Berkeley Media LLC
2600 Tenth Street, Suite 626
Berkeley, CA 94710
Email: info@berkeleymedia.com
Phone: 510-486-9900
Fax: 510-486-9944
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Asian/Pacific Studies
Films
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This is the fifth and final film in renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall's Doon School Quintet, his long-term study of India's most prestigious boys' boarding school. In this film he focuses on the life of one student whom he discovers at the school.
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This extraordinary documentary on sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia interweaves four young women's stories to reveal an institution that enslaves as many as 40 million women worldwide.
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This brilliant and keenly observed documentary, by renowned ethnographic filmmaker Judith MacDougall, explores the digital revolution in China, where photography is known as the "art of regret."
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Conveys the texture and flavor of the venerable Chinese capital through a close-up look at a number of its inhabitants, both young and old, with varied and fascinating backgrounds. Their stories unfold against the backdrop of a timeless but rapidly changing metropolis.
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For centuries, pilgrims have come to the Japanese island of Shikoku to trace the 1,000-mile route known as the "Pilgrimage to the 88 Sacred Places of Shikoku," a journey believed to have been first undertaken by Kobo Daishi, founder of Buddhism's Shingon sect in the ninth century.
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This thought-provoking documentary explores the complex, interconnected effects of tourism, globalization, culture, philanthropy, and religion in Bodh Gaya, the world's most popular destination of Buddhist pilgrimage.
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This innovative ethnographic documentary by renowned filmmaker Judith MacDougall follows the life history of an important cultural object through the everyday experiences of the people who make, sell, and use it.
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This intimate and groundbreaking study of India's most prestigious boys' boarding school is the first work in a series of five new films by renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall.
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This groundbreaking, five-part study of India's most prestigious boys' boarding school is a contemporary masterwork of renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall. Sometimes called "the Eton of India," Doon School has developed its own characteristic style and presents a curious mixture of privilege and egalitarianism. Each of the five films can stand on its own but taken together as a series the five films provide a unique and revelatory cultural portrait that will take its place among the classics of ethnographic cinema.
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The contrasting lives of two families -- a traditional four-generation rural family in a Sichuan village and a modern, single-child family in urban Hangzhou -- are viewed through the routines of their daily meals. In the process, the film illustrates how the Chinese family has endured and how it is changing.
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The Tao of cooking and eating -- the Way to health and well-being! This film investigates the impact of religious influences on Chinese culture and cuisine.
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This unforgettable documentary feature film by renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall explores the life of children in a shelter for orphans and juvenile detainees in a poor area of New Delhi. Despite the harshness of their lives, many of these boys show remarkable strength of character, knowledge, and resilience. Often left to their own devices, they institute a seemingly arbitrary set of checks and balances to make sense of the chaos around them.
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This extraordinary documentary explores with unparalleled intimacy one of the most cherished of Hindu religious aspirations: to die in the city of Varanasi, on the banks of the sacred Ganges, in the faith that dying here assures liberation from the cycle of earthly life.
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Caught between the seduction of prosperity and the threat of cultural disintegration, the people of Bali engage in ceremonies. Through them, the Balinese attempt to maintain balance with God, nature, and one another, and also to turn the recent prosperity from the booming tourist trade into a way of invigorating their culture.
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This remarkable documentary provides a rare and fascinating study of the history, meaning, and diverse participants of the Maha Kumbha Mela, a spectacular Hindu sacred festival held every twelve years on the banks of the Ganges in India.
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This remarkable documentary explores the full cycle of Balinese death rituals that support and protect the soul's journey in its endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
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This "finely crafted, lyrical exploration of a sacred site" creatively captures the complexity and mystery surrounding Kamakhya Temple, an ancient place of fertility worship in India's northeastern state of Assam. This temple is unique among Hindu temples of the Devi (the Goddess) in that it enshrines no image of Her.
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This absorbing documentary is the third film in renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall's long-term, five-part study of childhood and adolescence at the Doon School in northern India.
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This informative documentary systematically examines the key Balinese early-life ceremonies at every social level in South Bali.
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This provocative documentary, which explores the role of women in a Muslim-dominated village in Rajasthan, in northern India, is original, compelling, and instructive, and it is sure to stimulate discussion and analysis in any course that studies gender roles, Islam, India, or cultural anthropology.
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This engaging documentary explores the changing urban life of a contemporary India caught between local tradition and the effects of globalization. The film provides a richly detailed portrait of the lives of residents of Kotla Mubarakpur, an "urban village" in South Delhi, by focusing on one family and their friends and neighbors.
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Arranged marriages have been an important aspect of traditional Indian culture since ancient times, and they are still common today. This illuminating documentary explores the ways in which globalization and modernization are affecting young people and changing the traditions of marriage among Indians living both in India and in America.
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Like Chinese cuisine and Chinese culture, this film is a study in contrasts. It explores the evolution of Chinese cuisine from basic peasant fare to highly refined and lavish imperial cooking.
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This extraordinary documentary provides an illuminating and richly discussible case study of immigrant acculturation in contemporary America.
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This extraordinary documentary provides an illuminating and richly discussible case study of immigrant acculturation in contemporary America.
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This landmark documentary is the fourth film in renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall's long-term, five-part study of childhood and adolescence at the Doon School in northern India.
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Renowned ethnographic filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall explore the many meanings of photography in this profound and award-winning documentary set in India.
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In 1998 a group of primarily American undergraduate students went to Bali as part of a new Balinese Macaque Project field school to experience Balinese culture, study macaque monkey behavior and document the process with on-location video footage. After compiling and reviewing the footage, however, it became clear that what was actually captured was an ethnographic account of a group of undergraduates who were experiencing simultaneously a new culture, the rigors of anthropological fieldwork, and the conflicts of living and working with each other as a team.
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This utterly fascinating and compelling film follows the search of Choenzey, a 47-year-old Tibetan monk who lives in exile in a Buddhist monastery in southern India, to find the reincarnation of his deceased master, Khensur Rinpoche. Choenzey's search and eventual discovery is of an impish but gentle four-year-old who is recognized by the Dalai Lama to be the looked-for reincarnation.
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This thought-provoking and insightful documentary employs incisive case studies from around the world to explore how people's health and well-being is primarily determined by where they live, their educational, social, and economic status, and the degree of control they have over their lives.
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This remarkable documentary on multiculturalism explores the growing subculture of salsa dancing in Japan, where salsa dancing and salsa clubs serve as a source of interaction and cultural mingling between native Japanese and Latino immigrants to Japan.
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In this beautifully photographed and fascinating documentary, Tibetan monks from the Dalai Lama's personal monastery, Namgyal, create the mandala of Kalachakra, the most sacred of all Buddhist sand paintings.
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Inspired by the cinema of Lumiere and the ideas of the 20th-century Indian thinker Krishnamurti, renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall explores a famous progressive co-educational school in South India. This innovative film is dedicated to the simple act of looking.
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Featuring unique archival footage and exclusive interviews with former Tibetan resistance fighters and surviving CIA operatives, this powerful documentary reveals for the first time a hitherto unknown chapter in Tibet's recent history.
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Sex trafficking is a global crisis of growing dimensions. Millions of women and young girls have been illegally transported from rural to urban areas and across national borders for the purpose of prostitution. This compelling video explores the social and economic forces that drive this lucrative underground trade, and the devastating impact it has on women’s lives.
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This thought-provoking documentary is, stated simply, the best and most comprehensive introduction available on video to the interconnected issues of population growth, economic development, equal rights and opportunities for women, and environmental protection around the world.
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This remarkable documentary explores the human face of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh's micro-lending experiment of small business loans, usually of $100 or less, that has transformed the lives of millions of Third-World women and their families.
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In this carefully observed and richly nuanced film about a progressive co-educational boarding school in South India, young boys and girls jokingly accuse each other of being like "alien creatures." In exploring this gender divide, renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall examines the lives of three boys at the school.
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This profound, poetic, and ultimately immensely sad documentary may be the first of its kind about Tibet -- a vivid personal account of loss and disappointment as an exile discovers his country for the first time.
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Known for centuries as the center of Chinese culture and aesthetics, this Yangzi delta city has often been called the "Venice of the East" because of its many canals and bridges. This beautifully filmed portrait of the city leads the viewer through markets and teahouses, sweet shops and bookstores, rice paddies and fish stalls, and two of Suzhou's exquisite gardens.
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This sensitive documentary is an American musician's unique portrait of Balinese life, art, and spirituality.
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In 1991, filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam made "The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche," which followed the search of a Tibetan monk, named Choenzey, to find the reincarnation of his recently deceased master, Khensur Rinpoche. Sixteen years later, the directors revisit the reincarnation at Drepung Monastery in South India, where he has been brought up within the age-old traditions of Tibetan Buddhist monastic life.
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This absorbing documentary portrait tells the amazing story of Telo Rinpoche, a.k.a. Eddie Ombadykow, a 21-year-old American from Philadelphia whose favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins. He is also a Buddhist monk who was brought up in a Tibetan monastery in India from the age of seven and who was recognized by the Dalai Lama as an important reincarnate lama, or spiritual master.
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One of the world's best-known and most honored ethnographic films, this classic documentary depicts the many modifications made by Trobriand Islanders, in Papua New Guinea, to the traditional British game of cricket.
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The Yangzi River delta region south of Shanghai is known as the water country. Hundreds of miles of canals traverse the land, linking towns and villages. Here, near the city of Shaoxing, water has completely shaped the local farmers' unique way of life.
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This insightful and original ethnographic documentary explores the complex interplay between the rise and development of the international tourism industry and the production of culture in the performance of Vietnamese water puppetry.
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This new documentary by renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall continues his long-term study of the Doon School. "With Morning Hearts" focuses on a group of twelve-year-olds during their first year in one of the "houses" for new boys.
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This engaging and innovative documentary explores the common misperceptions and stereotypes of one another shared by young people in the Middle East and the United States. It connects five college-age women from the United States with five from the Middle East in a media-based dialogue that illuminates and challenges cross-cultural misconceptions.
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This wide-ranging documentary presents a cultural history of the ancient Chinese imperial city, once the greatest capital in the world and the Eastern terminus of the famed Silk Road.
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