Check our website here for full details.

Tuesday, November 2
7:00pm - Unmistaken Child (Nati Baratz, 2008, 102 min)

Thursday, November 4 (Art Theater, Champaign, IL)
7:30pm - Kundun (Martin Scorsese, 1997, 135 min)

Friday, November 5
7:00pm - Summer Pasture (Lynn True and Nelson Walker, 2010, 86 min)
9:15pm - Serfs(Nongnu)( Li Jun, 1963, 88 min)

Saturday, November 6
1:00pm - Milarepa (Neten Chokling, 2006, 90 min)
3:15pm - Tantric Yogi (Chenaktsang Dorje Tsering, 2005, 50 min)
7:00pm - The Search (Pema Tseden, 2009, 112 min)
9:20pm - Song of Tibet (Xie Fei, 2000, 95 min)

Sunday, November 7
1:00pm - The Search (Pema Tseden, 2009, 112 min)
3:15pm - Milarepa (Neten Chokling, 2006, 90 min)

Presented by AEMS, The Spurlock Museum and Illinois/Indiana East Asia National Resource Center Consortium

Unmistaken Child begins with an ending. It is October, 2001, and a great master of the Tibetan Gelug tradition, Geshe Lama Konchog, has just died in Kathmandu, Nepal. At his cremation, we meet his longtime student, Tenzin Zopa-an intense young man whom the film will follow as he journeys to India and through northern Nepal over the next several years in a quest to find the reincarnation of his beloved master.

READ MORE...

Directed by Lynn True, Nelson Walker and Tsering Perlo. 2010. 86 minutes.
In Tibetan with English subtitles.
Reviewed by Mark Frank

"I swear on Sershul monastery, these yaks are totally spoiled," declares Locho in one unintentionally humorous moment of frustration.

Locho and his wife and daughter are the focus of Summer Pasture, an independent documentary film about a nomadic family in eastern Tibet. Shot in the summer of 2007, this film is the rare documentary on Tibet that doesn't have anything to say about the Dalai Lama, and it is neither a political protest piece nor a love letter to the noble yak herder.. Except for a few lines of text at the end of the film, its directors are silent and let Locho and his wife Yama speak for themselves . 

READ MORE...

The Search

Directed by Pema Tseden. 2009. 112 minutes.
In Tibetan with English subtitles.
Reviewed by Hilary Brady Morris

The Search opens with the silhouette of a man, looking out over a vast, uninhabited, mountainous landscape, first only surrounded by the sounds of the wind, birds, and wildlife. The sudden roar of an approaching Jeep is accompanied by the sounds of its honk and radio music. The man turns, and we see that he is smoking a cigarette; the camera follows as he walks toward the Jeep, behind him we can now see a village below, and he gets into the vehicle. The man turns out to be the film director (Pema Tseden), the Jeep full of his crew (driver, videographer, businessman), and they are searching for a man and a woman to perform the leading roles in a traditional Tibetan opera they plan to film. Billed as a feature film, its cinematic style is closer to that of a documentary, merging the two genres as do many contemporary Asian films.

READ MORE...

Song Of Tibet

Directed by by Xie Fei. 2000. 95 minutes.
In Tibetan and Chinese with English subtitles.
Reviewed by Mark Frank

Reflecting on her abduction by the man who would become her husband and lifelong partner, Yeshe Drolma tells her granddaughter "It must have been my bad karma that fated me to be with him... Everyone's fate is decided by Buddha..." thereby expressing an important theme of the film: the integration of religion into every aspect of Tibetan life.

Song of Tibet (Yeshe Drolma in Tibetan and Chinese) features a young woman named Dawa, who leaves the metropolis of Beijing behind to see her grandfather in his dying hour.

READ MORE...

About twenty to thirty videos will be selected for scheduled showings. Criteria utilized in the selection process include timeliness, broad appeal to the scholarly community, and examples of new field work.  All films included in the program will be listed in the AAS Annual Meeting Program Addendum and described in handouts or brochures that will be available at the meeting. We will also supply a list of distributors and contact information.  Films the length of a typical class period (40 minutes or less), or which have segments the length of a class period, are encouraged (but are by no means necessary).

If you have seen a film you would like to recommend, please let the filmmaker (or AEMS) know. Filmmakers wishing to apply can find the instructions and application form here: http://www.aems.illinois.edu/downloads/AAS_Submission.pdf . The deadline is for submission   December 10th, 2010. 

AsiaLENS is a series of free public film screenings and lecture / discussion programs -- organized by AEMS in collaboration with the Spurlock Museum -- presenting recent documentary films on issues reflecting contemporary life in Asia.

AsiaLENS Fall 2010 Calendar:

Burma VJ
December 7, 2010, 7:00 pm

MORE ON ASIALENS