriend's apartment. The next day, he finally meets his friend, has some drinks, shares some conversation, and meets a young woman who looks exactly like his ex-girlfriend. The next day goes very much like the previous day. Through it all Seongjun moves forward, struggling to find a purpose to his trip.

    A heartbreaking and hilarious film of repeating patterns and circumstance, The Day He Arrives is a meditation on relationships, filmmaking, and the unknowable forces that govern our lives.

    Reviews
  • "A beautiful and melancholy film... I fell into a sympathetic reverie with this film. If The Day He Arrives is a comedy, it's a human comedy like Balzac had in mind: a record of how people live, talk, strive and pass their days." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  • "At his best - and his new movie, The Day He Arrives, is among his very best - Hong offers a strange mixture of magic, mystery, rueful melodrama and dry comedy that's like absolutely nothing else." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

  • Critics Pick! "An exploration, both playful and rueful, of desire, narrative and the idea beautifully expressed by Faulkner in 'Absalom, Absalom!' that 'maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished.'" - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

    DVD / 2011 / 79 minutes

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    PERFECT SOLDIER, A

    Directed by John Severson

    A Perfect Soldier is an inspiring documentary about one man's journey from child soldier to international hero. As a young boy, Aki Ra was groomed to be an instrument of war by the Khmer Rouge regime. In his adult life, Aki Ra has worked to combat the violence in which he once took part by removing what he can of the 6 million landmines that still mar Cambodia's countryside. Aki Ra was named one of CNN's Top 10 Heroes in 2010.

    Aki Ra, born in Cambodia in 1970, lost both of his parents to the Khmer Rouge regime before he was six years old. This regime went on to kill nearly two million Cambodians, and it recruited Aki Ra as a child soldier along the way. First taught to shoot guns at birds for fun, and later instructed to lay anti-tank landmines along jungle roads, Aki Ra's early life was ?lled with violence and chaos.

    When the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Aki Ra was conscripted by the Vietnamese army and forced to ?ght against the few remaining countrymen he had left. Aki Ra quickly became an expert at laying and removing landmines, and he began to teach others soldiers his skills.

    When Aki Ra was in his early 20s, he escaped from the war and hid in Siem Reap. A few years later, he converted a shack outside Angkor Wat into a museum designed to house the remnants of his country's war. He then began to remove the landmines that he had once laid, adding them to his collection. In addition to serving as a monument for the devastation of his past, the museum has also become home to approximately 20 orphaned landmine victims, providing them food, shelter, and education.

    A Perfect Soldier examines the history of Cambodia and the Khmer rouge regime through the eyes of Aki Ra. Experts in the ?eld provide the historical context for his story, allowing viewers to both better understand Aki Ra's individual struggles, as well as the devastation that the Cambodian people endured under Pol Pot.

    Review
  • " Highly Recommended... filmmaker Severson enables Aki Ra to tell his own story expanded by interviews with his family, a war psychologist and historical experts. Superb editing by producer Jonathan Lacocque blends these narratives with still photos and black and white footage to complete the story". - Educational Media Reviews Online

    Awards
  • Winner, Moving Mountains Prize, Honorable Mention, Mountain Film Festival
  • Winner, Laureate Award, Cinema Verite Film Festival

    DVD / 2011 / 56 minutes

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    POSITION AMONG THE STARS

    Directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich

    Thirteen years ago, Dutch filmmaker Retel Helmrich decided to visit Indonesia, the birthplace of his Dutch father and Indonesian mother, looking for inspiration. The trip ignited his fascination with the country and he started filming the Sjamsuddin family living in a Jakarta slum. He followed them as the country shook off the rule of President Suharto ( The Eye of the Day ), experienced a rise of Islamic power ( Shape of the Moon ) and eventually nascent democracy, corruption and a widening income gap (Position Among the Stars).

    At the start of Position Among the Stars, grandmother Rumidjah, openly Christian, has left the bustle of Jakarta to live in the countryside. But when her adolescent, smart granddaughter, Tari, turns out to be too much for her son Bakti to handle, Bakti asks his mother to return to the city's slums to provide the girl with a sense of values and purpose in life.

    Tari is growing up in a time of increasing openness. The people around her are allowed, and even expected, to express their opinion about everything. Older people, accustomed to a more repressive society, are unfamiliar with democratic principles. Indonesia is experiencing the growing pains of a Western-style generation gap, a new phenomenon in the Muslim country.

    The entire family sees in the intelligent Tari a chance to raise their status and escape the slums of Jakarta. Especially Bakti has high hopes for her since she is like a daughter to him. His job as neighborhood watchman doesn't pay well, so he tries to earn some extra money by breeding fighting fish for gambling purposes.

    Rumidjah is pressuring Tari to finish school with honors and be the first in their family to go to university. However Tari wants what all teenagers do - a mobile phone, fun with friends. Meanwhile Bakti and his wife are not getting along very well. She becomes increasingly exasperated by his laid-back ways, his collection of fighting fish and lack of attention to her.

    Although her family works themselves to the bone to contribute to the tuition fee of her university, Tari prefers to spend her time and money with her friends in the nightlife of Jakarta.

    This modest and simple family seems at ease with Leonard Retel Helmrich's presence, who records their everyday real life situations with impressive detail, using his proprietary Single Shot Cinema method to bring moments of charm and compassion into their family tale.

    Reviews
  • "Engrossing, poetic and often very funny, Position Among the Stars, like its predecessors, uses the lens of a single family to view the tumult of an entire country." - The New York Times

  • Recommended."A cinematographic journey capturing the struggles of life a present-day globalized Indonesia as seen through the eyes of the Sjamsuddin family ". - Educational Media Reviews Database

  • "A wonderful piece of work. Helmrich's approach to the camera is highly creative... A realistic depiction of the changing tides of Indonesian life as it is felt by many of its citizen today". - Anthropology Review Database

    Awards
  • Winner, Grand Jury Award, , International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
  • Winner, Special Jury Award, Sundance Film Festival
  • Winner, Grand Jury Award, Zagrebdox
  • Winner, Special Jury Award, Sarasota Film Festival
  • Winner, Special Jury Mention, Silverdocs
  • Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Alba Film Festival
  • Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Durban Film Festival

    DVD / 2011 / 111 minutes

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    RESTORING THE LIGHT

    Directed by Carol Liu

    Restoring the Light is an intimate portrait of a dedicated doctor and some of his patients in an isolated rural community in Ningxia, one of China's poorest regions. This heart-wrenching film documents the adversities and hopes of a population that has been left behind in the wake of China's dizzying economic boom.

    China's new mantra, "You go through school, then you get a good job and you leave the rural areas" has created an unending flow of migrant workers streaming to prospering cities. But what happens to the faceless millions who stay behind and must struggle for basic survival and limited access to healthcare and education?

    Restoring the Light follows ophthalmologist Dr. Zhang Xubinwho operates a non-profit mobile eye clinic for underprivileged rural patients as well as two families benefiting from the doctor's humanist mission. Despite a debilitating bone infection, a young woman from an illiterate farming family pursues her dream to attend university and become an artist. Her grandmother has lived in a cave dwelling for over sixty years and still toils in the field even though she has lost her vision to cataracts. Meanwhile a bright ten-year-old boy blinded by an improperly treated illness in infancy is isolated due to the lack of special education at his school. Dr. Zhang's mobile clinic brings a measure of peace to the families, but also forces reality into sharper focus.

    As China rushes to become the next superpower, Restoring the Light reveals the human challenges behind the facade of a nation's rise.

    Review
  • "A groundbreaking documentary exposing the overwhelming struggles of modern China not covered by the media. Every American must see this film!" - Malcolm R. Ing, MD, Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology & Chair of the Division of Ophthalmology, John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii

    DVD / 2011 / 55 minutes

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    HIDDEN CHINA, THE

    Hidden China takes an in-depth look into this country's meteoric rise to economic superpower in this behind the scenes show. Through access to exclusive interviews and on-camera visits to areas forbidden to journalists, discover how China has rapidly changed from a state run disaster to the world's powerful economy.

    China is attempting to do in one generation, what other countries have needed three to accomplish. From one of the world's largest gaming industries, to global corporations, China is now most certainly on the world's stage.

    In the 1970's, thanks to Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping's pragmatism, China moved from a classic Soviet style command economy to a consumer economy virtually from scratch. This meant China needed to commercially reconnect with the rest of the world breaking away from centuries of tradition.

    Learn how the inner battle between tradition and modernization continues to rage on as the world's most powerful economy continues to grow. With economic growth at over Ten percent a year, tradition is giving way


    DVD / 2009 / (Senior High, College) / 45 minues

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    JAPAN, THE EMPEROR AND THE ARMY

    By Kenichi Watanabe

    JAPAN, THE EMPEROR AND THE ARMY examines how Japan's demilitarization in the months following the WWII continues to resonate today - in Japanese politics, national identity and cultural influence on the international stage.

    This historically insightful documentary follows the transitional aftermath of WWII, when Japan demilitarized in order to regain international confidence and thus adopted Article 9 in its new constitution, famously decreeing that land, sea and air military forces will never be maintained- essentially renouncing war forever. Previously, Emperor Hirohito as sovern head of state was commander of the army and had full authority to wage war.

    General MacArthur as head of U.S. forces occupying post-war Japan, sought to separate the emperor from the military as war was traditionally waged in Japan on behalf of the emperor, not the nation, with kamikaze missions being seen as the ultimate way of honoring your deity-like commander. Hirohito remained as an imperial symbol of the pre-war Japan in post-war, becoming the first emperor to become a mere "mortal."

    However today, Japan's "Self-Defense Force" is one of the 5 largest militaries in the world. Topics that were once taboo - amending Article 9, maintaining the primacy of the emperor, honoring Japan's military past - are now openly discussed by politicians at the highest levels.

    Featuring interviews with Japanese and Western historians, as well as activist lawyers, WWII veterans and politicians, JAPAN, THE EMPEROR AND THE ARMY provides much-needed context for the resurgence in Japanese nationalism, its roots in the United States' management of its post-war occupation, the challenges and limitations of Japan's pacifist constitution and the country's evolving role in the military-industrial complex.

    Reviews
  • "Critics have said Watanabe's film should be used as a criterion for understanding Japan." -The Japan Times

  • "Technically, this video is outstanding... The controversy over Article 9 leads to profound questions on the nature of what it means to be Japanese in the 21st century. Recommended." -Educational Media Reviews Online

  • "Fascinating documentary... Charting the development of Japan's ever-growing 'self-defense' force, Watanabe captures a critical transitional moment and eventually leads viewers to the state of Article 9 in the 21st century, explaining how the recent surge in Japanese nationalism is specifically directed at gaining independence from the passage's pacifist principles. Informative and thought-provoking, this is highly recommended." -Video Librarian

    DVD (Color, Black and White) / 2009 / 90 minutes

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    KAREN REFUGEES: FLEEING BURMA'S FORGOTTEN WAR

    In recent years, Canada has accepted 2,000 Karen people in to the country. The Karen make up about seven percent of the population of Myanmar, formally known as Burma, and for decades, they've been fighting what's called the Forgotten War with the Burmese military. Patrick Brown introduces us to a Karen woman and her family as they leave behind a refugee camp, ethnic persecution, and an ongoing war, and embark on a journey from Burma to Canada.

    DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, Adult Education, Post Secondary) / 21 minutes

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    SHAPE OF THE MOON

    Directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich

    The end of the Suharto regime ushered in an era of rapid sociopolitical upheaval in Indonesia. In this second installment of the Sun, Moon, Stars trilogy, filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich returns to the Sjamsuddin family to intimately capture the changes taking place in their country, including the troubling rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

    Rumidjah, a 62-year-old widow, lives in Jakarta, Indonesia with her son Bakti and her 13-year-old granddaughter Tari. Since the fall of Dictator Suharto seven years ago, she has witnessed the country passing through a tumultuous period of socio-political chaos. Rapid globalization and democratization have spawned a subculture of criminality and uncertainty. Islam, the largest religion in Indonesia, is trying to maintain order and discipline, while becoming increasingly fundamentalist in its tone, which has consequences on the everyday lives of all Indonesians, no matter their religion. Rumidjah, who is a Christian, has had more than enough of the capital's chaos of these last years. When her son Bakti converts to Islam to marry a Muslim girl, Rumidjah seriously considers leaving the hectic city forever and moving to the safety of the countryside.

    The care for her thirteen-year-old granddaughter Tari is the one and only thing that still ties Rumidjah to the city. She decides to take her on a visit to her native village in Central Java. The countryside there is bright; the sun shines almost every day, all year round. Life is initially full of promise. Old friends of Rumidjah welcome them, and all the inhabitants of the village help her to renovate the foundations of her old wooden house. Rumidjah feels happy in the village, but for the thirteen-year-old Tari, Rumidjah sees no future in such an environment. Despite Tari's desperate pleas to stay, Rumidjah sends her back to Jakarta with her son Bakti.

    Rumidjah soon realizes that in the countryside things haven't stayed the same either. Every day she walks through fields of rice looking for work, but mechanization has made it almost impossible to find employment on the farms. Survival as an old uneducated woman in the face of such brutal change is difficult. Rumidjah manages to find small comfort thinking of her granddaughter who is now getting a good education in Jakarta, and who will certainly get further in life. Through her faith in God, Rumidjah carries on looking for work and doesn't lose hope for a better future.

    Reviews
  • Highly Recommended . "Incorporating ... cinema verite style and unwavering attention to every detail, Helmrich's camera continues to craft a rich and layered visual narrative". - Educational Media Reviews Online

  • "An ambitious melange of ethnography, family drama and expressionist style" - Variety

  • "I would recommend this film to the instructor who wants to present to his/her classes the contemporary social situation in Jakarta in specific and urban Indonesia in general. It also documents remarkably well the tremendous social growth of Islam in Javanese society, as well as the tone of this new globalized Islam in contrast to the more traditional Javanese Islam of the classic anthropological literature. For film-making techniques it is also well worth showing to visual anthropology and documentary film students." - Troy Belford, Anthropology Review Database

    Awards
  • Winner, Joris Ivens Award, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam
  • Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival
  • Winner, Best Cinematography Award, Documentary Festival Chicago
  • Winner, Grand Jury Award, Full Frame Festival
  • Winner, Audience Award, Renconters Documentary Film Festival

    DVD / 2004 / 92 minutes

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    ROBBING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

    Since the mid 1990s, Iraq's archeological treasures have been systematically pillaged by organized gangs of criminals in what some are calling the worse cultural disaster since WWII. They have ended up in the best museums and collections in the world. Part detective story, part historical thriller, part archaeological tragedy, this is the truth behind the massive wholesale looting of an entire country. Beginning with the looting of the Baghdad Museum, it's the story of collectors in Canada, New York, Switzerland and Norway who are siphoning millions of dollars worth of irreplaceable antiquities. Chasing the truth is a remarkable band of undercover sleuths, archeological detectives, the US military and FBI agents. This program follows the amazing journey of crime to the people who distribute and buy them.

    DVD / 2003 / (Grades 7-12, Adult Education, Post Secondary) / 42 minutes

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    EYE OF THE DAY, THE

    Directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich

    Against a backdrop of social unrest that led to the ouster of Indonesia's long-time dictator President Suharto, The Eye of the Day begins filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich's award-winning trilogy Sun, Moon, Stars . It introduces us to the Sjamsuddin's, an ordinary family living in the slums of Jakarta; a family Helmrich would return to and document for more than a decade.

    Indonesia, 1988. A deep political and economic crisis forces President Suharto to resign after thirty-two years in power. Thus begins the tumultuous era known as REFORMASI. Since then, Indonesians have seen ongoing political change, protests and poverty.

    The Eye of the Day tells their stories by following one family, including the sixty-year-old-grandmother Rumidjah, her sons Bakti and Dwi, and her friend Ibu Sum. The film depicts their world, from harvests in the countryside to mass protests in the cities, from mysterious natural forces of the volcanoes and mountains to religious seances and pilgrimages.

    This a rich and powerful documentary work about a crucial, transformative era in one of the world's most populous countries.

    Review
  • Highly Recommended . "Helmrich constructs a larger narrative of a country at the crossroads of big change, grappling with growth and the effects of globalization. Helmrich's cinematic eye and vigilant attention to detail combined with his aptitude for juxtaposing the urban and rural makes the story all the more compelling. - Educational Media Reviews Online

    Awards
  • Winner, Audience Award, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam
  • Winner, Special Mention FIPA-Biarritz
  • Winner, Audience Award, Visions du Reel
  • Winner, Audience Award, International Film Festival

    DVD / 2001 / 92 minutes

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    RED PERSIMMONS

    By Shinsuke Ogawa and Peng Xiaolian

    The ostensible subject of this remarkably beautiful film is the growing, drying, peeling and packaging of persimmons in the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama. The inhabitants explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village's persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else, including the village just a few miles away. The film's larger subject, however, is the disappearance of Japan's traditional culture, the end of a centuries-old way of life.

    Begun by the Japanese director Shinsuke Ogawa in the late 1980s, RED PERSIMMONS was completed after his death by his Chinese disciple, Xiaolian Peng, who remained true to the delicate, wry sensibility inherent in the original footage. In addition to elegant depictions of the manufacturing process, the film features fascinating portraits of the people who invent and make the various tools and implements used in persimmon agriculture, as well as the colorful spiel of the old men and women who run the persimmon trade.

    In portraying the basic process of peeling and drying the persimmons, the film chronicles the improvements since the 1920s through the periodic introduction of more efficient, mechanized methods. An elderly man explains how in 1931, using old bicycle parts, he invented a peeling machine, thus enabling the village to produce persimmons in large enough quantities to turn them into a major cash crop. A series of discussions with other elderly farmers illustrates the progressive mechanization that gradually introduced modernity to rural Japan.

    Apart from its fascinating record of a vanishing way of life and its colorful anecdotes about human inventiveness, however, RED PERSIMMONS is a film of stunning visual beauty. Its scenes of time-lapse photography, whether revealing the gorgeous deep red-orange colors of the fruit in full blossom or drying after having been peeled, bathe the screen in radiant beauty.

    Reviews
  • "Multidimensional, deeply contextual, and beautifully shot. Peng Xiaoliang should be commended for finishing this film while remaining true to Ogawa's vision and voice. - Karen Nakamura, Asst. Professor of Anthropology, Yale University, for Visual Anthropology Journal

  • "Recommended! Thoughtfully conceived and beautifully filmed... It not only offers facts about persimmon growing, but insights into the inner workings of traditional Japanese rural life." - Educational Media Reviews Online

  • "Elegant as a print by Hokusai... A moving revelation of a microcosm soon to vanish." - The Village Voice

  • "A moving, wistful look at the effulgent, eternal cycle of life and death." - Film Journal International

  • "Part living relic, part social study, RED PERSIMMONS regards its endearing subjects with respect and humility." - Time Out
  • "Oddly fascinating...Exquisitely beautiful." - TVGuide.com

    DVD (Color) / 2001 / 90 minutes

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    BARBARIANS: FIERCE AND FRIENDLY

    By Ikeda Hajime and Chet Kincaid

    Like peoples elsewhere, Japanese throughout their history have encountered aliens in reality and in fantasy, and then have tried to incorporate them into their view of the world. Ronald P. Toby, noted historian of Japan, examines ways that Japanese have expressed their understanding of the foreign such as Koreans, Okinawans, Chinese and Americans, both black and white. The program includes a rich array of drawings, paintings and other visual images, mostly from eighteenth and nineteenth century Japan, showing aliens in popular art and aliens as enacted in festivals of the era. The program is suitable for use at the secondary school level and above, for courses not only about Japan but about ethnic relations anywhere.


    DVD (Color) / 1999 / 15 minutes

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    CHINA

    One fifth of all people on Earth live in China, the world's most populated country: modernization is on the fast track.

    DVD / 1998 / (Senior High, College) / 50 minutes

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    HONG KONG

    Now under Chinese rule, Hong Kong aims to remain a magnet for international business and trade.

    DVD / 1998 / (Senior High, College) / 50 minutes

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    JAPAN

    An industrial superpower, Japan both treasures its ancient traditions and embraces new cultural influences.

    DVD / 1998 / (Senior High, College) / 50 minutes

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    THAILAND/VIETNAM

    Both countries are rich in history and architecture, and are now capitalizing on their traditions for Western tourists

    DVD / 1998 / (Senior High, College) / 50 minutes

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    HALF THE SKY: WOMEN IN CHINA

    Fifty years ago the Chinese Communist revolution promised women an equal share of life's blessings. Will they live to see it? Today's Chinese woman has little more control over her own life than did her ancestors. Her concerns regarding education, employment and political representation are neglected while her burden increases. Probably most enlightening are the remarks of individual women, from poor cave-dwellers to educated urban professionals, regarding their roles in a society ruled by men, not by law.

    Award
  • Chris Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film and Video Festival 1996

    DVD / 1995 / (Grade 10-12, Post Secondary, Adult Education) / 27 minutes

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    BURMA PRIMER

    While Burma's repressive military regime refuses to make any movement towards democracy and improved human rights, it does want to make economic changes. The country that is also known as Myanmar is looking for foreign business and tourist dollars.

    DVD / 1994 / (Grades 10-12, Post Secondary, Adult Education) / Approx. 5 minutes

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    LAOS, CAMBODIA, VIETNAM

    Progress versus culture, preserving archaeological sites, and rebuilding war -torn nations are featured in this program. A Frenchman and a Laotian are working together to improve the lives of local farmers in Laos by incorporating the farmers' opinions and cultural concerns. In Cambodia, efforts by the UN to preserve Angkor Wat, the famous archaeological site and temple in Angkor, are detailed. In Vietnam, 62 -year -old American Bob Sidell is helping the people of Dai Loc to rebuild infrastructures and generally improve their lives.

    DVD / 1994 / 28 minutes

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    MONGOLIA, CHINA, NEPAL

    Economic transition and wildlife preservation are featured in this program. Mongolia finds itself free of Soviet domination but without currency and facing an economic crisis. A young Englishman dedicates himself to protecting and preserving the panda population of China, whose land is being taken over by Chinese farmers. And in Nepal, Kanchha, a two -year -old rhinoceros, is one of the country's 500 -member rhinoceros population which is threatened with extinction. Efforts to save them are detailed.

    DVD / 1994 / 30 minutes

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    THE PHILIPPINES, KIRIBATI

    Cultural and environmental deprivation are featured in this program. The first part details efforts under way to improve the lives of the 150,000 people living on the active "Smoky Mountain" volcano near Manila, where the city dumps its garbage. Life on the South Pacific island of Kiribati is shown as something less than paradise. Isolation, poor soils, limited resources, scarce drinking water, and frequent, devastating hurricanes make life a daily struggle for residents.

    DVD / 1992 / 22 minutes

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    BOMBAY: OUR CITY

    By Anand Patwardhan

    BOMBAY: OUR CITY tells the story of the daily battle for survival of the 4 million slum dwellers of Bombay who make up half the city's population. Although they are Bombay's workforce - industrial laborers, construction workers, domestic servants - they are denied city utilities like electricity, sanitation, and water. Many slumdwellers must also face the constant threat of eviction as city authorities carry out campaigns to "beautify" Bombay.

    BOMBAY: OUR CITY is an indictment of injustice and misery, and a call to action on the side of the slumdwellers.

    Reviews
  • "Perhaps disturbing to those looking for objective overviews, but especially interesting to viewers considering the problem of the film: What should be done about Bombay's thousands of shanty-dwellers?... BOMBAY is a very powerful film, a documentary with a point of view on people's rights, urban welfare, and other key issues in India's major cities and in cities all over the world." - Joan L. Erdman, American Anthropologist

  • "Patwardhan gives us this story simply and clearly, with restrained passion, and it becomes, finally, appalling and moving." - Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

  • "Quite clearly, BOMBAY: OUR CITY is the best documentary ever made in India." - K. Mohamed, The Times of India

  • "Excellent... Recommended for libraries serving students in courses in urban problems, political science, and anthropology/sociology at the undergraduate and graduate level." - D.L. White, Choice

  • "An eye-opening film... It helps viewers see the totality of the unjust conditions of the working-class people in urban Bombay, and to empathize with them. It is a low-budget activist film whose main actors are the common slum dwellers revealing themselves to be intelligent and compassionate people." - Development Update

  • "One of the best documentaries I have ever seen." - Sean Cubitt, City Limits (London)

    Award
  • First Prize Winner, 1986 Cinema du Reel

    DVD (Color) / 1985 / 57 minutes

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    ASIA 1600-1800

    The response of the Asiatic societies to the arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch and English. There was a reaction against the west (especially in Japan) Chinese and Japanese technology ceased to advance. The weakness of the Mogul empire in India is considered a factor as to why the British were able to play off the Indian elements against each other

    DVD / 1985 / (Senior High, College) / 26 minutes

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    CHINA AND JAPAN 1279-1600

    The Mongol warrior Kublai Khan brought the whole of China under foreign rule for the first time In history. Later the Ming built the great wall In Japan, under the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates a heavy influence of Zen Buddhism was in evidence

    DVD / 1985 / (Senior High, College) / 26 minutes

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