Film & Lecture Series
2004 - 2005
Mourning the Past: Violence and Public Sphere in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia
Organizer and Moderator: Fadjar I. Thufail, Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellow
Sponsored by the Project for Critical Asian Studies and the Simpson Center for the Humanities.
A series of film screening/discussion about violence, testimony, and the Indonesian public sphere. The film represents an emerging space of documentary film making in Indonesia over the last few years. The Indonesian public has recently turned to documentary films as one way to deal with the legacy of past violence. Documentary films provide room for victims, as well as perpetrators, of violence to come forward and recount their experiences. The discussion following each film screening seeks to explore how and in what way documentary films can serve to mediate trauma and memory of past violence brought about by the hasty political transformation over the last few years in Indonesia.
- November 2, 2004
Film: "Shadow Play"
Directed by Chris Hilton and Lexy Rambadetta
Color, 83 mins, 2001
This documentary film explores the alleged role of foreign countries’ intelligence operations in the September 30, 1965, movement in Indonesia and in the massacre that ensued. Drawing on rare interviews with former foreign officials in Indonesia and with forensic experts who performed autopsies on the slain general, the film invites as much controversy as new information on the historic event. It interrogates the New Order regime’s propaganda that the September 30 movement was instigated by the Indonesian Communist Party and offers controversial evidence of how foreign officials may have deliberately or inadvertantly supported certain factions in the military to stage the coup attempt. "Shadow Play" has received wide acclamation among the Indonesian public for its daring attempt to open debates on this sensitive historical moment.
- November 9, 2004
Film: "Mass Grave"
Directed by Lexy Rambadetta
Color, 20 mins, 2001, Indonesian with English subtitles
The Soeharto resignation in 1998 left the New Order's legacy of violence unresolved. In November 2000, some groups of human rights activists and families of those killed in 1965-66 massacres exhumed a mass grave in Wonosobo, Central Java. The exhumation turned up remains of those killed and buried there by anti-communist groups in 1965. This documentary film follows this first emotional attempt to investigate the 1965 massacre, seeking evidence that the killing of suspected communists indeed happened as reported by eyewitnesses and families of missing persons.
- November 16, 2004
Film: "Flowers and the Wall"
Directed by Atnike Nova Sigiro
Color, 35 mins, 2004, Indonesian with English subtitles
This film documents the struggle for justice by victims of New Order violence. Facilitated by Elsam, a human rights organization, the victims launch a long and tiring effort to establish a network among victims of different cases of human rights abuse, from those who were imprisoned in 1965-1966 to the families of students who were killed during the student demonstrations in 1997-1998. The film depicts this endeavor as they travel across the country to identify, make a connection with, and talk to fellow victims of New Order violence. The initiative peaks when Elsam and the victims successfully organized a National Gathering of Victims of New Order Violence in 2003. This film shows how this emotional and unprecedented event represents the continuous and painstaking effort of violence to hold the State accountable for various past human rights abuses.
- Dec 3, 2004
Lecture by John Roosa, Ph.D. (History, University of British Columbia)
Title: ”The Afterlife of Violence: Stories of Balinese Women Widowed by the 1965-66 Mass Killings"
The mass killings in Bali that began in December 1965 and continued for several months into early 1966 claimed an unknown number of lives. The estimates run into the tens of thousands. The killings represented a 'politicide': the annihilation of nearly everyone affiliated with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and other left-wing organizations. Since most of those killed were men, Bali became an island filled with widows and fatherless children. This talk, based on oral interviews, presents the life-histories of widows in order to understand not just the violence itself as an event in a historian's narrative but how that violence determined the victims' perception of time, how private memories persisted in the near-total absence of social memory, and how women stigmatized as "PKI" survived the decades of the virulently anti-PKI military dictatorship of Gen. Soeharto.
Transnational Domesticity: A Film Series on the Filipino Diaspora
Some 7 million Filipinos abroad constitute a diasporic population that provide important foreign remittances to the Philippines. In recognition of their sacrifice and significance to the country, they have been hailed by the state as the "New Heroes" or bagong bayani of the Philippines in the era of globalization. The displacement of these Oversears Filipinos Workers creates transnational families and connects the social imaginary to multiple geographic locations. The film series looks at 4 films that tackle the issues of Philippine migration, issues that resonate with conditions not only within the Philippines but outside it as well.
- January 27, 2005
Film: The Flor Contemplacion Story (1995)
Dir: Joel Lamangan; Starring Nora Aunor
Moderator: Professor Vicente Rafael, History
- February 10, 2005
Film: Anak the Movie (2000)
Director: Rory Quintos; Starring Vilma Santos, Claudine Barreto
Moderator: Professor Randy Bautista, American Ethnic Studies
Vilma Santos portrays a domestic helper who returns from Hong Kong and attempts to reconnect with the children she was forced to leave behind.
- February 24, 2004
Film: Milan (2004)
Director: Olivia Lamasan; Starring Claudine Barretto adn Piolo Pascual
Moderator: Professor Francisco "Kiko" Benitez, Comparative Literature
Piolo Pascual plays Lino, a quixotic husband searching for his wife who had gone to Italy as a domestic worker. In Milan he meets street-savvy Jenny, a pillar of the local Filipino migrant workers community who helps him search for his wife adn eventually falls in love with him. Is it love or need that in the end binds them?
- March 10, 2005
Film: The Debut (2000/2001)
Director: Gene Cajayon; Starring Dante Basco, Tirso Cruz III, Eddie Garcia
Moderator: Professor Enrique Bonus, American Ethnic Studies
Ben Mercado, a talented high school senior who rejects his Filipino heritage, wishes to go to art school, but his father disapproves. The long-simmering feud between Ben and his immigrant father Roland (Tirso Cruz III) threatens to boil over and ruin the 18th birthday party of Ben's sister Rose (Bernadette Balagtas).
Film Series: Sex and Food in the Films of Asia: Vietnam
This film series explores the delicious theme of food and sex in the films of Asia and Asian diasporas. It addresses issues of social class, gender, queer theory, sexuality, and the body in comparative and cultural perspective. In addition, it seeks to explore the ritual of cooking, eating, and sex as sites of conflict and resolution. Some of the questions the series raises are how are foods and sex represented in films of the respective Asian cultures? Who are the consumers of these films?
Various faculty, staff, and students at the University of Washington from different disciplines are interested in the poetics and politics of representation of race, gender, and sexuality in Asian films, whether from Asia or made by diasporic Asians. Moreover, this series also aims to provide a forum for discussions among not only Asian academic populations and others who are interested but also among the larger communities in Seattle-to this end, Asian activists, artists, and students from outside the University will also participate in the series in different capacities. Each film will be introduced and followed by a discussion lead by the respective UW faculty and Graduate Students.
Sponsored by: The Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Project for Critical Asian Studies, the
Division of Art History in the School of Art, the East Asia Center, the South Asia Center, the
Southeast Asia Center, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and Trikone Northwest and Tasveer.
- May 1, 2005
Film: "The Vertical Ray of the Sun" by Tran Anh Hung (2000)
Moderator: Boreth Ly (Simpson Center for the Humanities, UW)
Set in Hanoi, Vietnam, "The Vertical Ray of the Sun" is a rich visual banquet overflowing with lush, artful images that unfold with the same languorous slowness with which the film's enigmatic characters and relationships develop. Three sisters, Lien (Tran Nu Yen-Khe), Khanh (Le Khanh), and Suong (Nguyen Nhu Quynh), and their brother, Hai (Ngo Quang Hai), come together to prepare a feast in remembrance of their deceased parents. They end up discovering that theyeach harbor important secrets.
- May 8, 2005
Selected shorts: "Summer in My Veins" by Nish Saran; "Pangyau" by Amir Muhammad;
"The Unconsious" by Manisha Dwivedi; "Beauty Parlor" by Mehreen Jabbar
Moderator: Dipika Nath (Women Studies, UW)
A gay Indian filmmaker explores the dynamics of secrecy and love that mark his very close family - every achingly intimate moment -- including coming out to his mother -- is caught on tape; a Malay-Muslim narrator reminisces about a teenage relationship between himself and an ethnic Chinese classmate; a journey with men who call themselves kothi. they are men for their families and society, but for themselves they are women, and wives of other "macho" men; Four faces, four masks: four short sketches of the lives and loves of three women and a eunuch, and more…
- May 15, 2005
Film: "Fish and Elephants" by Li Yi (2001)
Moderator: Tani Barlow (Women Studies, UW)
It's always interesting to welcome a "first" in Chinese cinema, and Fish and Elephant 's publicity material trumpets it as the first lesbian-themed mainland film. Novice director Li Yu has delivered an engaging film that successfully takes up the challenge, in a thoughtful, often humorous way, even if it doesn't transcend its trail-blazing agenda. Li Yu is a twenty nine year old filmmaker who was famous as a TV host in China, before making her first film, the independent documentary Sisters, in 1999. Fish and Elephant is her first feature film. It is an "underground" film, which is to say neither its script nor its print was submitted to the Film Bureau for approval. Which is not surprising, given its subject matter.
- May 22, 2005
Film: "Tampopo"
Moderator: Davinder Bhowmik (Asian Languages and Literature, UW) and Sudeshna Sen (Art, UW)
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro who rides
into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo set up the perfect fast-food noodle restaurant.
Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food,
ranging from a gangster who mixes hot sex with food to an old lady terrorizing a shopkeeper
by compulsive squeezing of his wares. Each film will be introduced and followed by a discussion lead by the respective UW faculty
and Graduate Students.
2002 - 2003
Recasting Asia America Lecture Series
- October 21, 2002
Karen Shimakawa (Asian American Studies, UC Davis) & Kandice Chuh (English, University of Maryland)
"Dislocating National Biases: A Conversation on Asian American Culture(s) Critique"
- November 19, 2002
Muneer Ahmad (School of Law, American University)
"Resignifying Arab Racial Formations in Asian America"
- February 7, 2003
Michael Bennett (English, Long Island University) & Nayna Jhaveri (Geography, University of Washington)
"Eco-Criticism and Asian American Critique: Notes Towards and Intersection"
- March 10, 2003
Takashi Fujitani (History, UC San Diego) & Lisa Yoneyama (Literature, UC San Diego)
"Internment, Inscription, Militarism and Race Across the Asia/Pacific"
- May 5, 2003
Gary Pak (Creative Writing, University of Hawai'i Manoa) & Amy Stillman (American Cultures, University of Michigan)
"Colonialism, Dispossession, Racism: Critical Pacific Islander Cultures"
- May 12, 2003
Nayan Shah (History, UC San Diego) & Mary Lui (American Studies & History, Yale University)
"Urban Sexualities, Asian Racialization and the Critique of Historicism"
- May 19, 2003
Martin Manalansan (Anthropology, University of Illinois) & Gayatri Gopinath (Women & Gender Studies, UC Davis)
"Diaspora, Globalization, and the Rethinking of Asian 'American' Studies"
Okinawa Lecture Series
- October 29, 2002
Linda Angst (Harvard University)
"Reversion": Women and the Politics of Culture in Okinawa"
- January 31, 2003
Alan Christy (History, University of California at Santa Cruz)
"Profiteering Women and Primitive Communists: Propriety and Scandal in Interwar Japanese Studies of Okinawa"
