3/26 (Sun) / NCDemocracy / 12:10 pm – 1:58 pm

(Taiwan, 2005, 108 mins.)
Directors/Screenwriter/Producer: Yen Lan-chuan and Juang Yi-tseng

This film traces how the WTO affects the livelihood of rice farmers. Gnarled by age and back-breaking hardship, traditional rice farmers inspire us with their fortitude and humanity. One of the brightest gems of Taiwan’s vibrant documentary scene.

3/26 (Sun) / NCDemocracy / 2:25 pm – 4:12 pm

(South Korea, 2005, 107 mins.)
Directors: Kumiko Kato and Kim Tae-iI
Screenwriter/Producer: Kim Il-kwon

Lee Hee-Ja, a Korean woman, has launched a lawsuit against the Yasukuni Shrine and the Japanese government to withdraw the enshrinement of her father. Furukawa is the Japanese man who supported the lawsuit regard­ing compensation for Korean War victims. This moving pacifist manifesto illustrates the painful history between Korea and Japan. A collaborative effort between Korean and Japanese civic groups.

3/26 (Sun) / NCDemocracy / 4:35 pm – 5:43 pm

Jeevika is the annual South Asian Livelihood Documentary Festival in New Delhi, India. Organized by The Centre for Civil Society, Jeevika includes film entries from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Serbia. Jeevika focuses on bureaucracy, social/cultural norms and religious practices that prevent people from earning an honest living in the vocation of their choice. This series showcases four films handpicked from the 21 shown at Jeevika 2006.

Jeevika is a search for documentaries at the South asian Level that focus on legal and regulatory restrictions as well as socio-cultural norms and religious practices that prevent or constrain people from earning an honest livelihood in the vocation of their choice. For submission and more info., visit www.ccsindia.org

In Search of A Job

(India, 2005, 14 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Mrinal Talukdar

Assam has long tradition of using domestic elephants for logging business for centuries. A 1997 Supreme Court order has made these elephants and their masters suddenly jobless. So these 1200 elephants are now desperately in search of an honest livelihood.

Treacling Down

(Sri Lanka, 2005, 14 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Upali Gamlath

In a highly commercialized remote village, “Meemure” bag their cherished products for a mere pittance, which are then sold in luxury supermarkets at exorbitant prices. Villagers tap “Kithul trees” to make “jaggery” and steal from the bees collecting nectar from flowers. The bee does a lot of work, but an outsider reaps the benefit. The Kithul tappers suffer the same fate.

Manhole Workers Union

(India, 2005, 20 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Rappai Poothokaren

They work below the manhole, invisible. Most of them belong to the “outcastes” that are still ill-treated, discriminated against, and work under horrible conditions. An organization called KSSM helped them form a manhole union, through which they have learned to dialogue and bargain at political level.

One Show Less

(India, 2005, 19 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Nayantara C. Kotian

Increasing numbers of single screen cinemas that are shutting down all over India. Are the masses deprived of the incomparable experience of watching cinema on the big screen? A vivid portrait of a unique way of life that might soon become extinct.

3/26 (Sun) / NCDemocracy / 6:10 pm – 7:40 pm

(China, 2004, 75 minutes)
Director/Screenwriter: Cui Zi’en
Producer: Liu Shu Jing, Peng Jia Yi

A proponent of homosexual rights, film scholar Cui Zi’en’s predilection for boys often appears in his work. Night Scene is a film about one of the biggest taboos in contemporary China: male street prostitution. It is a unique portrait of a twilight world in parks and clubs that veers between documentary and fiction. It is the director’s great achievement that he records a world hard to capture on video: “We are nothing. We have nothing. We are a tragic generation.”

3/26 (Sun) / NCDemocracy / 8:05 pm – 9:55 pm

Under new era themes of “digital” and “radical,” Jeonju International Film Festival in Korea has commissioned three filmmakers each year to make a short film illustrating these ideas. The project, which began in 2000, has since achieved an international reputation. In 2005, Shinya Tsukamoto, Song Il-gon and Apichatpong Weerasethakul explored the potential of the digital camera.

Haze

(Japan, 2005, 28 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Shinya Tsukamoto

An allegorical tale of an injured, bleeding man with no clear memories who wakes up in a room that seems to be growing steadily smaller as his own awareness clears.

Magicians

(South Korea, 2005, 40 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Song Il-gong

The musical group the Magicians broke up when their guitarist, Ja-eun, committed suicide. Her companion, the band’s drummer, buys a bar in a forest - a place the girl liked. Three years after the girl’s suicide, the surviving members of the band get back together. The movie is a “one cut, one scene” film, whose story moves between the past and present.

Worldly Desire

(Thailand, 2005, 42 mins.)
Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The story of a couple who escape their family to look for a spiritual tree in the jungle.