Oscar Qualified: Boat People (animated short)

The Clueless on social media like to pretend harrowing stories of forced migration are a recent phenomenon. The surviving “Boat People” of South Vietnam could quickly set them straight. They have always been a forgotten people, because their plight was made possible by the New Left’s selective “anti-war” “activism.” However, the fall of the South was far from peaceful for many South Vietnamese civilians, including Canadian-Vietnamese children’s book author Thao Lam’s mother and her parents. Lam and Canadian animator Kjell Boersma tell her family’s story in the Oscar-qualified animated short film, Boat People (supported by the National Film Board of Canada), which streams via PBS’s POV.

To many, ants are a symbol of industry, but Lam draws inspiring parallels to their resiliency. Like the ants, her family survives great hardships as a unit. Sadly, that also means some sacrificed themselves for the good of the family. Yet, there was an important reason that justified all their suffering and sacrifice. In fact, that is the film’s big payoff. It is a huge emotional moment, but it also subtly expresses the importance of freedom.

Visually, Boersma and the animators nicely retain the illustrated vibe of its original source, Lam’s children’s book, The Paper Bat, even though they rendered the animation in color. However, the muted palette still reflects the influence of wood-cuts, water color, charcoal, and other traditional Eastern art forms and media.

A House Made of Splinters, on POV

It is not like these kids had it easy to begin with. In many cases, their alcoholic parents had yet to inquire regarding their status, even after Ukrainian social services revoked their parental rights. Then their welcoming halfway home in Eastern Ukraine was forced to evacuate when Putin launched his illegal invasion. When the troops crossed the border, filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont had already finished shooting his Academy Award-nominated documentary A House Made of Splinters, which airs Monday on PBS stations, as part of the current season of POV.

Unlike Eastern Front and 20 Days in Mariupol, House Made of Splinters is not a war film, but the Russian dirty war in Donbass was indeed stretching Ukraine’s already strained resources for social services. Frankly, the three kids Wilmont focuses on are lucky to be there. Longtime educator/case workers Margaryta Burlutska and Olga Tronova provided a sheltering environment for the children, who were suddenly dealing with abandonment issues on top of everything else.

The Lysychansk Center was sort of a way station. Eventually, their residents either leave for a state-run orphanage or foster parents recruited by Burlutska and Tronova. Generally, fostering is the preferable option, but it essentially means the foster children have given up hope for a further life with their dysfunctional birth parents.

The three focal children all must come to terms with that reality, which is definitely some very real-life drama. It is also very depressing. However, thanks to Burlutska and Tronova, some of the kids have relatively happy endings—at least until the Russians invade.

The Storm Makers, On POV, Presented by Rithy Panh

Wars have been fought to end slavery, but the cruel trade in humanity still flourishes internationally. Unfortunately, it is hard to take macro military action when neighbors and family members are the ones selling future generations into slavery. Guillaume Suon and co-writer-assistant director Phally Ngoeum examine human trafficking in Cambodia from three uncomfortably intimate perspectives in The Storm Makers (promo here), produced and “presented” by Academy Award nominee Rithy Panh, which premieres this coming Monday on PBS as part of the current season of POV.

The titular Storm Makers are the human traffickers who barnstorm through provincial villages, luring the young and unemployed into bondage with false promises. Their victims are predominantly but not exclusively women, much like Aya. It was her own mother, perhaps half-knowingly, who sold her into slavery. However, like a flesh-and-blood ghost, Aya returned with stories of harrowing sexual abuse and a toddler, who was the product of repeated rapes. It has not been a happy homecoming for either woman.

In some ways, Aya’s mother is not so different from Ming Dy, who works as a “tout” recruiting girls from neighboring villages. She also sold her own daughter, which has irrevocably poisoned her relationship with her outraged Buddhist husband. Suon and Ngoeum follow the food chain up to Pou Houy, an unrepentant Storm Maker and massively hypocritical Evangelical Christian. His “employment agency” is a transparent front for trafficking, yet he has a steady stream of walk-in victim-clients. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Suon’s film is just how many people knowingly take a very bad gamble, simply because they see no other options.

Storm Makers is a quietly observational talking-head-free-zone, but it captures enough evil in action to make anyone’s blood run cold—provided they are of good conscience. Suon make it agonizingly clear just how corrosive a problem trafficking is in the long term, even for a relatively “lucky” survivor like Aya. In fact, the damage wrought to her psyche will knock you back on your heels.

Frankly, it is a little baffling how a film produced and blessed by Panh (who helmed the Oscar nominated The Missing Picture) never secured a high profile festival screening in New York, even though it snagged awards at Full Frame and Busan. Regardless, hats off to POV for programming it. Yet, screenings and broadcasts of Storm Makers are even more desperately needed in Cambodia, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan, where so many trafficked Cambodians end up.

This might sound wildly eccentric, but perhaps the Cambodian government’s time would be better spent cracking down on traffickers like Pou Houy than censoring and campaigning against soon-to-be-forgotten Hollywood movies like No Escape. Of course, there is no way the illicit trafficking trade could thrive for so long, without plenty of high level looking the other way. While Storm Makers can be unsettling to watch, it holds viewers riveted in a vice-like grip. Guaranteed to inspire outrage and diminish your appraisal of human nature (so therefore highly recommended), The Storm Makers debuts on POV this coming Monday (8/31).

StoryCorps for Thanksgiving: Listening is an Act of Love

Think of it as the less noir version of Naked City with its eight million stories. Dave Isay founded StoryCorps in the belief there were real life stories out there from everyday people that deserved to be recorded for posterity.  For ten years, StoryCorps crews have collected oral histories across the country. Sometimes the stories were funny and sometimes poignant, but their inherent drama has become a source of constant inspiration for the Rauch Brothers.  Their short animated adaptations of StoryCorps transcripts have become staples of short film festivals and have regularly been peppered throughout seasons of POV.  Fittingly for Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah, POV will premiere its first ever animated special, Mike & Tim Rauch’s Listening is an Act of Love (promo here) on PBS stations nationwide.

As a wrap-around framing device, Isay’s young nephew Benji interviews his uncle to find out just why he does all this anyway.  He has a memorable answer that nicely establishes the theme of Listening: family.  The POV special includes four new stories, but begins and ends with two old favorites—and it is not hard to understand why those two struck such a chord with audiences.  In the gleefully funny Miss Devine, two cousins swap memories of the titular Sunday School teacher who was a stern, unyielding presence during their summer vacations. Both James Ransom and Cherie Johnson are natural storytellers and the way they crack each other up is appealingly infectious.

Things get more serious and more family-focused during Listening’s debuts, starting with Making It, a simple but inspiring story of the American dream.  On the eve of becoming the first in his family to go to college, Noe Rueda reflects on the difficult jobs he held to help his single mother make ends meet.  It is probably the most touching segment of the POV segment, even if it is somewhat open-ended.  The following Marking the Distance tells the story of a brain tumor survivor, who lost her short term memory, but has since become an accomplished marathoner thanks to the support of boyfriend.  It is a nice, feel good story, but perhaps the least distinctive of the special.

Arguably, The Road Home gives Listening its greatest emotional pop.  Eddie Lanier tells his story of how he went from being the privileged son of a prominent North Carolina mayor to a skid row drunk, until a good Christian Samaritan took him into his home. Wider in scope than the rest of the special, Lanier’s unabashedly redemptive story would be perfect for a Hallmark original film.  There is also unexpected power in the twist to the tale Jackie Miller tells her adopted son Scott in Me & You, which has something for pro-life viewers and fans of Modern Family, alike.

Listening concludes with an encore appearance of No More Questions! Kay Wang was not one to suffer fools gladly, but her son Cheng and granddaughter Chen had learned to appreciate her forceful personality.  Somehow, they managed to get her to sit for a StoryCorps session, laughing their way through her uncooperative responses that so aptly reflected her personality.  In fact, they are probably rather glad it turned out that way in retrospect, judging from the bittersweet postscript.

The Rauch Brothers have a real facility for matching the expressions of their animated figures to the recorded interviews.  In fact, they have been known to nail the likenesses and mannerisms of the speakers without having anything to model them on, besides their spoken words.  Frankly, it is always reassuring to see a StoryCorps film in a festival’s shorts programming block, because of the Rauch Brothers’ commitment to quality.  Recommended for post-turkey family viewing, Listening is an Act of Love airs on most PBS outlets this Thursday night (11/28) as part of the current season of POV.

Kart Kids: Racing Dreams

It is sort of like little league, except way more expense. Yet, the parents and/or guardians of three young drivers bear the costs in hopes their children will move up from the Go-Karts ranks to the NASCAR circuit. The ups and downs of three young karters competing for the national title are documented in Marshall Curry’s Racing Dreams (trailer here), which airs this Thursday on PBS’s POV.

Much like NASCAR, the World Karting Association’s Paving Series allots points towards their championship in five races spread out over the year. Frankly, Brandon Warren looks like the youngest of the trio, but he is in fact the top contender in the WKA’s senior division. Though competing in the junior division, Annabeth Barnes looks like the oldest, lending credence to the notion girls mature faster emotionally than boys. While this is her first season in the juniors, it is likely the final year for Joshua Hobson, who expects to be moving up and out after hopefully winning the juniors.

Executive produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson before the release of Fast Five, Dreams features plenty of karts going round in circles. However, it offers even more Hoop Dreams style family life, the most dramatic of which centers around Warren. He might indulge in some loud acting out, but it quickly becomes apparent the driver and his patient grandfather have put up with a terrible lot from his drug abusing (and perhaps dealing) father. In contrast, the Barnes and Hobson households are stable and supportive, but the financial burden of karting remains a very real concern.

To Curry’s credit, the film never feels like it is looking down its nose at its NASCAR dreaming subjects. Aside from Warren’s problematic father, they are all deeply faith and family oriented, with tireless work ethics. They definitely believe in sacrificing now for the sake of a better future for the children. Yet, one has to wonder if placing such a large bet on racing is the wisest course of action.

In truth, enthusiasm for motor sports probably helps foster an appreciation for Dreams. Curry and his fellow cinematographers capture the racing action quite clearly, making it all easy to follow, even for novice viewers. The three primary drivers are also all pretty engaging for kids, but tweeners can only possibly be just so interesting. Not essential viewing, but recommended for racing fans and New Yorkers who need to expand their familiarity with the heartland, Dreams can be seen this Thursday (2/23) on most PBS outlets as a special winter presentation of POV.

Not-So Mixed Blessings: Good Fortune

According to filmmaker Landon Van Soest, $2.3 trillion (with a “t”) worth of western foreign aid has flowed into Africa over the last fifty years. What has been the result of these enormous outlays? Mostly ill-will and corruption according to the average Kenyans whose daily struggles Van Soest documents in Good Fortune (trailer here), which airs this coming Tuesday on PBS’s POV.

UN program manager Sara Candiracci does not exactly have the common touch. The poverty of Nairobi’s Kibera slum personally offends her, which is laudable. Partnering with the Kenyan government, the UN is launching an ambitious redevelopment project for Kibera. However, she admits up front: “the strategy to move people and to bring them back is still not clear,” yet the residents should welcome the project anyway.

Kibera might be an eyesore to Candiracci, but it represents a better way of life for midwife Silva Adhiambo. Finding ample work there, she happily calls it home. In one telling scene, she perfectly illustrates why Kibera is so skeptical of the UN’s plans. The so-called slum is actually surrounded by three modern housing developments. One high-rise estate was billed as low income housing during construction, only to become home to well-connected government officials when completed. Another neighboring housing project remains unfinished due to litigation stemming from government embezzlement. A third development was allegedly built by Kenya’s First Lady with western aid money earmarked for AIDS programs and then sold for a tidy profit. Indeed, having gone down this road before, the Kibera neighborhood is dead set against the UN project, but Candiracci and the Kenyan government are not listening.

It is refreshingly shocking to watch a documentary so openly skeptical of the UN (on PBS no less). However, over in the rural Yala region, Fortune finds itself in more familiar documentary territory, as it openly questions the policies of Dominion Farms, an Oklahoma-based agri-business led by Calvin Burgess, its evangelical (but extremely un-media savvy) CEO. Burgess is determined to make the Yala Swamp Africa’s breadbasket, so he has flooded the area to create a state of the art rice paddy. Unfortunately, that has wrecked the livelihood of local herder Jackson Omondi. He also accuses Dominion of using harmful chemicals, a charge which the company is not allowed air time to rebut (at least in the broadcast cut).

Overall though, Fortune is quite even-handed, casting western agribusiness, the UN, and the national Kenyan government in the same unflattering light. However, at least Dominion is really doing what they say they are (whether the community wants it is another question). As for that temporary housing Candiracci promises, none is ever seen in the film. Yet, plenty of squats are demolished for the sake of the UN project.

Van Soest strictly adheres to a fly-on-the-wall perspective, simply filming his POV figures as they struggle with the consequences of this unwanted help. As a result, there are not a lot of opportunities to add extraneous editorial commentary. Still, there are plenty of field interviews with Burgess and Candiracci, but neither proves to be a persuasive spokesman.

Whether it is a fair to call Candiracci a hypocrite is debatable, but it is clear she has contempt for small projects, favoring big, conspicuous undertakings. Yet it is the microcredit concept championed by Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus that seems to have the greatest multiplier effect for developing economies. Of course, a two hundred dollar loan to a budding Kibera entrepreneur probably would not sound as impressive on the NGO cocktail circuit.

To its credit, Fortune stimulates discussion of these sorts of issues. Van Soest also avoids portraying Adhiambo and Omondi as helpless victims, emphasizing their resiliency instead. Yet, it is hard not to get angry watching all the arrogance and corruption captured in the film. Well worth viewing, Fortune airs this coming Tuesday (7/13) on most PBS stations as part of the current season of POV. It will also be available for online streaming through the POV website beginning Wednesday (7/14) through October 12th.

POV’s Inheritance at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

Films can make a difference. Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is certainly a case in point. In several ways, it started the chain of events that ultimately produced James Moll’s new documentary Inheritance. One of Inheritance's two central figures of is Helen Jonas, a Holocaust survivor who credits Schindler the film with creating a hospitable environment for discussing her experiences. The other, Monika Hertwig, met Moll while he was researching photo rights for a documentary about Spielberg’s film. Her connection to Schindler was her father Amon Goeth, the vicious concentration camp commandant played by Ralph Fiennes. The first face-to-face encounter between the two very different women is documented in Inheritance (trailer here), which airs on PBS’s POV next Wednesday. They also came together again for another rare in-person meeting last night as part of a special screening of Inheritance at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, cosponsored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

Hertwig never really knew her father, who was convicted of mass murder and executed by the Polish government in 1946. While her mother glorified Goeth, she learned of his true nature from her grandmother’s stories and watching Schindler’s List. By contrast, Jonas knew him only too well, having suffered his physical and mental abuse as his fifteen year-old domestic slave. However, the film clearly suggests both women should be considered victims of Goeth.

It would not be an exaggeration to say Hertwig is haunted by her father’s crimes. Indeed, Goeth may not have been the highest ranking National Socialist war criminal, but he may well have been the most brutish and animalistic. If anything, Fiennes’s portrayal might have been more restrained than the historical Goeth, considering the stories of sadistic cruelty recounted by Jonas. Yet she is the one who frequently expresses sympathy for Hertwig. At times Jonas makes some particularly telling observations of Hertwig, as when she almost off-handedly remarks of Goeth: “it was a selfish thing for him to have a child.”

To her credit, Jonas displays tremendous compassion and understanding in her meetings with Hertwig. Still, she is understandably reluctant to prolong their time together. Her mere presence after all, summons horrific memories of the evil father. As they pay their respects at the Płaszów concentration camp memorial and tour the villa where Goeth terrorized her, it summons harrowing memories for Jonas, but also seems to serve as a true catharsis.

For Hertwig, the experience is also quite emotional, but does not provide the same sort of closure. Essentially, she has inherited all the guilt her father should have suffered, yet lacking culpability, remains unable to ask forgiveness. Throughout Moll’s film and during last night’s Q&A with the director and Jonas, Hertwig still sounds desperate to say the right thing to convince people—most of all herself—that she is nothing like her father.

Moll helms with admirable sensitivity, somehow avoiding a sense of intrusiveness, despite the extraordinarily personal nature of the events he filmed. Inheritance is a small, quiet film, but it has moments of clarity, which dramatically illustrate the continuing moral and emotional reverberations of the Holocaust. Many critics have complained this season is dominated by a glut of Holocaust movies. Some of them are quite good, including The Secret and Boy in the Striped Pajamas, while least one is a major disappointment (look for that review next week), but it would be a shame if Inheritance was lost in the shuffle.

It airs on most PBS’s POV next Wednesday, December 10th (at 9:00 E.S.T. for most stations, but 9:30 E.S.T. on New York’s WNET—of course, check local listings), with a DVD release scheduled for January 6.

Photo credit: Don Holtz