*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!

Content

Chinese Society

Chinese Society


BITTER MONEY

By Wang Bing

BITTER MONEY documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou, one of the busiest cities of eastern China (with the highest number of part-time workers), to labor in its textile factories. But what they find are few opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent and oppressive relations. The camera follows Xiao Min, Ling Ling, and Lao Yeh closely, capturing the emotions of their daily hard work and disappointments upon receiving their wages. The film deals directly with the effects of 21st-century capitalism, as filmmaker Wang Bing acts as witness to the lives of people forced to adapt to a new economic landscape.

DVD (Color, Mandarin with English Subtitles) / 2016 / 152 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: BLIND SOCCER

Founded in 2006, China's Blind Football Team has got countless of awards over the decade. They never stop chasing their dreams even without lights in life, and they win for their country and their wonderful life. The team is heading for Rio 2016 Paralympic Games this year although full of injuries. After this game, they're supposed to retire, how's their life going to be? However, the shortage of young team seems to be a stumbling block of the road of the team keep running on.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: BUILDING A UTOPIA

In China, to live a better life, you have to be better-off.
Is there another way?
Tang Guanhua, contemporary artist, believes so.
He took the road less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.

In 2011, Tang closed his profit making design company and founded the "China Self-sufficient Laboratory" in the rural outskirt of Qingdao. For 5 years, Tang and his wife had tried to survive by their own wiles, producing everything from shoes to electricity, giving up prestige job and. The experience strengthened his belief that the more one relies on money, the less independent thinking they can have.

Now he goes a step further. He strives to build a utopia - or in his words, an Intentional Community, the first of its kind in China. On a rural farmland in Fuzhou, Tang and his followers pursued their dream. Having the same visions and values, they want to form a self-sufficient community, sharing skills and talents. It should be environmentally sustainable and it should have its own social structure, education and welfare system. Decisions are to make through deliberation.

While cities in China are crippled by smog, mercenaries and wealth gaps, is such community an alternative for our future generations?

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: GUANGXI 1968

Cultural Revolution in Guangxi

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT

Man vs Elephant

Yunnan Province is the last habitat for China's remaining wild elephants. Since 1992, due to the depletion of natural habitat caused by human activities, elephants have frequented villages in Xishuangbanna where they've destroyed crops and houses and injured people.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: INVISIBLE WINGS

In the Xishan District, thirty or so kilometres away from the city of Kunming, is a kingdom that is known for being a paradise on earth. Everyday, pilgrims from throughout the nation pour in. But the land of stories isn't all magical, even fairytales can be disturbing. The theme park is painted as a loving community but just like the outside world, the park is full of cliques. People under the height of 1.5 metres, who suffer from dwarfism like Chen Jianquan number at 8 million in Mainland China. They are seen as outsiders, and it is difficult for them to assimilate into society. What Chen Jianquan hopes for the most is to return to his parents.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: SPEEDY HOME COMING

In the last few decades, China has been experiencing tremendous changes in her economy, society and infrastructure. Her leaders dream about revival of the Chinese race: domestically, they want to lead nationals out of poverty towards a reasonable standard of living; internationally, they want to propel the realization of an economic corridor, via both land and sea, and draft a blueprint for a rising power. Leaders have dreams, but what do their subjects dream about?

Each episode of "China Stories" shows audience around in China by presenting them with the stories of some characters, as well as some images, in the hope that they may understand what the present-day Chinese think, do, and care about.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: THE INVISIBLE CITIZENS

2016.1.1 marks the end of China's one-child policy, allowing all couples to give birth for second kid since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than 30 years ago.

The policy is said to be an elixir for the aging community in China, albeit previous fine-tuning policy such as "selective two-child policy" fails to encourage couple to have two kids.

While kids that are born in and after 2016 are "contributors" to the aging problems in China, kids that were born before were called the "invisible men" simple because their parents.

As seen through the eyes of the second kid without identity, this documentary further examines the pains and problems left as a result of the one child policy and the greater meaning it holds about the essence of birth control.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: THE LAST ANIMAL TAMER

Taogou Village is a county in Suzhou city, Anhui Province, the only place where training animal for circus performance in China, it's also called the origin of the Chinese circus because 90% of the circus teams are from here. In the village, hundred of lions, tigers, bears are conducting "talent training" every day, there are over 300 circuses in the village with over 20,000 employees, annual income over 300 millions, circus becomes the biggest business in the town.

Wei Zheng joined the circus when he was in 17 and now is a circus owner, the 3rd generation of the circus family. Wei's family started circus performance over 100 years since his grandfather. However, the law of anti-abusing animal implied recently, the way of training animal is claimed as inhumanity, despite the fact that the circus industry in China has a long history, it declines as a result. As a national intangible cultural heritage, how will it survive? Is it time to be banned? Will Wei Zheng be the last animal tamer? All those questions are harassing him.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: THE RISE OF ONLINE CELEBRITIES IN MAINLAND

Web Stars - a New Force

"Online Celebrity" is becoming a trend in mainland. Through sharing their eye-catching photos or videos, they display a beautiful lifestyle that fulfills the aspiration of their internet followers. Furthermore, these online celebrities have find a way to turn this virtual fame and support into real fortune.

Eve Cheung, a famous online celebrity from Shanghai, has started her online boutique which sale over hundred millions every year. Adonis Liao, another online celebrity from Beijing, believes that the digital age allows even the most ordinary people to display their talents to the world, which he found good-looking is definitely an advantage that he wants to pursue...

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


CHINA STORIES II: THE VANISHING SHADOW

Does the rise of GDP reflect the rise of a great nation? Wang shao-sen, Sen, does not agree. Sen is a post 80's youth who owns a silk cloth company in Dalian. Two years ago, he watched a shadow play show held by E Wen-wu, an 80 years old Chinese shadow play show artist, in an old cinema. Sen was impressed by the show. He designed to prepare a nationwide shadow play tour for the old artists. However, he finds it is hard to renew people's interest on traditional culture even he gave up his own silk business and lost 20 thousand RMB to promote the shows.

Finally, he finds a way out with an unexpected channel-internet crowd-funding platform in China. What will happen when the traditional culture and the new media collide?

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART

Director: Jia Zhangke Starring: Dong Zijian, Liang Jingdong, Sylvia Chang, Zhang Yi, Zhao Tao

Mainland master Jia Zhangke scales new heights with Mountains May Depart. At once an intimate drama and a decades-spanning epic that leaps from the recent past to the present to the speculative near-future, Jia's new film is an intensely moving study of how China's economic boom and the culture of materialism it has spawned has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.

DVD (Region 1, Color, Cantonese, Mandarin, English) / 2015 / 131 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<


INSIDE CHINA: 3. POLITICS AND THE PEOPLE

  • China's political system
  • Popular protest in China
  • Internet censorship in China

    • China is now a market economy, but holds on to the communist political system - pollution, corruption and ethnic divisions cause great tensions.

    POLITICS They call it "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" but the communist party has a monopoly on power and no opposition is tolerated. There are tensions in regions such as Xinjiang Province where movements for independence have led to violence.

    PROTEST In a one-party system the people are the opposition. A major cause of popular protest is land expropriations to build factories. The party says it must listen to these protests - but are they?

    FREEDOM OF SPEECH Protests grow against censorship and human rights violations - the authorities try to clamp down but the internet is hard to censor. Says one blogger: "We can hope for a civil society, where people may dare to speak out."

    DVD / 2014 / 25 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    INSIDE CHINA: 5. CHINA RICH AND POOR

  • China's social development
  • Modern China
  • Conditions in rural China

    • A big principle of socialism is equality, but China's new society has glaring inequalities. The communist party calls it "socialism with Chinese characteristics" but, in the rush for growth, have they created a society far harsher than western capitalism?

    COMMUNISM COMES TO IKEA The new China now has a growing middle class with the same aspirations as their western counterparts - they want good schools, a good apartment, holidays, a decent retirement package - and furniture from Ikea!

    TOWN AND COUNTRY But the "economic miracle" has left millions behind - there is much hardship in China's vast hinterland where water is scarce and harvests are poor. The government says it is listening to the protests of the disenfranchised - but are they not more interested in holding on to power?

    DVD / 2014 / 23 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    INSIDE CHINA: 6. THE GREAT MIGRATION

  • China's urban migration
  • Modern China
  • China's industrial revolution

    • Chinese development has depended on a vast influx of 250 million migrant workers into the cities - some have prospered but most are poorly paid and housed, with few rights. Mass protests mean the government can no longer take them for granted.

    THE TRAINEE CHEF'S STORY Li Xu Bin is a migrant worker like millions of others, on low pay and with little job security, living with his wife in a single room in Beijing's suburbs. They have left their child behind, the cause of much heartache.

    THE FRUIT VENDORS Like Li Xu Bin, Mr and Mrs Zhang have moved to the city to earn money to pay for their children's education. The rules say their children must stay behind. Meanwhile they have to work all hours to make ends meet. Says Mrs Zhang: "We never have a single day off."

    DVD / 2014 / 21 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    INSIDE CHINA: 8. EDUCATION AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS

  • Women In China
  • Education In China
  • Universities In China
  • China's "One-Child" Policy

    • The communist revolution gave women theoretical equality, but centuries-old oppressions still persist. Women have suffered through the "one child" policy. But women are now among China's top entrepreneurs.

    "ONE CHILD" POLICY China's coercive policy of forbidding more than one child has had a cruel effect on China's women. The policy is now being relaxed - but some women are happy with one child.

    SUICIDE WATCH China is the only country where the suicide rate is higher among women than men - experts say this may be down to the low status of rural women. Can education help?

    "EDUCATION COMES FIRST" Language professor Wu Quing runs a vocational school for young rural women. "It's a man's world - but change rural women and you will change China."

    "THE STUDIES ARE DEMANDING" Architectural student Ghuan Zhaoyu is one of China's growing university population. She wants to study abroad but, as an only child, she has to think of her parents.

    DVD / 2014 / 26 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    ONE CHILD

    Directed by Zijian Mu

    The 2008 Sichuan earthquake, China's deadliest disaster in three decades, killed 90,000 people, including more than 5,000 children. Losing a child is an immeasurable tragedy for parents anywhere, but in China the effect is compounded by the one-child policy. Many parents suffered the loss of their only child, and with it the totality of their life's emotional investment.

    In response to the earthquake, China's government made an exception for those who lost their only child to conceive another. That generation of newborns became known in China as "reborn" children. But for many parents, particularly those who lost teenage children, their advancing age proved to be a significant barrier.

    This film features three families from Beichuan, the city most devastated by the earthquake's aftershocks. 80% of the city's buildings collapsed and the city was left in rubble. The government deployed its construction machine toward building an entirely new city. Old Beichuan was dead and a new Beichuan was erected - in a different place. In just three years, residents of the old city were relocated, including the family of Yang, Jiang and Fu, and Gu, who all lost their only child in the earthquake. One Child follows the journey of these three families as they try to restore a sense of normalcy and struggle to move past the loss of their children.

    DVD / 2014 / 40 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    QUESTIONING, THE

    By Zhu Rikun

    "Early in the morning on July 24th, 2012, after meeting some friends in Hongkong, I drove a car of my brother back to Shenzhen and got Guo Feixiong and three other friends who take part in human rights protection to the car and went on driving to Xinyu, Jiangxi Province to cheer Liu Ping and two other local independent candidates. They have been oppressed by the government and the police for taking part in the election and other human rights protection events.

    We hurried to Xinyu before dawn on July 25th. By the time dawn broke, we found a hotel and put our luggage there, then we went to meet Liu Ping and others, went to see a lake where Liu had been imprisoned nearby, and interviewed them about their experiences. While doing these things, we found ourselves tailed. At 11o'clock at night, we came back to the hotel, there were some police cars and a group of policemen scattering by the building. The owner of the hotel came to us in a hurry and told us that the police had already been into our room before, and said it had never happened before. At 12 o'clock at night, some policemen came to our room and started the so-called "room inspection."

    As they began to knock at the door, I turned on a small camcorder which was prepared in advance. This short film is the record of such a moment." - Zhu Rikun

    DVD (Color) / 2013 / 21 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    CHINA CONCERTO

    By Bo Wang

    An observational essay shot in the southwestern city of Chongqing, CHINA CONCERTO probes the uses of public spectacle in contemporary China.

    Born and raised in Chongqing, filmmaker Bo Wang visited his hometown at the height of now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai's campaign to revive Mao-era "red culture", promoting among other things the public singing and dancing of Communist songs.

    Alongside these participatory street performances, CHINA CONCERTO looks at images from the media, including Michelangelo Antonioni's Chung Kuo-China, and news media and advertising that address the capitalist present in forms reminiscent of the communist past.

    The situation is explored in a narration modeled on Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, which is delivered by a woman with an ambiguous accent. Perched between an insider and outsider perspective, CHINA CONCERTO considers the persistence of totalitarian ideologies and images.

    DVD (Color) / 2012 / 50 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    CHINA PROFILE - BEIJING GIRL: MADE IN CHINA

    This is an eye-opening journey into the People's Republic of China, with a focus on its capital, Beijing, through the touching personal story of Phabey Wang, who returns to her former homeland. Through heartwarming interviews of four generations of Beijing relatives, she tells an often-emotional story, reflecting on her relative's lives, while also interweaving Chinese history as background from the Opium Wars of the 19th century through the 20th century's Cultural Revolution to what life is like in China today. Here we get an insider's view of the good and evil that comes out of the confusing combination of capitalism and communism, co-existing in a country whose economic growth is forcing it to run before it can walk.

    DVD / 2012 / (Senior High, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    CIRCUS SCHOOL: CHINA'S PRESTIGIOUS ACROBATIC SCHOOL

    Directed by Ke Dingding and Guo Jing

    Circus School captures the breathtaking feats of a new generation of gymnastic performers-in-training in a centuries-old form of Chinese acrobatics. Given the art form's focus on challenging physical limitations, many Chinese view acrobatics as the quintessential expression of China's strength and power.

    The film provides a rare glimpse into one of China's most revered institutions, the Shanghai Circus School, where students aged six to fifteen complete a grueling seven-year program that prepares them to work as professionals. Through exhaustion, injury, and broken bones, the students strive for seamless and precise performances in an unwavering quest to be the best.

    The film introduces Xu Lu, a ten-year-old girl who grits her teeth through injury and pain in the struggle to perfect her routine. Thirteen-year-old Cai Yong, coping with a growing weight problem, has difficulties learning a single-handed handstand; his teacher urges him to practice self-control and warns him that his failure will ruin not only his own life, but also those of his teachers and parents. The students' punishing exercises are contrasted with the seamless beauty and precision of their performances to cast a new light on one of China's most ancient traditions.

    DVD / 2012 / 52 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    EGG AND STONE

    By Huang Ji
    Huang Ji's brave personal film is one of the most auspicious debuts in recent Chinese cinema. Set in her home village in rural Hunan province, EGG AND STONE is a powerful autobiographical portrait of a 14-year-old girl's attempts to come to terms with her emerging sexual maturity. Since her parents moved to the city to work, she has been forced to live with her uncle and aunt for seven years. Alone with her own inchoate fears and desires, she grapples with a terrifying world of sexual awakening and danger. Huang Ji's visual sophistication, narrative fluency, and technical polish belie her youth. Cinematographer Ryuji Otsuka (also the film's producer and editor) contributes beautifully crafted cinematic images, fearfully intimate, softly pulsing with light, saturated with complex emotional power.

    DVD (Color, Hunan with English Subtitles) / 2012 / 98 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    FUTURE FOOD: STAY OR GO? (CHINA)

    Directed by Alex Gabbay

    Who will grow China's food as young people leave the countryside for the cities?

    In many remote areas of China young people have little choice but to stay on the land, and yet they may face a destitute future, with millions of farmworkers in China earning less than two dollars a day. Although there are some exceptions, farming is not generally seen as a "sexy" career choice.

    The reality is that in China and around the world, young people are fleeing the countryside and moving to the big cities. Who will grow the food that feeds future generations? How can young people be convinced that farming is a good option? Californian-born Rand and his wife Sherry are the founders of Resonance China, a social media agency in Shanghai. They use the internet to create and identify trends and tricks that can create a buzz for global brands. FUTURE FOOD sets Resonance a task: can they make farming popular with young people?

    DVD / 2012 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 29 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    LAW OF THE DRAGON, THE

    Directed by Weijun Chen

    Law of the Dragon examines how justice is served in the rural areas of China so remote and isolated that villagers have almost no contact with the central government. At the heart of the film stands the austere Judge Chen, head of a provincial legal practice, the Tiger Law Firm of Chengdu. Chen journeys with his team of court officials along mud tracks and rough roads in the Xuan'en region. Their court is wherever they hang the national emblem, be it nailed up in the fields or stuck up in the plaintiff's house. As he resolves the grievances of the residents and dispenses nuggets of Confucian-Communist wisdom, Judge Chen is the law in the eyes of the people.

    Among the cases heard is the story of a family attempting to hold a school responsible for the suicide of their only son. In another, Judge Chen listens to the complaints of a mother who is suing her son for maintenance. Though the judge strives to remain fair, he often transcends his official role, reminding villagers that they cannot always rely on the law and must work to preserve peace and harmony in their community without recourse to the intervention of the country's official justice system.

    DVD / 2012 / 58 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    TO THE LIGHT: THE DARK DAYS OF CHINA'S COAL MINERS

    By Yuanchen Liu

    The bright lights of China's booming economy are powered by the hard labor of the miners, who work deep in perilous coal shafts around the country. When a miner dies, his family receives a death pension greater than the amount of money he would have made in his lifetime had he stayed alive. In rural China, where farming alone cannot sustain families, miners have no alternative but to risk their lives daily, descending hundreds of meters underground to dig out the black ore fueling China's massive electrical grid.

    To the Light delves into the hopes and struggles of the mining families of Sichuan, in western China. The father of two, Luo originally became a coal miner to pay the fine for violating China's One Child Policy. Hui, son of another miner, prefers to be a coal-train driver than to work far from home. For many families, coal mining has become the principal source of income and the only alternative to factory jobs in distant cities. The mines are notoriously dangerous and thousands are killed every year. Going deep underground, the film exposes the perils faced by these miners, the slim rewards, and dire consequences when things go wrong. In spite of the risks, the working poor continue to flock to the mines, unable to heed the warning that earning a living wage may also mean dying for it.

    DVD / 2012 / 68 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    CHINA FROM WITHIN

    China's economic growth in the last ten years has been the envy of the rest of the world. For China itself the benefits have brought both prosperity and social and personal disruption to many sectors of society. Through dramatic and personal stories, this unique six-part series depicts life in China today and how the economic advances of the past decade have impacted on young and old alike.

    Filmed by some of China's most talented documentary makers in conjunction with award winning Australian filmmaker, Peter du Cane, this intriguing series is set against the backdrop of an ever changing society. It captures situations, characters and locations that would be impossible for western filmmakers to obtain. China from Within tells the stories of China today.

    Ep 1 - Migration
    This episode charts the disruption caused by the Three Gorges Dam. The focus is on an 87-year-old villager, whose life has been ruled by the moods of the river. Its floods have swept away family members and destroyed her home many times.

    Ep 2 - Kai Jai
    The primary source of AIDS infection in China is government run blood banks. This episode focuses on the story of a distraught father and his young daughter who is HIV positive, and shows rare glimpses of how a small village deals with personal tragedy, set against official cover-ups, denials, and national prejudices.

    Ep 3 - Dancing Girls
    Modernisation in China has brought with it the introduction of Western popular culture by way of nightclubs, discos and fast food outlets. "Nightman" is one of 187 nightclubs in Dalian, a city of 2.6 million people in Northern China. Dancing Girls gives a rare insight into modern china that will surprise many viewers.

    Ep 4 - Tian Tian
    This is one person's story of personal triumph set against the backdrop of the changing industrial face of China. Mr. and Mrs. Xia worked at a state run company which modernised and cut jobs; the family was forced to sell clothes at the local market. Mrs Xiao was attacked and killed by three men for her takings, and her daughter, Tian Tian, was paralysed from the neck down. It was then up to Mr. Xia to provide a normal life and education for his daughter.

    Ep 5 - Shanghai Jews
    Jews wishing to escape persecution in Germany prior to WW2 had few places to escape. One place that accepted refugees was Shanghai, where nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees fled. Arriving there with nothing, they spent a hard, hungry, disease-ridden time in camps acclimatising to China. This unique story, told through rare footage, letters and photographs, features Jacob, one Jew who stayed on in Shanghai. Jacob, who is deaf, married a Chinese woman and developed a universal sign language.

    Ep 6 - The Accusation
    Corruption has been ever-present in business and society in China. In this episode, a government official in Hunan finds evidence of corruption. When he brings this to the attention of his superiors he is warned off, but he refuses to comply. He then receives death threats, which he naively shrugs off; however his wife is killed shortly after. While his boss is convicted and jailed the official himself is shunned, ultimately losing his job and the prospect of further work. He is then arrested on trivial charges and jailed.

    DVD (Region 4) / 2010 / 180 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    FORTUNE TELLER (SUAN MING)

    Directed by XU Tong

    The colorful life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society.

    Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and shadowy figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile, during which they visit their hometowns and confront old family demons. Li's humble story is punctuated with chapter headings reminiscent of Qing Dynasty popular fiction.

    In Fortune Teller, Xu Tong continues his work documenting China's underclass, whose lives have gone largely unnoticed during the country's boom years. Xu spent a year filming nearly every detail of Li's daily existence and the ancient spiritual practices he administers.

    DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 129 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    WHY DEMOCRACY? PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

    Directed by Weijun Chen

    An experiment in democracy is taking place in Wuhan, the most populous city in central China. For the first time ever, the students in grade three at Evergreen Primary School have been asked to elect a class monitor. Traditionally appointed by the teacher, the class monitor holds a powerful position, helping to control the students, keeping them on task and doling out punishment to those who disobey. The teacher has chosen three candidates: Luo Lei (a boy), the current class monitor; Cheng Cheng (a boy); and Xu Xiaofei (a girl). Each candidate is asked to choose two assistants to help with his or her campaign.

    To prove their worthiness, the candidates must perform in three events. First is a talent show, where each candidate plays an instrument or sings a song. Second is a debate, in which the candidates bring up the shortcomings of their opponents as well as their own personal qualifications. And finally, each candidate must deliver a speech, an opportunity to appeal directly to classmates and ask for their votes.

    At home, each of the children is coached by his or her parents and pushed to practice and memorize for each stage of the campaign. Although their parents are supportive, the candidates feel the pressure. Tears and the occasional angry outburst reveal the emotional impact. At school, the candidates talk to classmates one-on-one, making promises, planning tactics (including negative ones) and at times expressing doubts about their own candidacies.

    For all three children, the campaign takes its toll, especially for the losing candidates and their assistants. Viewers are left to decide if the experiment in democracy has been "successful" and what it might mean for democracy in China. Please Vote for Me challenges those committed to China's democratization to consider the feasibility of, and processes involved in, its implementation.

    DVD / 2007 / 52 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<


    CHINA: THE DANCE AROUND THE GOLDEN CALF

    As China continues to experiment with Western-style economics, many city dwellers already enjoy the prerogatives of a market economy. But how will China feed itself as more and more farmers flee their land for the allure of urban living? This program seeks to understand the effects of economic reform on Chinese society, from the villages to the cities. Will cultural values and the traditional arts and sciences retain their importance as China makes its bid for first-world status, or will they and the rest of the old China be swept away by Western attitudes, a burgeoning middle-class, and the country's new identity as a nascent economic powerhouse?

    DVD / 1997 / 50 minutes

    [Go top]

    >>> Add Cart <<<

    ***Price on web-site may not be current and is subject to modification by quotation***


    Email :
    inquiry@learningemall.com

    Websites :
    http://www.learningemall.com [ English ]
    http://www.learningemall.com.hk [ Chinese ]

    Follow us: facebook twitter linkedin linkedin