Homes, Memories, Perceptions: Ethnic Minorities and the Scars of War in Vietnam— ’The Tree House,’ dir. Trương Minh Quý, 2019

By Katya Kazbek|September 14th, 2020|Country: Cor People, Jarai People, Ruc People, Vietnam|

A poetic yet informative journey across the unconventional homes of Vietnamese ethnic minorities becomes a rumination on belonging, displacement, and weaponized alienation

An Ethnographic Documentary on the Harsh But Satisfying Realities of Living in Siberia That Beguiled Werner Herzog—’Happy People: A Year in Taiga’, dir. Dmitry Vasyukov, 2007

By Katya Kazbek|September 4th, 2020|Country: Ket People, Russia|

Come for Werner Herzog, Tarkovsky’s nephew, and charismatic dogs, stay because it’s an incomparable opportunity to hang out in Taiga for a whole year

How a Cultural Appropriation Dispute Among ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Obsessed Artists Lead to a Celebration of the Many Indigenous Cultures of the Ex-Soviet Territories

By Katya Kazbek|August 25th, 2020|Country: Azerbaijan, Bashkortostan, Belarus, Chuvashia, Crimean Karaites, Georgia, Hutsul People, Kalmykia, Kamchadals, Karelia, Kazakhstan, Komi, Kuban Cossacks, Kyrgyzstan, Mari El, Moldova, Mordovia, Nivkh People, Pontic Greeks, Roma, Russia, Sakha, Selkup People, Tatarstan, Tuva, Udmurtia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan|

In a wholesome display of Twitter de-escalation, Kazakh artists used the hashtag #AvatarSNG to shed light on the many cultures of CIS-countries and beyond

Small Business Owner Against the City Authorities in Pre-Epidemic Wuhan—‘City Dream’, dir. Weijun Chen, 2019

By Katya Kazbek|July 28th, 2020|Country: China|

A close look at the law enforcement systems in the Chinese city of Wuhan through the story of a street vendor who decides to battle gentrification in a very flamboyant fashion

Worker Exploitation and Misogyny: Where the Real Looting Happens in the Retail Industry—’Made in Bangladesh’, dir. Rubaiyat Hossain, 2019

By Katya Kazbek|July 13th, 2020|Country: Bangladesh, Denmark, France, Portugal|

A sizzling drama about a feminist uprising and union organizing at a garment factory in Dhaka puts the necessary spotlight on the exploitation of labor of which many consumers remain oblivious

Manga Bears, Latex Pigs and Tireless Activism in Japan’s Struggle for Equality and Queer Acceptance—‘Queer Japan’, dir. Graham Kolbeins, 2019

By Katya Kazbek|June 23rd, 2020|Country: Canada, Japan, USA|

A head-spinning tour of the many ways in which queerness manifests itself in Japan, from art-forms to infrastructure, from communities to mass media, made with affection for every featured voice

A Grieving Family, A Cryogenically Frozen Toddler and a Death, Postponed— ‘Hope Frozen’, dir. Pailin Wedel, 2018

By Katya Kazbek|June 21st, 2020|Country: Thailand, USA|

When a father’s attempts to stop his young daughter’s terminal cancer fail, he persuades the family to look into cryonics so that the girl could have another chance at life in the remote future

The Human Cost of Duterte’s Drug War—‘The Mortician of Manila’, dir. Leah Borromeo, 2019 + ‘The Nightcrawlers’, dir. Alexander A. Mora, 2019

By Katya Kazbek|June 15th, 2020|Country: Philippines, Qatar, United Kingdom|

Vigilante brigades committing extrajudicial murders to help the police, journalists trying to shed light on the atrocities, and an undertaker who takes care of the victims’ bodies

‘The Legal’ versus ‘The Moral’; The Plight of the Family in Contemporary Japan —’Shoplifters,’ dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018

By Samuel Nicholls|June 2nd, 2020|Country: Japan|

Facing crippling poverty, one family’s attempt to survive may be emblematic of wider societal problems plaguing a Japan that’s in a deep economic recession

Gasping at the Horrors of Past Internment Camps, as We Build More Prisons—‘Dead Souls’, dir. Wang Bing, 2018

By Katya Kazbek|May 31st, 2020|Country: China, France, Switzerland|

An exhaustive, gutting look at a Chinese internment camp allows us to learn from the survivors first hand. However, what exactly are we as a carceral society taking away from it?