Posted on 13 May 2009 by Ronald Gilliam
Wednesday, May 13
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
We’ve had another amazing year of films from Southeast Asia!
Our mailing list continues to grow and now reaches 320 fans of Southeast Asian film. Since the beginning of the fall 2008 semester, we have screened 37 films to more than 1,500 people! Thanks to everyone for their support! We’ll be bringing back more films from Southeast Asia this summer, and we look forward to seeing everyone at the first screening of the fall 2009 semester. Stay tuned for announcements as that day – opening night for the film series’ sixth year – approaches.
Our final film of the semester is a Programmer’s Pick. What is it, you say? We can only tell you that it’s from Thailand. Trust us, you’ll love it! There will be pizza and drinks following the film, so we hope to see everyone on Wednesday.
Posted on 13 May 2009 by Ronald Gilliam
Posted on 06 May 2009 by Ronald Gilliam
Wednesday, May 6
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium
First Film. PASSERINE BIRD (Vietnam, 1962, directed by Nguyen Van Thong, 45 minutes, Vietnamese with E.S.). The Vietnam Film Institute stumbled upon a deteriorating 16mm print of this lost classic which the Hong Kong Film Archive restored and the Center subtitled. The film offers a lyric view of village level resistance to French colonial aggression in Viet Nam in the 1950s. Nga, a young girl, is thrown into the bitter struggles of her fellow countrymen as images of innocent youth are bled away, turning into the steadfastness of nationalist resolve.
Second Film. Set in the central highlands of Vietnam, TRAVELING CIRCUS (Vietnam, 1988, directed by Viet Linh, 74 minutes, Vietnamese with E.S.) is a bittersweet story of famine-ridden villagers, tricked by an illusion of food into helping a circus that is secretly searching for gold in their region. Through the eyes of a young villager, we witness how their naive hope has tragic consequences. Banned for two years in Vietnam because officials considered its themes potentially subversive, director Viet Linh was required to change the title of the film from The Conjurer’s Tricks to There Was Once a Man Who Was Greedy for Gold to its final title. One of the most internationally acclaimed Vietnamese movies from the 1980s, it is rarely shown in Vietnam or abroad.
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