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Asia - Southeast Asia (14)
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Angkor, the Lost CityRoger Blais & Morten Parker 1961 12 minA pictorial essay on the ruins of the ancient city of Angkor. The greatest assembly of sculpture the world has ever known--a whole metropolis of palaces and temples, recovered from the jungle. Six hundred monuments, picture-tapestries in stone, and Angkor-Vat, a mile-square temple of grey sandstone, reveal the glories of the Khmers, ancestors of today's Cambodians. -
Blood and WaterRohan Fernando 2007 1 h 17 minWhen the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything."
A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando.
A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Anton and his wife, Beulah, were visiting her when the tsunami hit.
Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.
To honour Orlantha's work, Anton is building a music centre and hosting a fundraising concert. Eccentric characters and oddball events immediately take centre stage. Exiled Iranian country singer Ann Claire is focused on media attention as much as on the concert. Shondale, an energetic African American computer analyst, is so moved by Orlantha's story that she drops everything to become the concert's chief organizer. The concert itself loses money, although - in a final irony - some of the underprivileged children it is designed to serve come from among the richest families in the country.
Meanwhile, Anton tours his old neighbourhood, spends time with his daughter's closest friends and seeks out advice from the archbishop of Sri Lanka. ("That's life!" the archbishop says, when Anton describes his loss.)
All this against the backdrop of Sri Lanka - a country coming apart as the decades-old civil war between Tamil Tigers and the government heats up.
Ultimately, Blood and Water is a film about the coming to terms with loss. As Anton Ambrose seeks meaning in tragedy, he must re-evaluate all he has taken for granted. In so doing, he comes to understand his daughter better than he ever did when she was alive. -
Boys, Toys and the Big Blue MarbleMarquise Lepage 2007 52 minBoys living in poverty across the world tell us of their lives, amusements and sometimes their hopes. Boys, Toys and the Big Blue Marble appraises childhoods destroyed by slavery, criminality, war, sexual exploitation and human stupidity.
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Four Million ThreadsJackie Hurwitz 2016 25 min"Imagine leaving your lifelong home for a one-room flat in a city with a husband you barely know. You work beside 5,000 others in a factory, sewing 180 zippers on 180 sweaters each day. You’re the first woman in your family ever to earn a paycheck, but it’s barely enough to survive." Welcome to Monira’s world, and that of countless other women in Bangladesh’s booming garment trade—a complex world full of difficult choices and competing values. It’s a brand new world made possible by Western consumers, each time we purchase clothes from a major retailer. And it’s the world you’re invited to explore in Four Million Threads.
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Holding Our GroundAnne Henderson 1988 50 minFilmed in a squatter community of Labangon in Cebu, Philippines, Holding Our Ground is the inspiring story of a group of women who have organized collectively to pressure their government for land reform, to establish their own money-lending system and to create shelters for street kids. A story of grassroots organizing that can be a model in both hemispheres.
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Island ObservedHector Lemieux 1966 27 minA film record of M.E.T.E.I. (Medical Expedition to Easter Island), one of the most unusual scientific enquiries ever launched, headed by a McGill University research team. While the film is concerned mainly with the physical condition of Easter Islanders, it also provides glimpses of island activities, a village wedding, and the famous long-faced stone sculptures.
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Lost Over Burma: Search for ClosureGarth Pritchard 1997 46 minThis documentary follows a mission into the Burmese jungle to recover the remains of a RCAF crew of six young Canadians lost during World War II. Their lives and wartime experiences are recalled through the memories of colleagues and families, who attend the emotion-laden funeral near Rangoon, where the men have finally been laid to rest with full military honours.
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Life Begins in JanuaryMichel Régnier 1980 58 minEight hundred thousand Cambodians have fled genocide. This film describes the life of these people in Thai refugee camps, the hardships they encounter, and the concerted efforts by many countries to help them in their fight for survival. Aside from its historical value, this film reveals the courage of a people who refuse to die.
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No More Tears Sister: Anatomy of Hope and BetrayalHelene Klodawsky 2004 1 h 18 minA story of love, revolution, and betrayal, No More Tears Sister explores the price of truth in times of war. Set during the violent ethnic conflict that has enveloped Sri Lanka over decades, the documentary recreates the courageous and vibrant life of renowned human rights activist, Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. Mother, anatomy professor, and symbol of hope, Rajani was assassinated at the age of thirty-five. Stunningly photographed, using rare archival footage, intimate correspondence and poetic recreations, the story of Rajani and her family delves into rarely explored themes - revolutionary women and their dangerous pursuit of justice.
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No More Tears Sister - Anatomy of Hope and Betrayal (Short Version)Helene Klodawsky 2004 52 minA story of love, revolution, and betrayal, No More Tears Sister explores the price of truth in times of war. Set during the violent ethnic conflict that has enveloped Sri Lanka over decades, the documentary recreates the courageous and vibrant life of renowned human rights activist, Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. Mother, anatomy professor, and symbol of hope, Rajani was assassinated at the age of thirty-five. Stunningly photographed, using rare archival footage, intimate correspondence and poetic recreations, the story of Rajani and her family delves into rarely explored themes - revolutionary women and their dangerous pursuit of justice.
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Of Hopscotch and Little Girls...Marquise Lepage 1999 52 minHopscotch is universal. Girls around the world trace squares on the ground, then hop through them, trying hard to reach the end. Girls share other interests too; they all like to talk about school, what they want to be when they grow up, who they will marry, how many children they will have, their hopes for a better life for themselves and their family.
But all too often, through poverty, perversion, spite, ignorance or superstition, adults shatter these dreams by denying girls the right to an education, entering them into forced labour, subjecting them to mutilation, sexual abuse and other injustices.
Soni, Kamlesh, Mou, Yui, Dalal, Esmeralda, Fatou, Adiaratou, Safi and Maude range in age from 8 to 14. Some are frail, some strong; all are beautiful. Whether they live in India, Thailand, Yemen, Peru, Burkina Faso or Haiti, they all speak of having much of their childhood stolen from them. Because they are girls. With subtitles. -
The Streets of SaigonMichael Rubbo 1973 28 minThis is a "social study" in the true sense, filmed in the streets of Saigon while the Vietnamese war was still going strong. Life went on fairly normally except for the noticeable presence of the military, and the number of children, orphaned, homeless, thrown on their own resources to make a living in the streets. It is these children who are in the forefront of the film, along with some American volunteers who tried to help them.
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Sad Song of Yellow SkinMichael Rubbo 1970 58 minA film about the people of Saigon told through the experiences of 3 young American journalists who, in 1970, explored the consequences of war and of the American presence in Vietnam. It is not a film about the Vietnam War, but about the people who lived on the fringe of battle. The views of the city are arresting, but away from the shrines and the open-air markets lies another city, swollen with refugees and war orphans, where every inch of habitable space is coveted.
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Wet Earth and Warm PeopleMichael Rubbo 1971 58 minThis documentary by Michael Rubbooffers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.
