BY ALAN O'HASHI
EDITOR
Daily One Sheet
The
Boulder International Film Festival 2010 Asian Film Program consists of five movies. This year they will screen at the United Methodist Church at 14th and Spruce Street and the Boulder Theater 2032 14th Street. Click on the title to download a .pdf of a one-sheet about each film. Here’s the line up:
Tibet in Song – February 11, 4:30pm – United Methodist Church One of the most dramatic and daring films of the decade, Tibet in Song follows young Fulbright scholar Ngawang Choephel back to his native Tibet to document the country’s disappearing folk-singing tradition. While leaving Tibet to go home, he was arrested for espionage by the Chinese, tortured and served seven horrific years in prison. Seven of Choephel’s videotapes were confiscated at the time, but nine were smuggled out. From this footage, he draws a never-before-seen glimpse into customs far outside the country’s population centers. Music is more than a pastime for these rural Tibetans: it’s a joyous, integral part of life, setting the rhythm and spirit of every conceivable activity. Choephel, like any good anthropologist, not only documents performances of the Tibetan folk songs, but also the sometimes-surprising explanations of the songs from the laconic older generations of Tibetans living in the villages. Subtitled and narrated by Richard Gere.
Enemies of the People Feb 12 12:15pm – Boulder Theater command. As the film In the 1970’s. in one of the darkest episodes of human history, the Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people on the Killing Fields of Cambodia.. Why? That qustion had never been answered until Thet Sambath, a young journalist for the English-language Phnom Penh Post, spent 10 years winning the trust of the former Khmer Rouge, beginning with the foot soldiers, who demonstrated on camera how they slit people’s throats. Sambath never revealed that his own family was murdered by the Khmer Rouge as he travels up their chain of progresses, it gradually reveals the scope and importance of Sambath’s hard work. The biggest fish in Sambath’s net turns out to be “Brother Number 2″ Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s right-hand man who grants Sambath an exclusive, and electrifying, interview. Subtitled.
Mother Feb 12 2:15pm – Boulder Theater What lengths would a fiercely maternal single mother go to protect her only child, a handsome but mentally challenged 27-year-old son who is in jail because he was framed for a heinous murder? The small-town police and the town folk are already convinced of his guilt, while the mother ferociously goes on a hunt for the real killer herself. Bong Joon-ho, who wrote and directed the cult film The Host, has crafted a superb Hitchcockian murder mystery peppered with surprising twists coming thick and fast, which keep his audience guessing over who the real culprit is until the very end.
Journey from Zanskar Feb 12 5:00pm – Boulder Theater Near-mythical Zanskar, in the Indian Himalayas, is one of the most inaccessible and isolated regions on Earth. Today, it is considered the last place in the world where traditional Tibetan Buddhist norms and ways of life still exist, but it is now being connected to the outside world by a road being built by the Indian Army. Concerned by the coming deluge of influences from the outside world, the Dalai Lama instructed two Zanskar monks to bring 17 bright students down to a Buddhist school in Manali. The purpose: to educate the next generation in the Tibetan alphabet so that they can read the Tibetan Buddhist scripture and, in doing so, preserve their language, heritage and culture. Oscar-winning filmmaker Frederick Marx follows their beautiful and dangerous journey. Subtitled.
The Last Train Home Feb 13 10:00am – Boulder Theater The world’s largest human migration takes place each year in China as 130 million factory workers fight for space on overcrowded trains to return home for the Spring Festival. The New Year is a joyous time as the migrants return to the rural villages and families they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal cities. This stunningly beautiful film captures two years in the life of the Zhangs who, 16 years ago, left the poverty of the countryside and their children behind with their extended family. This year, they travel with additional purpose: they’re trying to bring home their runaway teenage daughter, Qin, so that she can return to school and not have to spend the rest of her life in a factory. Painful moments reveal that the patience the Chinese are known for has its limits. Subtitled.
In 2009, the Boulder Asian Film Festival made took a big step and became a program of the BIFF to increase the number of viewers to see content produced by Asian film makers as well as see movies about the Asian experience. To view past Asian Film Festival programs go to the website at www.boulderasianmovies.org
Contact the author, Alan O'Hashi at 303-910-5782 or by email at bvet22@yahoo.com
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