@documentary / documentary.tumblr.com
Hi guys, here is a light one. Chef's Table is an American documentary web series released on Netflix. Each episode of the series profiles a single world-renowned chef. Creator David Gelb considers it a follow-up to his critically acclaimed documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Enjoy
“Shotgun Joe,” a 1973 educational film, introduced Joe Scanlon, a wordy misfit then doing time in a Connecticut Correctional Facility. Joey Onions goes behind the scenes with producer Joel Levitch, who updates Scanlon’s story over forty years later. Directed by Adam Humphreys.
When he was six-years-old, Dinesh Das Sabu’s parents died. Raised by his older siblings, he had little idea who his parents were or where he came from. Through making UNBROKEN GLASS, he attempts to piece together their story and his own. Uncovering a silenced family history and disturbing truths, Dinesh and his siblings must finally reconcile the past, confronting the trauma of losing their parents and the specter of mental illness. UNBROKEN GLASS weaves together Das Sabu’s journey of discovery with cinema-verite scenes of his family dealing with still raw emotions and consequences of his immigrant parents’ lives and deaths. The film was shot over five years in Illinois, New Mexico, California, and India.
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Amazing documentary on trauma.
Did you recently learn that getting a Chinese symbol tattoo or wearing the bindi offends some Asian folks, but don't know why? You want to be sensitive to other cultures but at the same time want to know what's wrong if you're just appreciating it? This documentary is a good starting point for you. In a nutshell, the same thing that you 'appreciate' for aesthetics, is same thing Asian Americans were ridiculed (at best) and killed (at worst) for. When you commodify an aspect of someone's heritage you are devaluing its meaning that took centuries of generations to develop. yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool --- is produced by a group of undergraduates at UC-Berkeley in 2000. It interviews Asian activists, people on the street, show owners and others who feel passionate about the topic.
I caught the documentary Speaking In Tongues on PBS a few days ago, which explores the politics and practicalities of multilingual early education in the USA today, through the lives of four school kids in California whose parents have enrolled them in full immersion schools where most subjects, from math to social sciences, are taught in Chinese or Spanish.
The film’s four subjects include an African American boy attending Mandarin immersion who strikes up conversations in department stores with older Chinese speakers, and whose mother believes her son’s language skills will offer him more opportunities in life; a Mexican American boy attending Spanish immersion who already speaks perfect English but whose parents speak only Spanish; a Chinese American girl attending Cantonese immersion who can communicate with her Cantonese-speaking grandmother while her own parents have lost their Chinese through assimilation; and a white teenage boy attending Mandarin immersion who once asked his parents if he was Chinese, and who travels to China in the film to further his linguistic and cultural immersion.
It’s an even-handed, well-constructed look at an issue which is obviously close to home for many of us. The film argues that early multilingual education helps children even beyond language skills, stimulating cognitive development and improving abilities in other fields such as math and music. Also, since languages are most easily learned before the age of 13, it argues that US society shoots itself in the foot economically by purging second languages from early education and then investing millions of dollars in quasi-teaching second languages to college kids, even as the globalized US economy, as well as the national security state, are desperate to recruit people who speak multiple languages.
Obviously I agree with these notions. Personally I grew up with Mandarin at home, English in the school yard and on TV, and French immersion in public elementary school in Montreal. Multilingualism always seemed perfectly natural to me and only enriched my life experiences, never causing any confusion or overload which some parents are concerned about. Parents who are anxious that their kids aren’t learning enough English if they attend immersion programs are, in my opinion, misinformed about how language skills develop.
Anyway, check out Speaking In Tongues if you’re interested. The film is more exploratory than didactic — e.g. it doesn’t explicitly name the white racism underlying “English only” politics, though it doesn’t really need to — but it’s a nice look at multilingualism and immersion as they play out in the lives of four kids and their families.
NOBODY CARES FOR A GARMENTS GIRL (1986): This 17 minute documentary was created by women television producers enrolled in a 5 week training institute (Television Programs for Women’s Development) sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development. For their final project they chose to document the conditions in one garment factory in Dhaka. It was collectively produced by Sultana Siddiqui (Pakistan), Rezvan Dokht Zad (Iran), Laila Arzumnd (Bangladesh), Sri Sutini (Indonesia), Sandhya Jalal (India), Farida Rana (Pakistan), Badrunnessa Abdullah (Bangladesh), Deepa Gautam (Nepal), Anoma Perera (Sri Lanka). Course trainers: Jai Chandiram (India and AIBD course director), Sally Cloninger (USA), and Dinaz Kalwachwala (India).
This documentary short is an introduction to the issue of shadeism, the discrimination that exists between the lighter-skinned and darker-skinned members of the same community.
Junk food is engineered to be addictive - The science behind making the food that’s so bad for us taste so good…VIDEO
Veterans On Killing, an eight-part documentary by Zach P. Skiles. (Part 8 of 8)
[The full documentary playlist is available here. -R]
58 minutes long, the documentary Empowerment or Exploitation: Life as a Sex Worker, explores both the anti-sex work and pro sex worker sides of the sex trading industry.
Featuring interviews with and speeches from:
Subjects addressed:
Great Quotes from this documentary:
"So I’m paying $40 to go to work… standing on the most uncomfortable shoes… and many girls have days like that, but so what? We all have good days and bad days." - Salena
"The solutions to the problems in prostitution, unfortunately, are the solutions to other problems in society: the problems of poverty and war and that’s what negatively impacts people involved in prostitution." - Scarlot Harlot
"As long as there’s economic disparity in our society, there’s going to be problematic prostitution." - Scarlot Harlot
"There’s no one story that encapsulates why women take this work?" The Producer, Jo Streit, asks.
"No. There is desperation, there is needs, there is liberation, there is … needing to raise your kids, needing to get your school finished.. needing to also find some approval… needing to prove to themselves they are beautiful… there are many different reasons." - Salena
"I just tell people the truth: I’m black… they took away affirmative action. Now they don’t have to give us anything." - Tracy Gaines
"It’s sacred, like a priestess’ work." - Salena
SW15
Daredevil outlaws. The Mexican drug war. All night trips on small fishing boats called "pangas" that smuggle migrant workers & marijuana into the United States. This is Baja Smugglers. (Links to parts 2-4 below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INaNOlBnj-8&feature=share&list=PLAcv5GC5_QHJOtXqvdGCMu_liX9qpL6Cl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4B5cArSuS4&feature=share&list=PLAcv5GC5_QHJOtXqvdGCMu_liX9qpL6Cl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLjxMrrVgdA&feature=share&list=PLAcv5GC5_QHJOtXqvdGCMu_liX9qpL6Cl
Meet The 17-Year-Old Who Blew The Lid Off Racial Profiling With His iPod
"We’re going to go out there and violate some rights." Hear the secret police recordings that will take your breath away. In a bad way.
When I was crossing the aisle in a parking lot with three friends, a man honks at my sister for walking and texting -- apparently she was not focusing on walking fast enough for him. Long story short, the driver and I were cursing at each others at the top of our lungs. In front of kids. I was surprised that exchange did not end in violence.
The lingering memory of the incident was more hurtful than had I been punched. I could not believe I behaved the way I did. What had came over me to yell obscenities in public. It was embarrassing to show my face to those peers present that day.
That day could have ended differently. I hope to have learned a lesson from it.
Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity
EDIT: New link for the video.
