The Asian Studies Center has an extensive collection of fiction and non‑fiction films available to borrow. Visit the center or contact us for more information.
Description: Nafas is a young Afghan journalist who has taken refuge in Canada. She receives a desperate letter from her little sister, who has stayed behind in Afghanistan and has decided to end her life before the imminently approaching eclipse of the sun. Nafas fled her country during the Taliban civil war. She decides to go and help her sister in Kandahar and attempts to cross the Iran-Afghanistan border.
Description: The Taliban closes down a hospital, putting a mother (Zubaida Sahar) and daughter (Marina Golbahari) who work there out of a job. Legally prohibited from going out unaccompanied by men, and having none to rely on, they hatch a desperate plan to disguise the daughter as a boy answering to the name "Osama." The ruse works for a while, but when the Taliban begins conscripting boys for their training school, Osama fears it won't be long before she is discovered.
Description: When Bangladeshi father Kazi (Jayanto Chattopadhyay) becomes a conservative Muslim, he opts to send his son, Anu (Nurul Islam Bablu), to an Islamic school in order to shelter him from the worldly influences of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Anu's thoughtful mother, Ayesha (Rokeya Prachy), who isn't inclined toward zealotry, handles the changes in stride. As the country heads into turmoil, the rigid beliefs that Kazi adheres to and his son tries to understand may have a lasting impact on the family.
Description: Music and dance of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nos. 1 and 2 recorded at the Asian Traditional Performing Arts Festival in Tokyo, Japan, in September 1987. Nos. 3 to 7 recorded in Hunza, Pakistan, and telecast by Mainichi Broadcasting System, Japan, in 1985. Nos. 8 to 10 performed by the Bangladesh Cultural Troupe at the Festival of Asian Folk Music and Dance in Tokyo in September 1985.
Description: In the early 1900s, Nikhilesh (Victor Banerjee), a wealthy Westernized Hindu in colonial East Bengal, feels compelled to test the love of his wife, Bimala (Swatilekha Chatterjee). He introduces her to his friend Sandip (Soumitra Chatterjee), a politician agitating against British rule, and Bimala is equally taken with both Sandip's anti-colonial fervor and the man himself. Personal and political tensions subsequently flare as the now assertive Bimala has to make a crucial decision.
Description: More than a million people have been forced from their homes and according to the United Nations, untold thousands have been massacred, tortured, and subjected to a modern form of slavery. Burma, says Amnesty International, is a prison behind bars. John Pilger and David Munro go undercover in one of the world's most isolated, and extraordinary countries, Burma, which Amnesty International calls 'a prison without bars'. They discover slave labour preparing for tourism and foreign investment.
Description: More than a million people have been forced from their homes and according to the United Nations, untold thousands have been massacred, tortured, and subjected to a modern form of slavery. Burma, says Amnesty International, is a prison behind bars. John Pilger and David Munro go undercover in one of the world's most isolated, and extraordinary countries, Burma, which Amnesty International calls 'a prison without bars'. They discover slave labour preparing for tourism and foreign investment.
Description: "A Smart Lady" is a rags to riches story of a young orphan girl who lives with her aunt, selling fish in a remote village. Her beauty brings her to the attention of a series of men - a rich university student, a nightclub musician, a former monk - but when her business and its financial success compel her to hire a young bodyguard, his growing jealousy leads to a dramatic conclusion.
Description: Sacrifice examines the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in the trafficking of Burmese girls into prostitution in Thailand. It is the story of the valuation and sale of human beings, and the efforts of teenage girls to survive a personal crisis born of economic and political repression.
Description: Travel deep into the heart of the Cambodian jungle to discover a magnificent stone temple that was built on a scale unparalleled in human history.