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| First International Conference on Lao Studies May 20-22, 2005 |
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First International Conference on Lao Studies
FILM FESTIVAL
Northern Illinois University
Visual Arts Building
DeKalb, IL USA
Friday, May 20, 2005
6:45 – 10:00 pm
Hosted By:
S. Steve Arounsack
President, Pacific ARC Media LLC
Welcome to the film festival portion of the First International Conference on Lao Studies. Films will be shown concurrently in three rooms. Below is the schedule of films and their show times. Please meet at the Visual Arts Building room 100 first for a brief introduction.
Program A: Visual Arts Building Room 100
Feature Presentations. Two classic films that depict life in the homeland.
6:45 pm Introduction by Steve Arounsack and
Dara Viravong Kanlaya (script writer of Bua Daeng)
7:00 pm Bua Daeng (Red Lotus) (85 min.)
8:25 pm Luk Isan (115 min.)
Program B: Visual Arts Building Room 102
The Journey. These films focus on the circumstances of the exodus from the motherland. References are made to the war and its aftermath.
7:00 pm Bombies (57 min)
8:05 pm The Leaf, Not Yet Falling (13 min.)
8:25 pm Becoming American (60 min.)
9:30 pm Letter Back Home (15 min.)
Program C: Visual Arts Building Room 103
Modern identity. Acculturation and finding one’s identity are explored. Relationships and the struggles of “fitting in” are central themes.
7:00 pm Kelly Loves Tony (57 min.)
8:00 pm Blue Collar Buddha (57 min.)
9:00 pm Death of a Shaman (57 min.)
Note: The First International Conference on Lao Studies committee and Pacific ARC Media LLC does not necessarily endorse or promote the views expressed by these films. We have made every attempt to provide a canvas for a broad range of perspectives, ranging from independent filmmakers to larger production groups. The audience is invited to form their own opinion. The film festival portion of the conference is organized by the Lao Studies committee members.
Bua Daeng (Red Lotus)
Run time: 85 min. Language: Lao with English subtitles
Producer: Somouk Suthiphon
Lao PDR, 1988
Based on scripts written by Dara Kalaya, the story follows a young woman, Bua Daeng, who lives in rural Laos before and during the communist uprising. The story is set in the 1960s and follows important events in her life: finding a husband, surviving the chaos of warfare, and enduring everyday life. Throughout it all, Bua Daeng is portrayed as having all the characteristics of an ideal Lao woman: smart, beautiful, virtuous, skillful in handicrafts, and above all the love of Communist ideologies, thus the name Bua Daeng or Red Lotus—the color of communism.
Luk Isan (A Child of the Northeast)
Run time: 115 min. Language: Lao Isan with English subtitles
Director: Choroen Lampungporn Producer: Kunawut
Thailand, 1991
Luk Isan or A Child of the Northeast is about a year in the life of a village in Northeast Thailand during the 1930’s. It is also about a world scarcely known in the West: the world of “Isan,” which is what the natives call their corner of Thailand. This movie is based on Khampoun Bountavee award-winning novel which the author based on the memories of his own childhood in Isan during the depths of the Depression. The loving, courageous family at the center of novel include a boy named Koun, who is about eight years old; his sisters Yeesoun, and Bounlai, two; and their parents, whose names we never learn. They are called simply “Koun’s mother” and “Koun’s father,” even by their friends and family. Khampoun also introduces a wider, equally unforgettable family: the relatives and neighbors who live in Koun’s village. It is their bravery, their goodness of heart, and above all, their indestructible, earthy sense of humor, that shape the boy Koun’s perception of the world, and of his purpose in it. (A Child of the Northeast, translated by Susan F. Kepner).
Blue Collar Buddha
Run time: 57 min. Language: English/Lao
USA, 1987
This is a dramatic documentary depicting the plight of America’s most recent refugees, who must struggle against the hostility developed in the post-Vietnam era. Their attempts to preserve their culture and religious heritage are met with several terrorist attacks against their Buddhist temple. By documenting the opinions of townspeople and American officials, the film depicts America’s attitudes towards refugees and immigrants.
Becoming American
Run time: 60 min. Language: English/Hmong
USA, 1982
Hang Sou, his wife and child, sister-in-law, and her five children—a strongly united Hmong tribal family—await resettlement in a refugee camp in northern Thailand. As victims of the secret war in Laos and its political aftermath, they have lived for six years in this rural, impoverished camp. When the Hangs are informed that they will be allowed to immigrate to the United States, a twelve-thousand-mile odyssey begins. Becoming American provides a rare insight into the lives of these brave refugees and celebrates their spirit of survival.
The Leaf, Not Yet Falling
Run time: 13 min. Language: Lao with English subtitles
Producer: Vannasone Keodara
USA, 2002
Memories are very precarious: good memories can fade with time, while haunted ones remain. The Leaf, Not Yet Falling is a documentary film of a little girl’s sweet childhood memories of her homeland, Laos, her bitter experiences during the Communist Regime and the involvement of the American CIA during the secret air war era. It recaptures over two decades of experiences living in exile.
Letter Back Home
Run time: 15 min. Language: Lao with English subtitles
Directors: Nith Lacroix & Sang Thepkaysone Producer: Nith Lacroix
USA, 1994
An honest and compelling look at life in San Francisco's Tenderloin district for Lao and Cambodian youth. Tough and with attitude, they long for home while also carving out a life in their neighborhood. Through this bittersweet Letter Back Home, you can feel the history, resilience and strength in these youth. This video was brought back to Laos to show the Lao youth at various temples and villages of one aspect of refugee teens living in the United States.
Second Prize, Chicago Asian American Film & Video Contest
Best New Vision Documentary Award, Berkeley Video Festival
National PBS broadcast
Death of a Shaman
Run time: 57 min. Language: English
Director: Richard Hall Producer: Fahm Fong Saeyang
USA, 2002
In Death of a Shaman, Fahm Saeyang responds to her father's unsettled life and death by taking a reverse journey to examine the heartbreaking path he took from respectability to hopelessness-and from Southeast Asia to America-in a heartfelt personal mission to understand his tragic story. This dual journey helps Death of a Shaman examine with painful honesty how Fahm's Mien immigrant family suffered through a 20 year ordeal of poverty, racism, religions, drugs, jail, and the murder of a family member. It is a chronicle of a darker side of the pursuit of the American dream that affected many of the 40,000 Mien who came from a primitive life in the mountains of Southeast Asia to America. Death of a Shaman is also a moving account of Fahm's need to understand her father's pain, and a desire to figure out what will placate his troubled spirit and her own.
Bombies
Run time: 57 min. Language: English
Director: Jack Silberman Producer: Lumiere Productions
USA, 2000
Between 1964 and 1973 the United States conducted a secret air war, dropping over 2 million tons of bombs and making tiny Laos the most heavily bombed country in history. Millions of these 'cluster bombs' did not explode when dropped, leaving the country massively contaminated with 'bombies' as dangerous now as when they fell a quarter century ago. Bombies examines the problem of unexploded cluster bombs through the personal experiences of a group of Laotians and foreigners and argues for their elimination as a weapon of war.
Kelly Loves Tony
Run time: 57 min. Language: English/Mien
Producer: Spencer Nakasako
USA, 1998
Seventeen year-old Kelly Saeteurn has a dream—she calls it her "American dream." As a fresh high school graduate on her way to college, she envisions a rosy future for herself. Kelly is the first in her family of Iu-Mien refugees from Laos to have accomplished as much as she already has, but her dreams exist in sharp contrast to her reality. She is also pregnant. Her boyfriend Tony is a junior high drop out and ex-con. The brutal honesty of this film's footage and dialogue offers viewers a rare glimpse into the lives of two young people struggling to make their relationship work in the face of overwhelming obstacles like parenthood, gender issues and cultural and educational differences.