Pawns of Politics

Oct 16, 04:38 PM by administrator

Program 11: The Pawns Of Politics

Sun. Nov. 9th, 4:00 PM

History repeats itself all too often, and sometimes when that happens, the consequences can strike at the core of a family, or a whole community – or an entire culture. However, in the end, the resilience of people and their commitment to their community prevail against all odds. In David Yun’s THE PAIN OF BEING THIRSTY, wartime policies today are eerily mirrored by the past disregard of freedoms and rights. KORYO SARAM: THE UNRELIABLE PEOPLE, is a survival story of how Soviet Koreans were forced into harsh exile but ultimately thriving today with their culture intact. And in VINCENT WHO?, a movement of social and cultural activism emerges from a travesty of justice.

The Pain With Being Thirsty



Director/Producer: David Yun | Writer: Babar Ahmad
Experimental | Beta SP | Colour | 2007 | 6 minutes | USA

A film that juxtaposes found footage of Japanese Internment camps in Arizona with a found letter written by a Muslim prisoner accused of running Al-Qaeda websites and awaiting extradition to Guantanamo Bay. In linking the two, the film traces a connection between the way Japanese Americans were perceived during World War II and how Arabs and Arab Americans are being treated in a post-9/11 world while raising larger questions about the fragility of our own freedoms.

Previous Screenings: Int’l Asian American Film Festival (NY), Int’l Documentary Festival Amsterdam, European Media Arts Festival

Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People



Directors: Y. David Chung, Matt Dibble | Producer:* Y. David Chung | Writers: Japhet Asher, Meredith Jung-En Woo, Y. David Chung
Documentary | Beta SP | Colour | 2007 | 60 minutes | USA | Russian and Korean, with English subtitles

In 1937, Stalin began a campaign of massive ethnic cleansing and forcibly deported everyone of Korean origin living in the coastal provinces of the Far East Russia near the border of North Korea to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia 3,700 miles away.

Koryo Saram (the Soviet Korean phrase for Korean person) tells the harrowing saga of survival and the sweep of Soviet history through the eyes of these 180,000 deported Koreans, who were designated by Stalin as an “unreliable people” and enemies of the state. Through recently uncovered archival footage and new interviews, the film follows the deportees’ history of integrating into the Soviet system while working under punishing conditions in Kazakhstan, a country which became a concentration camp of exiled people from throughout the Soviet Union.

Previous Screenings: San Francisco Int’l Asian American Film Festival 2007, Asian American Showcase, Toronto Reel Asian Int’l Film Festival – NFB Best Doc Award

Canadian Premiere | Director In Attendance

Vincent Who?



Directors: Tony Lam, Curtis Chin | Producer: Curtis Chin
Documentary | Beta SP | Colour | 2007 | 41 minutes | USA

In 1982, Vincent Chin was brutally murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments. The judge, however, sentenced the killers to a mere $3,000 fine, three years probation, and no jail time. This decision galvanized Asian Americans around the country to unite for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a real pan-Asian community and movement. The multiple legacies and the impact of the case on the Asian American community is explored through interviews with key players from 25 years ago as well as with a whole new generation of activists.

Canadian Premiere

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