Wednesday, December 10
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
Sarah (Sharon Cuneta), is an English teacher and one of the 150,000 Pinoy Overseas Foreign Workers in the United Kingdom. She works as a caregiver to support her husband, Teddy (John Estrada), and to make a better living for their family in the Philippines. After the initial excitement of working abroad fades, she experiences the hard challenges facing Filipino OFWs: dirty work, icy weather and even colder patients. Sarah makes the most of the situation and her determination earns the respect of Mr. Morgan, Teddy’s wealthy old ward, and she finds solace in unexpected friendships with Mr. Morgan’s son David (who appreciates her more than her husband) and a little boy named Sean (who eases her longings for her own son). Tensions rise between Sarah and Teddy as the stress of London life takes its toll on their marriage.
Will Sarah choose to remain by her husband’s side to keep her family intact? Or will she find the strength to stay in London to continue seeking a better life for her son, even if it means losing her marriage? Directed by Chito Rono, maker of Dekada 70s and Sukob!
Click play to listen to this mp3. Please note sound files are not playable on mobile devices.
Thursday, December 4, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room) Presented by Professor Ann Kumar, Australian National University
The social changes that took place in Japan in the time-period when the Jomon culture was replaced by the Yayoi culture were of exceptional magnitude, going far beyond those of the so-called Neolithic Revolution in other parts of the world. They included not only a new way of life based on wet-rice agriculture but also the introduction of metalworking in both bronze and iron, and furthermore a new architecture functionally and ritually linked to rice cultivation, a new religion, and a hierarchical society characterized by a belief in the divinity of the ruler. Because of its immense and enduring impact the Yayoi period has generally been seen as the very foundation of Japanese civilization and identity.
In contrast to the common assumption that all the Yayoi innovations came from China and Korea, new scientific evidence from such different fields as rice genetics, DNA and historical linguistics indicates that the major elements of Yayoi civilization actually came, not from the north, but from the south and specifically from Java. Though many adherents of the prevailing belief in the Korean origin of early Japanese civilization regard this proposal as outrageous, it is supported by more compelling evidence than competing hypotheses. In shedding new light on the development of Japan and Java, this evidence cannot be disregarded.
Click play to listen to this mp3. Please note sound files are not playable on mobile devices.
Tuesday, December 2, 12:00 p.m., Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room) Presented by Dr. Jane M. Ferguson. Lecturer, Australia National University
In spite of Burma’s long and vibrant history of indigenous film production, critical material on the subject is extremely sparse. Similarly, within the critical material on the decades-long insurgency, popular culture consumption is an often overlooked dimension of the daily lives of ethnic insurgents and their affiliates. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in one such Shan community shows that in spite of “or even because of” the ongoing conflict, Burmese popular culture is symbolically relevant and richly meaningful…even amongst some of the most adamant of Shan separatists. In this presentation, Jane Ferguson will give an overview of the history, structure, and some of the popular genres of the Burmese motion picture industry, and then discuss dimensions of spectatorship of Burmese films in a village of Shan insurgents and their affiliates at the Thai-Burma border.
SPEAKER BIO:
JANE M. FERGUSON lectures on Mainland Southeast Asian Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Her interests includes nationalism, borderlands, popular culture, musical genres, digital media, Buddhist ritual and Burmese, Thai and Shan migration. Ferguson received her doctorate at Cornell University in May 2008 for her dissertation entitled Rocking in Shanland: Histories and Popular Culture Jams at the Thai-Burma Border. Ferguson’s publications include Rock Your Religion: Shan Merit-making, Ritual and Stage-show Revelry at the Thai-Burma Border in Asian Legacies and Inscriptions of the State (forthcoming) and Revolutionary Scripts: Shan Insurgent Media Practice at the Thai-Burma Border in Political Regimes and the Media in Asia: Continuities, Contradictions and Change.
Wednesday, November 3
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
Based on the 1973 novel by Paul Theroux, Saint Jack tells the life of Jack Flowers (Ben Gazarra), a pimp in Singapore. Feeling hopeless and undervalued, Jack tries to make money by setting up his own bordello, and clashes with Chinese triad members in the process.
Saint Jack was shot entirely on location Singapore and it is the only Hollywood film to have been shot on location in the Lion City. The local authorities knew about the book, hence the foreign production crew did not tell them that they were adapting it, fearing that they would not be permitted to shoot the film. Instead, they created a fake synopsis for a film called “Jack Of Hearts”, and most of the Singaporeans involved in the production believed this was what they were making.
The film was banned in Singapore and Malaysia on 17 January 1980. Singapore banned it “largely due to concerns that there would be excessive edits required to the scenes of nudity and some coarse language before it could be shown to a general audience,” and lifted the ban only in March 2006, when the film was screened as part of the Singapore International Film Festival.
stream...
