Death of the One who Knows
Directed by Dana Rappoport. 2020. France. 82 minutes.
Country/region featured: Indonesia
Friday, March 25, 8:30am
In the Toraja highlands of Sulawesi (Indonesia), Lumbaa is one of the last masters of ritual speech. After his forced conversion to Pentecostalism, he is compelled to stop all his ritual activity and oratory. Concerned by the disappearance of “those who know”, a young Catholic priest named Yans Sulo sets out in search of the society’s ancient oral genres, seeking to invent new forms that would keep them alive. The two men meet. But it is too late. By recounting the life and death of Lumbaa, the film shows how the intrusion of world religion disrupts a Southeast Asian society.
Distributed by LE MIROIR.
CONTACT: Gabriel CHABANIER, producer gabchab@free.fr
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The Ice Cream Sellers
A film by Sohel Rahman. 2021. Bangladesh. 75 minutes.
Country/region featured: Bangladesh.
ONLINE Q&A with Sohel Rahman.
Friday, March 25, 10:00am
The Ice Cream Sellers is a story of two siblings and the genocide survivors of the Rohingya community who fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh after a brutal genocide. While most of the Rohingya people were exhausted from the weight of their trauma, the two siblings began their new life with hard work, selling cheap ice cream door to door in the world´s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Their aim is to earn enough money to bribe officials for the release of their father from prison in Myanmar.
Distributed by the filmmaker.
Contact: sohelvdcinema@gmail.com | https://www.facebook.com/afilmbysohelrahman
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Baato
A film by Lucas Millard and Kate Stryker. 2020. Nepal / USA. 81 minutes.
Country/region featured: Nepal
ONLINE Q&A with Lucas Millard
Friday, March 25, 11:25am
Every winter Mikma and her family travel by foot from their village deep in the Himalaya of Nepal to sell local medicinal plants in urban markets. This year, construction of a new highway to China has begun in their roadless valley, and things are never going to be the same. With the new road will come new challenges, new opportunities, and ultimately a new way of being to those who live along its path.
Distributed by Grasshopper Film
http://store.grasshopperfilm.com/baato.html | https://baatofilm.com/
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Abandoned: The Stories of Japanese War Orphans in The Philippines and China
A film by Hiroyasu Obara. 2020. Japan. 98 minutes.
Country/region featured: Philippines, China, Japan
ONLINE Q&A with Eri Kitada (Rutgers University-New Brunswick).
Friday, March 25, 12:55pm
Addressing family and transnationalism, citizenship and empire, and history and memory across East and Southeast Asia, this documentary traces forgotten and disappeared Japanese communities in the Philippines and former Manchuria from the perspective and testimonies of orphans left behind. Now approaching the end of their lives, children of former migrants share how families grapple with legal, economic, and emotional questions of historically fraught diaspora communities from areas colonized or occupied by Japan which were destroyed during and after World War II, along with the Japanese empire itself.
Distributed by K-Project | http://wasure-mono.com/
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KIM IL SUNG's Children
Directed by Young Kim. 2020. Korea. 85 minutes.
Country/region featured: North Korea, Eastern Europe
ONLINE Q&A Young Kim.
Friday, March 25, 2:45pm
This documentary is a true story of the North Korean orphans sent out to Eastern Europe in the 1950s. During the war, orphans in the North and South totaled 100,000. While South Korean orphans moved to Europe and the United States through ‘International Adoption’, the North Korea government choose a unique method called ‘Commissioned Education’. In contrast with adoption, it was a new life for orphans in foreign countries practicing Socialist Cosmopolitanism, or Solidarity of socialism, helping each other evacuate war orphans to safe places. The story of children who were shaped by KIM IL SUNG's ideal, instead of Stalin's provides a key to understanding North Korea.
Distributed by Docustory Production | https://www.2twohomes.com/
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Now Is the Past – My Father, Java & the Phantom Films
Directed by Shin-ichi Ise. 2021. Japan. 88 minutes.
Country/region featured: Japan, Indonesia, and the Netherlands
IN-PERSON Q&A with Shin-ichi Ise.
Friday, March 25, 4:20pm
During WWII, Japan occupied many regions in Asia, claiming release from European colonialism. Chounosuke Ise, a Japanese film editor, created a variety of propaganda movies in Indonesia to rationalize Japan’s hegemony in Asia. ‘Now is the Past’ examines the journey of his son, Shin-ichi Ise, a Japanese documentary filmmaker who started research 30 years ago while following his father’s path. Meanwhile, almost 130 of senior Ise’s propaganda films were preserved at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The son has tried to see the truth of war in Indonesia by seeking the father’s work.
Distributed by Ise Film. | www.isefilm.com
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COMFORT
Directed by Emmanuel Moonchil PARK. 2020. South Korea. 73 minutes.
Country/region featured: South Korea, China
IN PERSON Q&A with Emmanuel Moonchil PARK.
Friday, March 25, 6:00pm
KIM Soonak was a survivor of Japanese military sexual slavery and so much more. Her life after the war was another war in itself. In order to survive, she engaged in prostitution, US camptown sex trade, and manual labor. Weaving interviews of activists, archive footage, animation, and the recital of testimonies, the film reconstructs the life stories of the late KIM Soonak.
Distributed by the filmmaker.
Contact: jazzurup@gmail.com
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