AMES 2009-2010 Events
September 2009
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Sept 9 Monday 7pm, White Hall |
Double features from China and Taiwan:
Meishi Street (2006) a.k.a. "The Story of Zhang Jinli"
(Director: Ou Ning)
"Meishi Street" focuses on a Beijing restaurant owner's efforts to prevent the process of demolition that threatens to destroy not only his business but also his entire neighborhood.
The Gangster's God (2006)
(Director: He Zhao-Ti)
Every Lantern Festival in Taidong, a group of men strips bare above the waist, and wearing nothing but red shorts, stands on a sacred palanquin, allowing people to pound their bodies with bottle rockets, singeing their skin. They are believed to be human incarnations of the god Handan. The “Scorching of Handan” has in recent years become a major event in eastern Taiwan. Those who take part in the ritual have always been shrouded in mystery, and rumored to be members of the gangster underworld. The documentary “The Gangster’s God” enters the heart of these men’s universe, recording their dramatic lives.
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Sept 14 Monday 7pm, Griffith |
Khirbet Khizeh (1978)
(Director: Ram Loevy, 54 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles)
One of Ram Loevy's most important films is the television drama Khirbet Khizeh. Based on S. Yizhar's 1949 novella of the same name, the film portrays the violent expulsion of Palestinian villagers by the Israeli army during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. The drama created a public uproar when it was scheduled to be shown on Israeli television just months after the Likud Party formed the ruling coalition, for the first time in Israeli history. The government tried to block the broadcast, and the film was aired only after a public uproar, only to be shelved immediately afterwards for some 15 years and bring about the temporary closure of the drama department at the State run Israeli television. The drama marks an important milestone in the emergence of critique within Israel of the role played by Israel in the conflict with Palestinians.
The screening will be preceded by a presentation by Mr. Loevy, who will frame the film within his lifelong engagement with bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the television screen; the director will also be available to answer questions following the screening.
The screening is co-sponsored by Brit Tzedek and Triangle Tikkun.
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Sept 21 Monday 7pm, Griffith |
Z32 (2008)
(Director: Avi Mograbi, 81 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles)
In what he calls a "musical-documentary-tragedy," Avi Mograbi features an Israeli ex-soldier who participated in a revenge operation where several Palestinian policemen were murdered. The soldier now seeks forgiveness for what he has done, but his girlfriend does not think it is that simple, and raises issues he is not ready to address. Mograbi alternates interviews with the soldier and his girlfriend with scenes in which the director uses songs cabaret-style to comment on his own film and most conspicuously, about the ways in which documentary films both reveal and conceal their subject matter: the soldier willingly testifies for camera as long as his identity is not exposed. While the filmmaker keeps looking for the proper solution for concealing the soldier's identity he questions his own political and artistic conduct.
WORKSHOP:
Sept 22 Tuesday 7pm, Griffith |
A Workshop with Avi Mograbi
Mograbi will show clips from his films and will discuss his position as a filmmaker in each and in general.
AMES Presents
Sept 23 Wednesday 7pm, Richard White Lecture Hall (East Campus) |
Conversations between Israeli Filmmakers
Avi Mograbi and Ram Loevy will discuss Israeli documentaries and their politics of representation.
Respondents: Rebecca Stein, Yaron Shemer, Shai Ginsburg
October 2009
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Oct 7 Wednesday 7pm, White 107 Lecture Hall (East Campus) |
Ford Transit (2002)
(Director: Hany Abu-Assad)
Many dramatic films don't have a character as good as Rajai Khatib, who drives one of "The Fords" that take Palestinians from checkpoint to checkpoint as they cross from the West Bank to Israel and back again.
WORKSHOP: Ram Loevy
Oct 12 Monday 7pm, White 107 Lecture Hall (East Campus) |
A Workshop with Ram Loevy
Mr. Loevy will show clips from his films and discuss his
position as a filmmaker in each and in general.
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Oct 21 Wednesday 7pm, White 107 Lecture Hall |
Dear Pyongyang (Yang Yonghui, 2006)
A humorous/heartbreaking story of a Zainichi (Koreans in Japan) filmmaker's own family, scattered b/w Japan and N. Korea, from the perspective of a young, female filmmaker and the connections/disconnections with her parents.
November 2009
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Nov 4 Wednesday 7pm, Griffith Theater |
Born Into Brothels (Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman, 2004)
Within the Red Light District of Calcutta this documentary explores the hopeless lives of the sons and daughters of prostitutes through photography and film. The director (Zana Briski) is determined to use the photography to provide the children with the opportunity for higher education, hope and a better life. Of the children, only one of which, Avijit, is able to separate himself from the rest through actual talent with the rest being young and imaginative kids, the same that one would find anywhere else in the world. By the end of the film most of the children are enrolled and attending classes, however not all take the opportunity and choose to return to the brothels.
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Nov 18 Wednesday 7pm, White Hall |
The Game of Their Lives
A BBC documentary producer is given unprecedented access in North Korea to chronicle the story of the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0, and go up 3-0 against Portgual before Eusebio eventually rallied the Portugeuse.
AMES Presents
FILM Screening:
Nov 19 Thursday 7pm, White Hall |
Morning Sun (Carma Hinton, 2003)
The film Morning Sun attempts in the space of a two-hour documentary film to create an inner history of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (c.1964-1976). It provides a multi-perspective view of a tumultuous period as seen through the eyes—and reflected in the hearts and minds—of members of the high-school generation that was born around the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and that came of age in the 1960s. Others join them in creating in the film’s conversation about the period and the psycho-emotional topography of high-Maoist China, as well as the enduring legacy of that period.
AMES Presents
WORKSHOP:
Nov 20 Friday 9am-5pm, Friedl 225 |
Workshop on The Politics of Representation
Filmmaker: Carma Hinton
Guest Speakers: Michael Renov (USC, keynote); Bruce Cumings (Chicago); Zhen Zhang (NYU); Hyangjin Lee (Sheffield)