| Film Series
Thanks to everyone who attended our Spring 2004 Film Series, making it a wonderful success.
Plans are currently underway for a similar series during the Fall 2004 semester.
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[Note the Spring 2004 films screened are still listed below for your reference]
 JANUARY 22 - “Life and Debt” Stephanie Black; 2001; 86min
Utilizing excerpts from the award-winning non-fiction text “A small place” by Jamaica Kincaid, Life & debt is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day
existence are determined by the U.S. and other foreign economic agendas. By combining traditional documentary telling with a stylized narrative framework, the complexity of international lending, structural adjustment policies and free trade will be understood in the context of the
day-to-day realities of the people whose lives they impact.
JANUARY 29 - “Landscape and Memory: Martinican Land-People History” Renee Gosson & Eric Faden; 2001; 30min
In Landscape and Memory, the French West Indies’ most renowned identity theoreticians – Jean Bernabe, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphael Confiant – investigate the different ways in which France, as a colonial power, marks colonized lands and peoples.
Importantly, this is one of the few films about Martinique that adopts a Martinican perspective on France’s overwhelming and continued colonial and cultural presence. The Martinican writers ask how, in a country like Martinique, does a colonial power ‘re-map’ space and land? How does
it “re-map” a people’s memories and identities? And can one resist this mapping?
to be shown with
"Kanaky au Pouvoir" Kathy Dudding; 1988; 29 minutes
A view of the Kanak people's struggle for independence. Interviews with Kanak militants outline the history of French rule since they took over the territory 135 years ago. Shows a tribal village where a "Kanak struggle committee" has set up a school and
cooperative to take control of their own political, economic, and social destiny. Women's concerns are highlighted.
FEBRUARY 5 - “Ancestors in the Americas: Coolies, Sailors, Settlers” Loni Ding; 1996; 64min
The untold story of how Asians--Filipino, Chinese, Asian Indian--first arrived in the Americas. Film crosses centuries and oceans from the 16th century Manila-Acapulco trade, to the Opium War, to the 19th century plantation coolie labor in South America and
the Caribbean.
FEBRUARY 12 - “Cannibal Tours” Dennis O'Rourke; 1987; 77min
When tourists today journey to the farthest reaches of Papua New Guinea, is it the indigenous tribes people or the white visitors who are the cultural oddity? This unusual documentary explores the differences and the surprising similarities that emerge when
Western and New Guinean people meet within the context of organized "travel adventure tours." This gently ironic film neither condones nor condemns the tourists or the Papua New Guineans. It offers a series of striking observations that exemplify the quandry of culture clash and
the human sameness of people everywhere.
FEBRUARY 19 - "The Best of Laughing with Samoans" Eteuati Ete & Ole Maiava; 2003; 60min
This video features two guys who've been hailed as the "undisputed kings of Samoan stand-up comedy." Eteuati Ete one of Samoa's best known comedians teams up with the young up and coming Tofiga Fepula‘i for an hour of non-stop laughter.
"Laughing with Samoans" is a stage show that has been touring New Zealand playing to packed houses. This video features footage of the show, backstage action, behind the scenes action as well as interviews in which Ete and Tofiga discuss their work and the show.
FEBRUARY 26 - “Cowboy and Maria in Town” Les McLaren & Annie Stiven; 1992; 59min
In English, Tok Pisin, and Motu with English subtitles. Focuses on two migrants who are lured to the urban settlements of Port Moresby by the attraction of town life and job opportunities.
MARCH 4 - “Sugar Cane Alley/ Rue Cases Negres" Euzhan Palcy; 1984; 107min
Based on the novel by Joseph Zobel. Director Euzhan Palcy's first feature film. A poor grandmother struggles to save her grandson, through whose eyes we glimpse a magic-tinged view of a sugar cane plantation's backbreaking work and crushing poverty. Daring to
rise above the alley lined with plantation laborers' shanties, from which the film takes its name, the grandmother risks all to get the boy a chance at an education.
MARCH 11 - “Kilim Taem” Vanuatu cultural center; 1998; 52min
Explores the lives of young people living in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. Attracted to the capital by the hope of work and opportunity, many young people instead find themselves "kilim taem" or "killing time" looking for and waiting
for work. The young , unemployed have become known as "SPRs" - or those who "sperem public rod" or "hit the road. Based on interviews with over 1,000 youth by the Vanuatu Young People's Project under the direction of Jean Mitchells. They talk about their aspirations,
frustrations and the difference between life in the village and in the urban center. Some feel traditional culture is being lost while others try to generate income for themselves by staging cultural events for tourists and starting small businesses.
 MARCH 18 - “Black Harvest” Robin Anderson & Bob Connolly; Sequel to "First contact” and "Joe Leahy's"
neighbors; 1992, 90min
Features a joint business venture between Joe Leahy, a wealthy mixed-race coffee plantation owner, and the Ganiga, an aboriginal tribe in Papua New Guinea. When world coffee prices collapse the workers' wages are drastically reduced and this leads to tribal
warfare.
APRIL 1 - “Living on Islands” Victoria Keith; 1997; 48min
Explores the concept of sustainability, particularly in light of Hawaiian cultural values and practices and their relevance to contemporary growth and development.
APRIL 8 - “Home on the Range” Adam Horowitz; 1991; 58min
Chiefly in English with some Marshall. Features the relocation of Marshall Islanders from Kwajalein Atoll to Ebeye Island and the conversion of Kwajalein Atoll into a top-secret U.S. missile and Star Wars test site. Highlights the wretched living conditions
of the Marshallese on Ebeye Island and their attempt to regain their lands on Kwajalein Atoll.
APRIL 15 - “Sugar Slaves: The History of Australia’s slave trade” Film Australia; 1995; 55min
Descendents of Melanesians who were kidnapped or convinced to emigrate to Australia to work on sugar plantations return to their ancestral homelands to trace their roots. The film explores the exploitation of Melanesian workers, subsequent deportation of many
of them and discrimination against the descendents of those who stayed in Australia.
 APRIL 22 -“Peter Tosh-Stepping Razor: Red X” Nicholas Campbell; 1992; 103mins
On the evening of September 11, 1987, reggae musician Peter Tosh was having dinner with his wife and five friends when three men broke in to his Jamaican home, waving pistols and demanding money. When Tosh refused to comply, he and five others were beaten and
shot repeatedly. His murder is shrouded in controversy, believed by many to be a conspiracy act committed by those opposed to Tosh's beliefs. His outspoken, often militant stance regarding equal rights and the legalization of marijuana had earned him a reputation as the Jamaican Malcolm X.
From 1983 to 1987 Tosh recorded what he called the Red X tapes. These spoken dictations were merely recordings of Tosh speaking his mind, offering insight into his spiritual beliefs and observations of the world around him. Tosh titled these works "Red X" because when he signed his
name on an official document, it always appeared to be followed by a red "X."
APRIL 29 - “The Harder They Come” Peter Henzell; 1973; 102min
There are few films that can be said to have had a true global impact for a country and bring it to world attention. There are fewer still that also help define a nation and its culture. With the 1972 release of Perry Henzell's "The Harder They
Come", the country of Jamaica found a voice on a global scale. It not only led to the awareness of reggae music that would soon explode on the worldwide music scene, but it also gave the Jamaican people, who until ten years earlier were under British rule, a film about themselves, with
real Jamaican characters in starring roles, not sidelined as servants or accessory parts. As this Criterion DVD indicates, the soundtrack for this was the first wave in the global reggae awareness, featuring performances by lead actor Jimmy Cliff, Toots and The Maytals and Desmond Decker.
With the subsequent release of Bob Marley's debut album, reggae would be part of the music vocabulary forever.
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