Asian Studies

Examines the extensive damage to the Vietnamese environment and people by the war, including the bombing which cratered the landscape and left thousands of unexploded bombs, and the use of defoliants such as Agent Orange which devastated the country's eco-system and are now resulting in cancer and deformed births among the populace.

Examines the plight of Filipino peasants who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the Aquino government's military offensive against rebels of the New People's Army, with the evacuees facing an uncertain future in crowded, makeshift camps.

Profiles some of the key women involved in the grassroots organizing of the `People's Power' revolution in the Philippines which brought down Ferdinand Marcos and swept Corazon Aquino to power in 1989.

Filmed on location in the People's Republic of China under clandestine conditions, this documentary re-creates the remarkable experience of student leader Zhang Boli after his flight from Beijing in the repressive aftermath of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in June 1989.

An inside look at the last generation of Vietnamese to remember the horrors of the Vietnam War and the first to hope for an end to the country's isolation by increasing trade and communication with the West.

When photographer Elaine Briere visited Portuguese East Timor in 1974, she found a highly developed, centuries-old culture with a refined aesthetic and social sensibility. Her photos would become the last record of a people about to face virtual annihilation, because, when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the world looked the other way.

Blending archival footage and contemporary interviews, this documentary chronicles the true story of the Chinese invasion and brutal occupation of Tibet, a country where hopes for democracy and religious freedom are routinely punished by imprisonment and torture, a continuing tragedy which the Chinese government bars international human rights groups from investigating.

Filmmaker Paul Lee explores the lives of four generations of Chinese women in his family, using their shoes-from the four-inch silk sandals made for his great- grandmother's bound feet during the Ching Dynasty to the Italian leather pumps of his career-minded sister-as a reference point for the cultural and social forces which have shaped their lives.

Explores the Indian community in Trinidad, outlining the events and accidents of history that constitute this example of the Indian diaspora, and interviewing various Trinidadian- Indians about the hybridity of their culture and their relationship, if not preoccupation, with India.

This video examines Cambodia today, a country struggling to overcome the legacy of more than two decades of civil war and the genocide which left two million dead in the 'killing fields' of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

Tibetans in exile discuss the discrimination and human rights abuses their people suffer from the occupying Chinese government. These interviews, filmed in the U.S. and in a Buddhist monastery in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's government in exile in Northern India, are blended with historical footage of the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet, surveillance footage of the brutal Chinese suppression of a major protest by Tibetan monks in 1988, and contemporary footage and photos of life in Dharamsala, the second home for Tibetan refugees.

Each year, an estimated 30 to 55 million women throughout the world obtain induced abortions. More than half of these abortions are illegal and an estimated 84,000 of them result in death. This cross-cultural survey shows how abortion transcends race, religion and social class, and how differences in the practice and perception of abortion are mainly in the degree of secrecy and danger accompanying it.

Examines the history of American intervention in the Philippines following the Spanish American War. A silent movie format with lively ragtime piano music is combined with a dramatically understated narration and excerpts from `newsreels' of the period to reveal the nature of American attitudes toward Third World peoples and cultures.

Tells the little-known story of the Justice Department's postwar pursuit and conviction of Japanese-American Iva Toguri for what it deemed treasonous radio broadcasts during WWII.

Where The Thin Red Line leaves off, The Tears of Peleliu picks up some fifty years later, as it follows five American WWII veterans as they meet their former Japanese adversaries on the bloodiest battlefield in the history of warfare. The residents of Peleliu, a tiny island in the South Pacific, regard with some trepidation the return of the men who destroyed their island.

Chronicles the experience of 46-year-old Suzanne, an unmarried American woman who, desiring to create a single-parent family of her own, adopts a baby abandoned on the streets of China in the wake of that country's notorious population laws. Her emotional ordeal illuminates both the joys and problems involved in adopting foreign children and in being a single parent.

Documents a sea adventure designed to test the theory that the ancient Chinese could have sailed from Southeast Asia and arrived in Mexico or South America, predating voyages of Western mariners.

This docudrama examines the Filipino experience at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, focusing on the filmmaker's grandfather, an Igorot warrior, one of the 1,100 tribal natives displayed as anthropological "specimens" in the notorious Philippine Village exhibit.

Shows how pesticides and other man-made chemicals which have been found harmful and therefore banned from use in developed countries are still being sold and used in Third World nations.

Examines environmental problems in Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, where population growth, inequality of resources, and increasing tourism have combined to threaten environmental disaster for the Himalayan kingdom once touted as "Shangri- La."