Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to the World Channel’s America ReFramed tonight, Tuesday, May 16:
UNBROKEN GLASS

Director:
Dinesh Das Sabu

Premiere:
Seattle South Asian Film Festival 2016

Select Festivals:
Dallas VideoFest, Asian American fests in Austin, Seattle, and Los Angeles

About:
The filmmaker’s personal exploration of mental illness in his Indian-American family.

Twenty years ago, Sabu and his four sibling suddenly found themselves orphans, losing first their father to cancer and, shortly thereafter, their mother to suicide stemming from a struggle with schizophrenia. Traumatized by this loss, the family kept their mother’s mental illness a secret, and, miraculously, the older children successfully raised the younger ones to adulthood. Having struggled with depression, the filmmaker seeks answers to this silenced family history, despite the hesitancy of some of his siblings, prompting sometime painful interviews as well as a not-particularly relevant trip to India. While Sabu tackles a taboo topic with understandable restraint, unfortunately at times he loses his way in his exploration, betraying his inexperience as a filmmaker. He also fails to fully explore the most intriguing aspects of his family’s story – how they essentially reared one another, and how this ultimately impacted them all.

Coming to the World Channel’s Doc World series this Sunday, May 14:
FINDING SAMUEL LOWE

Director:
Jeanette Kong

Premiere:
Los Angeles Pan African 2014

Select Festivals:
Urbanworld, Trinidad & Tobago, San Diego Black, ReelWorld

About:
A woman of mixed Jamaican/Chinese heritage tracks down the long-lost Asian side of her family.

Together with her siblings, Paula Williams Madison, a successful television executive, traces the history of her family, and, specifically, the Asian background of her Jamaican-born mother, partly out of a desire to reclaim African American heritage that doesn’t exclusively begin with slavery. She learns about her maternal grandfather, a man named Samuel Lowe, a Chinese immigrant working on Jamaica’s plantations, who returned to his homeland when Paula’s mother was only a young girl. Through her investigations, she eventually finds information which leads her to discover a large extended family of relatives in China. Kong’s film yields a few moments of curiosity, but otherwise takes a conventional, workmanlike approach which robs the story of conflict or drama.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 12:
THE LAST SHAMAN

Director:
Raz Degan

Premiere:
Docaviv 2016

About:
A depressive affluent twentysomething seeks out ayahuasca as a last resort to ease his suffering.

James, having suffered from debilitating depression for several years, places all of his hopes in tracking down ayahuasca, pledging to commit suicide if it doesn’t work. Degan tracks his protagonist as he travels to Peru to seek out a shaman who will help him, only to witness the commodification of the ancient ritual, with conmen more than willing to take advantage of curious and desperate gringos. Even Ron, a dubious white man-turned-shaman is unable or unwilling to help the needy, and frankly annoying James. Finally, James finds Pepe, a village shaman who seems genuine in his desire to help others, but the latter finds he ultimately must sacrifice everything as a result of assisting James. While James’ condition improves, and, with it his insufferable arrogance and behavior, he remains an unpleasant subject in a project that is not particularly distinguished from several others which have focused on ayahuasca.