Film Series
SEASSI offers a weekly Southeast Asian film series throughout the program.
The film series is intended to familiariaze students with the languages
of Southeast Asia through cinema work. After each film, a short discussion
allows students, and others, to engage various issues presented in the
films.
2007 Film Series: In Their Memory, In Their Tears
“For perhaps there is something of the noble even in life taken
by itself, unless, in the way it is lived, the hardships are overly
excessive.” (Aristotle)
How do people deal with the past? Whether it is fancy or not, it surely
affects present life in the form of memory, lesson or more broadly
in the collective form of culture. Following four films show how painful
history of life changed ordinary people’s lives. Flash back to
the past does not only enables people to justify the present but also
enables to gain a strength and hope.
Films will be shown every Tuesday night at 7:00pm in 206
Ingraham Hall, unless otherwise noted. Short discussion will follow each film
presentation.
June
19 - Crying
Ladies (2003)
Director: Mark Meily
Language: Tagalog with English Subtitle
Run time: 110 minutes
A hit in the Philippines, where it won six awards at the 2003 Manila
Metro Film Festival, Mark Meily's ''Crying Ladies'' is a loose and
genial soap opera about three working-class Manila women who are hired
as mourners for a funeral in the city's Chinese community. Stella,
a second-generation crier, recruits two of her friends: Choleng (Angel
Aquino), a pious Roman Catholic who is nonetheless having a
guilty affair with another woman's husband, and Aling (Hilda Koronel),
a shopkeeper who clings to the fading memory of her movie career, whose
high point was a bit part in a picture called ''Darna and the Giants.''
June
26 - Berbagi
Suami (Sharing husbands, 2006)
Director: Nia Di Nata
Language: Indonesian with English Subtitle
Run time: 120 minutes
Set in Jakarta. Addresses the controversial practice of polygamny
and its malcontents by interweaving the stories of three very different
women. Salma, a gynecologist, is married to a successful television
host who takes a second, and then a third wife. Initially crushed by
this discovery, Salma decides to accept her lot as a good Muslim wife,
but when her husband falls ill, she is forced to confront his other
wives and the absurd reality of her situation. Siti, a small-town girl,
understands too late the real intentions of her "uncle," who
brought her to Jakarta with the promise of putting her through beauty
school. An unexpected and intimate bond with one of her uncle's two
wives, however, emboldens her to pursue her freedom. Finally, Ming
is the prettiest waitress at a popular roast duck stall, where she
carries on a surreptitious romance and eventually becomes the second
wife of the stall's chef. Unaware of one another's stories, these three
women cross paths as they contend with the trials and injustices of
polygamy.
July
3 - Un
Soir Après La Guerre (One
Night After the War, 1998)
Director: Rithy Panh
Language: Khmer with English Subtitle
Run time: 108 minutes
Rithy Panh directed this neo-realist French-Cambodian social drama
set amid Southeast Asian poverty. In the early '90s, soldiers return
to civilian life in Phnom Penh. Living with his uncle, kickboxer Savannah
(Narith Roeun) begins a romance with 19-year-old bar girl Srey Poeuv
(Chea Lyda Chan), who is trapped by her debts to the bar's owner. Savannah
makes the mistake of teaming with an ex-soldier pal for a crime that
he hopes will raise money to clear Srey's debt.
July 10 - Luang Phii Theng (The Holy Man, 2005)
Director: Note Cherm-Yim
Language: Thai with English Subtitle
Run time: 107 minutes
Luang Phii Teng (The Holy Man) is one of the top films at the Thai
box office 2005. It starred popular Thai television comedian, Pongsak
Pongsuwan as a Buddhist monk. A monk comes to a small city and takes
up residence at a small Buddhist temple. With his no-nonsense advice
and humble ways, a new monk builds a following that starts to rival
a flashy scam temple across town, making an enemy of its operator.
July 17 – Kuv Leej Niam (Lost Love, 2004)
Director: Moua Lee
Language: Hmong with English Subtitle
“Kuv Leej Niam” is a story about the life of an orphaned
young woman named Gao Sheng. She is thrown from her aunt and uncle’s
house after they find out she is pregnant with the child of a wealthy
village leader’s son. She is forced to move away to another town,
but is confronted again by the wealthy family ten years later when
their new daughter-in-law can’t bear a child for their family.
They come to take away Gao Sheng’s child, Cheng, who is now about
ten years old, because he is the only heir to the family. The second
half of the movie is the adult Cheng’s journey in search for
his mother and in the process of doing so, he finds himself and falls
in love.
* Talk with the Director, Moua Lee will follow the film showing.
Films will be shown Tuesday night at 6:00pm in 206 Ingraham Hall. Discussion
with the director, Moua Lee will follow the film presentation. Dr.
Mai Na Lee will moderate the discussion.
July 24 – Mystery of Snow (2006)
Director: Sin Yaw Mg Mg
Language: Burmese with English Subtitle
Run Time: 132 minutes
A story of young man named Okkar who investigates his late father’s
mysterious death in the ice mountain in the Chin State. Three years
after his father’s death, Okkar began to question his late father’s
death and thus embarked a journey to the mountain to find the secret
of his father’s death as well as his body. His journey outside
of Yangon turns out to be a journey to learn about other side of his
life, as well as his fathers. The film won the Best film award in Burmese
Academy award and several other international film festivals.
July
31 –
The Leaf, Not Yet Falling (2002)
+ Lao Long (Lost Laotions, 2006)
Director: Vilaihong + Vannasone Keodara
Language: Lao with English Subtitle
Run Time: 32 + 46 minutes
The Leaf, Not Yet Falling (by Vannasone Keodara): Documentary film
of childhood memories of Laos, the filmmaker's homeland, and her struggles
to adopt to a new culture in her exile. The filmmaker narrates her
feelings attached to bitter sweet memories about past and present Laos.
Lao Long (by Vilaihong): This film looks at the "Lost Laotians" that
have lived in Burma for the past 200 years and how they have strived
to retain their culture and languages. After short introduction of
histories, the film includes interviews of individuals in the border
village of lost laotions.
August 7 – The Journey of Vaan Nguyen (2005)
Director: Duki Dror
Language: Vietnamese with English Subtitle
Run Time: 82 minutes
Vaan Nguyen’s story is the result of one of those quirks of
history that trumps fiction. Her parents were Vietnamese refugees who
fled the country after the fall of Saigon, and in 1979 were among a
group of 200 “boat people” granted permanent refuge in
Israel. Hanmoi Nguyen desires to return to his village, reclaim his
ancestral land and confront the man who forced him to flee. His daughter
Vaan has grown up in Israel, speaking Hebrew and living as an Israeli – and
yet she is alienated from Israeli society and resents being treated
as a cultural curio. When the opportunity arises for her to travel
back to Vietnam with her father in an attempt to determine the fate
of some land that used to belong to his family, Vaan jumps at the chance.
She bids a less-than-fond farewell and sets off with her father, hoping
to find a new life – and a sense of belonging – in a land
she barely knows.
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- SEASSI 2006 Film Series
- SEASSI
2005 Film Series
