Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Urban & Rural Studies / Industrialization & Post Industrialization / All Films

A Thousand Fires

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 16:07:12 GMT

In the Magway region of Myanmar, a country home to one of the oldest petroleum industries in the world, live husband and wife Thein Shwe and Htwe Tin. Running an unregulated oil field, they produce a barrel every few days. They wish above all else to see their youngest son succeed, to break the cycle of poverty. A kettle boils. Mud slicked hands work sputtering machines. The ambient sound of a football match hums from a nearby television. “These days passed quickly”, Htwe says.   

From Palestinian-British filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, A Thousand Fires is a portrait of a family in flux, and a story of intergenerational conflict and compromise. It is a film of transient moments; of hopes and aspirations; of faith in the forces of karma and luck; of a place, a community, and the rhythms of a day to day; of lingering memories and a turbulent past; and of life persisting, regardless.

“a cinematic masterpiece, quiet and powerful at once” – MIME - Moving Image Middle East

“Immerse yourself in the cinematic presence of A Thousand Fires, an ethnographic documentary about people collecting petroleum oil that captivates the senses with an exquisite blend of visual and auditory sensations. The screen pulsates with a dynamic interplay of smoke, steam, oil, and water, creating textures and hues that ignite an appreciation for oil collection in rural Myanmar…(recommended) for those interested in Myanmar, rural life, poverty, religious studies, the oil industry including resource politics, and phenomenologically-rich content in ethnographic film.” – The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

“Farouky captures a beautifully intimate story of family, religion, and community, showcasing the family’s hope, faith, and resilience as they grapple with everyday struggles and cyclical change.” – Universal Cinema

“absorbing” – Film Comment

“a low-key, quiet film but one of beguilingly vivid sensory impact” – Screen Daily

“A Thousand Fires, dedicated to the filmmaker’s parents, has unending belief in human perseverance against the odds. And facing the future with optimistic realism is sometimes all humans can do.”– One Room With A View

“social commentary or activism have to take a back seat as we experience this deeply human story”– Cineuropa

Selected Screenings & Awards

Riga Pasaules Film Festival, Latvia 2023

RAI Film Festival, United Kingdom, 2023

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2023

Pame Int'l Film Festival, Nepal 2022

FIDBA - Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Argentina, 2022

Duhok Int'l Film Festival, Iraq, 2022

Poreč Dox Int'l Film Festival, Croatia, 2022

MOVE IT! Festival for Human Rights, Germany, 2022

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, USA, 2022

DokuBaku - Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Azerbaijan, 2022

Dokufest - Int'l Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kosovo, 2022

Melgaço Int'l Documentary Film Festival (MDOC), Portugal, 2022

Cinemambiente – Environmental Film Festival, Italy, 2022

Ecofalante Environmental Film Festival, Brazil, 2022

Aegean Film Festival, Greece, 2022

Documentarist 15th İstanbul Documentary Days, Turkey, 2022

Rencontres du film documentaire de Mellionnec, France, 2022

Internationales Film Festival Innsbruck, Austria, 2022

DocsBarcelona Film Festival, Spain, 2022

ethnocineca – Int'l Documentary Film Festival, 2022

Beldocs – Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Serbia, 2022

Taiwan Int'l Documentary Festival, Taiwan, 2022

Doxa Documentary Film Festival, Canada, 2022

DOK.fest München, Germany, 2022

Movies that Matter Festival, Netherlands, 2022

Zagrebdox Int'l Documentary Film Festival, Croatia, 2022

Docudays UA Int'l Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Ukraine, 2022

DocYard, USA, 2022

First Look - Museum of the Moving Image, USA, 2022

FIPADOC - Int'l Documentary Festival, France, 2022

Int'l Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2021

Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland, 2021

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Down the Project

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Down the Project
Buy Now: $320.00

Sixty years ago, the "projects" were considered to be the most desirable housing stock for low-to-low-middle-income Americans. Today, this same housing has become stigmatized, beset by financial and social problems, and may be phased out.

This film, made in the 1980s, remains the classic portrait of a government program besieged on all sides. In two 30-minute sections, the film presents a concise social history of a housing movement and its opponents, then examines the social dilemmas of the developments these forces produced. Spokespeople include residents, public housing advocates from the 1930s, developers, administrators and politicians.

Down The Project: The Crisis of Public Housing presents the story of two projects that housed working families, both white and black, in the 1940s. In later years, crippled by lower budgets and the needs of poorer populations, they came to be regarded as eyesores, as danger zones. How did these changes occur? How did public housing begin? Which forces lobbied for it and against it? How do the people living in this housing see it?

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Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day
Buy Now: $340.00

Every Day is Not a Feast Day is a chronicle of the daily life in Ano Ravenia, a mountain village in Greece. Although the village appears to be virtually self-sufficient, the truth is that its economical, social, and family life depends on the outer world to a great extent. Like many mountain villages, Ano Ravenia, has been progressively deserted by it most active population. The film shows the painful transformation from the holiday feasts and the temporary return of those who have left to live elsewhere to the monotony and calm of daily life. Without any commentary, the film respects the daily pace of the villagers.

Films in the Greek series:

Charcoal-Makers

Every Day Is Not A Feast Day

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If It Fits

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:44:00 GMT

If It Fits
Buy Now: $320.00

The once thriving industrial town of Haverhill, Massachusetts on the Merrimack River now resembles, in the words of one of the film's subjects, "a ghost town where you expect to see tumbleweeds come rolling down Main Street." This film examines a dying industrial town and its politicians' search for votes over such issues as municipal spending, rising taxes, the revitalization of depressed areas, and attracting new industry.

The film's central event is the 1976 Mayoral election. Election scenes are intercut with comments from Haverhill residents, members of a local foundation, political scientist Frances Fox Piven, the president of the local union, and the shoe manufacturers themselves. The oral history which surrounds the election footage is a reservoir of information about Haverhill's present condition as well as its past.

"If It Fits examines a dying industrial town and its politicians' search for votes over such issues as municipal spending, rising taxes, the revitalization of depressed areas, and attracting new industry... The oral history which surrounds the election footage is a reservoir of information about Haverhill's present condition as well as its past. A wonderful example of gently observed cinéma vérité filmmaking and skillful editing."
– David Tamés, Kino-Eye, "One Hundred Documentary Films v.2" (PDF)

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

American Film Festival Finalist

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A Media Archaeology of Boston

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

A Media Archaeology of Boston
Buy Now: $320.00

Using the Boston region as a laboratory for exploring different modes of urban representation across both history and media, A Media Archaeology of Boston exhibits a carefully-selected excavation of the city's spaces through a montage of short films, photographs, postcards, and soundscapes of the larger metropolitan area. Far from a comprehensive survey, A Media Archaeology of Boston aims to provoke new experiences of the city and, simultaneously, to challenge everyday perceptions of it.

Unlike Los Angeles or New York, whose image has been meticulously produced and systematically canonized through mass and independent media, Boston is a place where media practice has taken place on the margins of central venues of production and distribution. From industrial films by the Ford Motor Company to discharged advertising reels of local businesses to state-sponsored documentaries by experimental filmmakers investigating the harbor's environmental health, Media Archaeology of Boston provides insight into a city that expands beyond its celebrated historical landscape to encompass a multiplicity of perspectives toward diverse parts of the metropolitan area.

Integrating content, form, time, place, and medium in our curatorial process, we aim to construct a more complex, subjective matrix of multiple perspectives on Boston, without any claims of objectivity or comprehensiveness. The DVD opens up this collection of documentations to the audience and invites participation in the construction of new stories, of new narratives. A Media Archaeology of Boston, above all, remains an open and incomplete collection that presents a map of possibilities.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 2009

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Neighborhood Tokyo

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Neighborhood Tokyo
Buy Now: $295.00

Miyamoto-cho is a community of Mom-and-Pop stores and family enterprises located near the center of Tokyo. Competition from supermarkets and shopping centers threatens the livelihoods of long-term residents. High land prices tempt owners to tear down old homes and replace them with apartment buildings; this in turn is changing the composition of the population.

Against this backdrop, residents strive to maintain the close social ties, symbols of local identity, and community rituals that keep Miyamoto-cho from becoming just another mailing address.

Theodore Bestor began his research here in 1979. His prize winning book of the same name is available through Stanford University Press.

This documentary is one of a series depicting the variety of life in today's Japan in the context of human problems common to all industrial nations. A comprehensive study guide is available.

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Pepe's Family

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:57:00 GMT

Pepe's Family
Buy Now: $320.00

The concerns of a migrant laborer who works in Germany are portrayed during his holiday visit - his social networks, his present foreign experiences, and his plans for the future of his family. When his father insists on remaining in the rural area, he must decide whether to move his large family to a factory town.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Golden A Awards, First Prize, MLA film festival

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The Rising Wave

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

The Rising Wave
Buy Now: $320.00

In India, water has a deeply spiritual and functional significance. The Rising Wave explores both these aspects; worshipped as a sacred common while also being essential for generating livelihood.

The film eloquently presents a culture built on water being shared, used and managed in ways unchanged for centuries. Richly filmed in three different states of India, The Rising Wave uncovers groups that have been dependant on their local natural water resource for generations as they fish and farm for livelihood.

In the rapidly transforming economy of India, corporations now lay claim to control and determine access to this natural resource. A contrasting picture emerges; a rift between the two divergent views of water: water as a billion dollar industry against water as a sacred natural gift for all humankind. This spells conflict for the future.

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The Shoemaker

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:47:00 GMT

The Shoemaker
Buy Now: $320.00

Deeply attached to his network of family and friends, the shoemaker has always assumed that he would spend his last years in his native village. When his children leave to work in a tourist town, the shoemaker follows and struggles to adapt to the isolation.

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Water and the Dream of the Engineers

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:26:00 GMT

Water and the Dream of the Engineers
Buy Now: $320.00

From the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century to the climbing cancer rate of our time; from the colossal scale of New York City's aqueduct and water tunnels to the water wars of the West; from the dangers of chemical contamination to the water politics of Polanski's film Chinatown, Water and the Dream of the Engineers explores both the engineers' dreams for, and public fears about, the world we have inherited.

This is a fascinating documentary where rich social history frames a spirited debate between David Brower (former Sierra Club President), biologist Barry Commoner, and Able Wolman (dean of American Sanitary Engineering). The film's wider context is provided by the frustrations and concerns of those who maintain and use our water systems in the present day. The film is an educational odyssey about engineering, environmentalism, and the troubled relations between these two traditions. Most importantly, Water and the Dream of the Engineers reveals that conflicts over technology and the environment are, at root, debates about power and the promise of democracy.

A feature-length film in 4 sections for easy classroom use — Water can be shown to students in sections, with the aid of its companion study guide. Part Ia, "Water for All," documents the history of modern water and sewer systems; Part Ib, "Water Wars: California," explores the social conflicts of water systems in one part of the U.S.; Part IIa, "Upstream-Downstream: New Orleans," places one system's struggle with chemical pollution in the context of history; Part IIb, "The Sludge Dumpers," shows how the modern use of old sewer systems poses a threat to our water environment.

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