My name is Tadayuki Kubo at Otsuma Women’s University. From the perspective of anthropology, I have been carrying out fieldwork on refugees from the Kayah State, the setting for this documentary. In my video, I would like to make some comments and ask some questions to the director based on what I have learnt from my own research.
At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to a man who is a victim of landmines. In fact, this event may be indirectly related to Japan. Some of the landmines buried in Kayah State are intended to protect power grids, such as power lines, from insurgents. The Japanese government built the Balu Chaung hydroelectric power station in Kayah State and the Mobye dam in Shan State as the first post-war compensation for World War II and ever since has continued to provide ODA for repair work. Electricity produced here was supplied to urban areas rather than to nearby rural villages. Landmines were buried in the vicinity of the power lines and other power infrastructure, and not only people but also livestock would sometimes step on these. Instead of being compensated for damage, they were sometimes ordered to pay for the mines that exploded. The Burmese army and different ethnic armed groups have laid landmines.
The 2021 coup d’état in Myanmar has brought renewed and widespread scrutiny of the violence perpetrated by the Burmese army. An important aspect of this documentary’s testimony is that the local population is also victimized by soldiers from ethnic groups other than then those in the Burmese army. The situation in the border areas of Myanmar is often portrayed as one of “the Burmese army and the persecuted ethnic minorities,” but in fact the people are also victimised by soldiers from other ethnic groups. This situation forms the backdrop for a sense of weariness toward war.
This leaves women and children in quite a vulnerable position. Reports of sexual violence, such as the one in this documentary, began to appear in 2002 with a report called “License to Rape” by a Shan human rights organisation. What made me think about this is that what used to be in print and written form, has in recent years become testimony in video form, as with this documentary. Sexual violence is said to be a murder of the soul, but there were testimonies that the shame and insinuation of being violated is more painful than being killed and remains until death.

What I would like to ask the director is why do the people concerned still agreed to testify in this documentary? I don’t think it is just to state that they been through terrible things and want people to know about them. If they don’t want to be looked at with pity, what were the meanings given and emotional change of heart of the persons who related these? What made them agree to appear? Is the momentum behind the #MeToo movement reaching these women? These are my comments and questions.

Sabaidee!

Greetings from Vientianne, LAOS PDR. My name is Anysay Keola and I am a filmmaker from Lao New Wave Cinema Productions. First of all, I would like to say that I am very honored to be part of the selection committee for the 10th Visual Documentary Project this year and congratulations to all the Southeast Asian finalists and directors. You all did very well to deserve it. My comments are for the film ‘Broken.’ First of all my first impressions after watching the film are that this film is not a typical documentary. It has a very unique and poetic style of storytelling with the very well scripted voice over with nice breathing room and rhythmic; from the sound of the main character that tells the story combined with the beautiful cinematic shot of the pictures, and minimal camera movement. These things are not very common in most documentary films which tend to be a run and gun style and handheld styles. So, this film stands out for me. And that is what I really love about this film, ‘Broken.’ So, the film, can take the audience to witness the main characters experiences deep into the emotional events of what happened to them in their lives. And I think that this is one reason why this film stands out for me because the director has decided not to tell the story through a typical structure which is usually you tell that this is a story about who, about what happened, when did that happen: the director decides to leave out this information. But rather than focus on the subject’s experience, what had happened to this and how do they feel. So, since it is a short documentary, we don’t have to have to know when this story happens in the timeline of their life. So, I think that it is a smart decision to make this story stand out. And another very significant aspect of this film is the work of cinemaphotography. Congratulations to the director and the director of photography. They did a very good job to try to convey the story by not deciding to show the re-enactment of the event, but rather use the visuals that the audience can interpret through their own interpretation which I love so much. For example, a scene that I still remember is the main character, the girl where she lies under the river, and we see that she is holding her breath under the water current that goes through her. So that this scene is such a good example of how the filmmaker or director can visualize and use pictures to tell the story rather than rely on the voiceover. So that is what I really like in this documentary that was very much fun to watch. So congratulations to the film directors and ‘broken’ again and it is such a pleasure to watch this film.

1. The first thing that is striking is the scene where a woman is talking with her head turned to the side with her daughter behind her plucking out her gray hair. This is a common scene of intimacy between women in Vietnam. Men probably don’t do this. It is an act that symbolizes intimate relationships between women.
2. As can be seen from the documentary, this is a family story told by women. The main character’s mother’s side of the family is related through letter exchanges and online interviews, but only the female narrator appears in the film. For several reasons, the men in the family have already passed away. Some of them are old and have died while being cared for by others, while some other boys died at a young age. Of course, there are many women who have died as well. This work is made up of various images superimposed onto the narratives of the women who survived and those who cared for them.
3. The setting for this documentary is Da nang in central Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Compared to North Vietnam, where a Confucian and male-centered family system is strongly established, I get the impression that in Southern Vietnam, the status of women in family relationships and networks among women are relatively strong. In the North, you still must have a son for funerals and other things. However, in this documentary, both daughters and granddaughters play an important role in funerals, handling remains and incense burners. Of course, this is because the men have passed away, but at the same time, I feel as if I am seeing an aspect of Vietnamese society that is culturally diverse. Perhaps this is also the influence of Buddhist beliefs. A family in which only the daughter survived must have had many difficulties even in southern Vietnam.
4. For those who have never seen a funeral in Vietnam before, they might be surprised, so I will offer a brief explanation. Mourners and attendees pay for a band or theater performers to come to the funeral as a kind of votive performance. This custom is common in southern Vietnam. It is one that is rarely seen in the North. This may sound very festive, but it is simply a dedication for condolences. This is a custom common to the South and it is rarely seen in the North. I think this documentary film has value commenting on local culture and captures aspects of modern customs and practices.
5. What surprises me is that people who are dying or have died are captured very closely through photos and videos. Some of these images are somewhat grotesque to my senses as someone living in Japan, where death is kept at a distance from daily life. However. I think it shows that Vietnamese people continue to deal with death in their daily lives. Incidentally, in the south, it is quite common to see funerals being recorded. I think this is so that those who couldn’t attend can watch them later. People are happy to watch wedding films repeatedly, but what about funerals?
6. As I just mentioned, in Japan, there aren’t many opportunities to face death up close. If the director(s) had the chance to do so, I would love for them to take pictures and stories of families and death in other countries, including Japan. Overseas, it would be difficult to record the life and death stories of people who are not our family members, however I am sure that they would be able to produce a good work through comparison with Vietnam. Please try to do so.

“August Letters” is a documentary that contemplates “death and life” through video letters exchanged between Ha and Chi (the filmmakers) in August 2021, when Vietnam was under a lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. It is an excellent work with multiple messages woven in.

While Ha plucks out her mother’s gray hairs and Chi is on a video chat with her mother, they hear stories of their own families’ death and life and share them with each other. Pictures and images shown in the documentary make us realize that the current COVID-19 crisis is not something completely new but one calamity among many repeated since times past.

With Ha’s family story, they repeatedly talk about those who got sick due to uncertain causes, and no one knows how to give an appropriate treatment and even after this they pass away. This overlaps with the situation today, where people have no idea how to cope with an unknown Coronavirus.

While the film presents colorful and bustling images of funeral services in Vietnam, it also shows scenes of the funerals in silent black and white. The images of a bereaved family in white clothes remind us of the medical personnel clad in protective suits of the same color during the pandemic.

In the film, they say the image of displaced workers going home due to the COVID crisis is reminiscent of the old days, when people escaped the town to return to the countryside at the end of the war. With such remarks, the film implies that the pandemic is an extension of disasters that have been repeatedly experienced by families and societies, even though it might be something unprecedented for the mankind.

Putting aside the issue of the pandemic, “August Letters” discusses the theme of “death and life” over topics such as whose graves will be close to their future graves, as well as giving birth to and raising children. In a conversation with her mother, Ha is concerned about the location of graves and whose will be built close to whose. This is raised as a question of where her mother wishes to be buried and suggests that Ha is interested in knowing whose grave will be near to hers.

On the other hand, in a conversation between Chi and her mother, they repeatedly talk about having and raising children. From what Chi’s mother says we can see that she is expecting her to have and raise a child.

Caring about one’s burial or giving birth to a child are issues that relate to the succession of the family. At first glance, such concerns may look like reflecting strong constraints from the succession of the family in present-day Vietnam. However, as a whole, the film seems to convey a message that in matters of graves or raising children, there is no need to be bound by family, and yet, it is possible to pass down the proof of their lives to the next generation.

Ha uses beans to show her family line, which reminded me of Mendel’s law, stating that traits of parents are passed on to children. What is emphasised here is the importance of family lineage. On the other hand, there is a scene of harvesting home-grown bean sprouts at the end of the film. It says beans of an unknown origin would not sprout, but their shoots are growing well. It implies that, as humans, even with uncertain family lineages, we can grow up to be mature persons.

Furthermore, Ha and Chi managed to produce this film in collaboration, even though they could not meet each other in person due to the current crisis. The fact that they created something new in collaboration -creating a work through collaboration- is one way to pass on a trace of our lives to the next generation.

These messages about family succession embedded in the documentary appear to be a quite challenging or a cutting-edge way of thinking. I wonder if this view is widely accepted in Vietnam today, or if Ha and Chi tried to suggest a different idea through this film because there are strong constraints on the succession of the family. I would like to hear about how this work could be related to the situation in present-day Vietnam.

Greetings, my name is Misaki Iwai, professor at Kanda University of International Studies.
　　Today, I would like to raise a few points of consideration concerning the selected Vietnamese documentary Madam Liên's Factory (Trại ghe của Bà ba Liên). The main character of this documentary, Madam Liên, who was 75 years old as of 2020, is the owner of an old shipyard in Can Tho, a major city along the Mekong Delta that has been left behind by the waves of the times. I’d like to refer to James Scott’s concept of the “weapons of the weak*” to interpret the relationship between Lien and local government officials.
Lien is a frank and open-minded person, yet on the other she has shown to be smart, wise and this is reflected in the way she lives.
Firstly, there is the stance she has taken on her refusal to give in to the repeated demands of local officials to confiscate the family shipyard since “liberation” of the South. Lien’s family was labeled “capitalist” because of a seemingly anti-nationalist refusal to comply with the officials’ demands. Yet, this was nothing more than resistance to a threat to their survival. She describes herself and her workers as a “living community,” without which they could not survive. Her relationship with them which dates back three generations to her grandfather’s and is one of mutual solidarity.
The other is a commitment to comply with state policy and to contribute to the local community as a “good citizen.” In the documentary, Lien shows a number of certificates and medals, along with family photos, among which two prominently stand out. One is an award from the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, an official mass movement, for “contributions to national unity” as an overseas Vietnamese in the United States. The other was presented by a central organization in recognition of her efforts in founding the local women’s union.
　If she had been an “anti-communist,” she would not have been allowed to take part in such local social activities under the present regime. Nor would it have been possible for her to receive a certificate or medal for her work. In fact, she doesn’t seem to have cared much about “honors” herself, having burnt her own certificates and lost her medals.
　I would like to consider the implications of these two seemingly contradictory actions. She had silenced local government officials by explaining to them that

1. The shipyard provides employment opportunities for local people.
2. Employment security contributes to social order and national security by avoiding social unrest that is caused by drugs and gambling.

In other words, by arguing that keeping her possession of the shipyard was in line with the state’s social policy, she has successfully fended off repeated harassment from local officials. What was important for her was to defend the shipyard through such social activities and not be isolated in the community. To put it in other words, we can say she had succeeded in dispossessing the powerful of their “weapon” (that is “beating them at their own game”) by arguing what was appropriate for national policy as a weak individual. This is because local government officials cannot go against such state policy.
Finally, if I could ask the director some questions, I would like to ask about two enigmas that are not clear in this documentary. The first is about the life of Lien, a former overseas Vietnamese in the US. When did she go to the US, what was her life like, and when did she return home? Another one is her married life. She has several children, including Kiệt, but there is no mention of the father (or husband). Did she talk about these two issues, but for some reason were they later cut out of the documentary or were they left out from the very beginning (or carefully avoided)?

*James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Resistance. 1985. Yale University Press.

Madame Lien’s factory is a touching a sensitive documentary about a grandmother who is about to give up her shipbuilding factory. She has gone through so much in life and it takes courage in her feistiness and determination to fight for a small business which has been accused by the Vietnamese government at an early time by the communist regime to be a capitalist business. But she was able to fend off those who were interested in the family company and as we watch the documentary unfold, the story of the factory - this has been a business that has been handed over through generations- and it has sustained a community of workers who have been supporting this family. The film is not just about a woman who tries to fight greater forces in her society, but it is also about the very humanity of supporting one another, of loving one another, of caring for one another. But, with the theme of this project, which is about life and death, this is such a poignant story about somebody who has lived throughout her life and continued the legacy of her family to help other people. But now that she is facing courageously the end of her life, we see that with her end will be the downfall of this family business and with it the entire fabric of society will be disturbed, will be fractured, and like all things in life, they will come to an end.

Greetings, my name is Ayumi Mitsunari. I conduct research on Islamic family law and the social status of women in contemporary Malaysia. I would like to comment from the perspective of a researcher who has spent some time in Malaysia.

This documentary was shot in a care home for elderly Malays who have reached the twilight years of their lives. In Malay society, there is the belief that when one reaches old age, they will be taken care of by children or relatives. This documentary depicts the daily lives of elderly Malays who, for various reasons, cannot be taken care of by family. They share a large room with others in a similar situation and are cared by others.

Malaysia, the backdrop for this documentary, is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society made up of Muslim Malays and non-Muslims of Chinese and Indian origin. Although Muslims make up about 60% of the population, they are not the overwhelming majority. Rather, different religions have their own ways of life with their own religious facilities and places to live and eat that are suited to their religious cultures and this naturally leads to some forms of separation.

There is a narrative about setting up a care home for Muslims because such don’t exist, and this narrative is based on a necessity that arises from everyday Malaysian thinking where food, clothing, and shelter should be separated according to religion.

While aging and being cared for by others is a universal theme in the modern world, this documentary brought into relief that there are many issues and points that are unique to Malay society. The film was very graphic in its presentation of the daily lives of Malays who receive care from others, and this was enough to capture the positive aspects of daily activities and practices.

There is one scene where an elderly female resident needs help from the staff to put on a sarong and a scarf to cover her hair and this shows how Malay women need help to groom themselves to go out, something that is not usually seen or involves others. Another scene with a female resident doing exercises accompanied by a young male trainer is one of everyday care, yet it came across as quite exceptional in regard to both relationships and distance between a man and a woman who are not relative.

In this documentary, the recipients of such care are a diverse mix of those who do not have a safety net to begin with, such as those who are single and have no relatives and includes those who have children or relatives but can’t receive care. The portrayal of the latter shows that they are seen as particularly pitiful people.

For example, there is one scene that focuses on a woman who has been abused by her daughter and another where a man cries when his son comes to see him. The opening music and the drooping residents at the beginning of the film seems to portray old age in a negative light. However, from the middle of the film onwards, the focus shifts to the cheerful faces of the staff and residents, and a frank manner of speaking, which can be taken as a criticism of society’s negative perception of ageing.

It is the narrative of the woman who runs the care home that made the biggest impression on me in the latter half of the documentary. The backgrounds of the elderly people living in the care home came out in the conversation with her and this was very interesting.

At first glance, these stories seem to reinforce the image of poor elderly persons: those abandoned by families, abused, and with no-one paying a visit. Yet, the people who are talking don’t appear to be so sad. The woman who runs the care home speaks in a calm, matter-of-fact manner, as if she were substantiating what has happened. In this way, by confirming the individual stories of how they came to be there together over the years, I thought that it was quite normal to be a community in a home.

I also felt that this scene showed not the loss of being unable to find a place in the family due to old age, but the healthiness of such a person being positioned again in the care home, and because of this, I didn’t feel so despondent from the middle part of the documentary.

Another thing that struck me was the prayer scene. In a mosque, men and women usually have their own separate prayer rooms, so I got the impression that the men would be in front and women at the back praying in the same space, similar to how families do this. It seemed that even if the residents were strangers, they had become a community -if not a family- through worshipping together in one space. And in addition to the religious rituals, there were also several scenes where the staff and residents danced, sang, and did physical activities together and there were phrases such as “no one else is coming, only our people," which made me think that the care facility is a “home.”

Totally, the images themselves are very powerful and the work is captivating, but as I mentioned above, I was slightly confused as to what was the overall message the documentary was putting across. If I had an opportunity to do so, I would like to ask the director about the message of this film. Thank you.

I have mainly done cultural anthropological research in Thailand. Recently, I have been conducting research on aging and care in Northern Thailand, and as part of my research, I have been visiting elderly care facilities in Thailand. Director Lily Fu has been involved in elderly care in Malaysia for a long time, and I felt that she has accurately captured the various scenes of daily life in the elderly home. In developed countries in Europe and the U.S., there has been a lot of awareness and discussion about senior citizen facilities for about 50 years, including books and videos. However, some of you may not be so aware that in Southeast Asia, the population is also aging rapidly in many countries. In fact, in many of the Southeast Asian countries which have sent care workers to Japan too, elderly care is becoming an issue. In this sense, this documentary is a valuable witness to this issue. I will talk about three things that I noticed from this film, comparing it to the elderly homes in Thailand that I have researched, and finally, I would like to ask some questions.
Firstly, one thing that strikes me is the overwhelming number of women who are residents in this home. Looking at the statistics in both Thailand and Malaysia, the number of elderly people who are single, living alone, or have no relatives is gradually increasing, but among them, women are by far the more numerous. For example, according to a survey in Thailand, the percentage of elderly men living with their wives is high, while the percentage of women living with their husbands is half of that. The reasons for this are that women have a longer life expectancy than men, their age at marriage is lower, and there is a negative view of women remarrying at an older age. In addition, the fact that women in this age group have less education and find it difficult to find work may further contribute to their poverty. At the homes in Thailand where I was conducting research, there were women who had given up their homes to relatives and had no place to live, and women who had been kicked out by their husbands who invited another woman into their homes. In this way, gender is an important factor in the problems of the impoverished elderly.
The second is relationships with family, which seems to be one of the important themes of this work. In Thailand, a basic sense of life has always been that family and relatives take care of the elderly. It is natural to repay the debt of gratitude to the older generation that raised us, and it is especially desirable for the elderly who are nearing the end of their lives to depart for the afterlife in a familiar home surrounded by their descendants, and this is considered the duty of the child generation. Conversely, it is considered outrageous to let them die in a place surrounded by strangers. However, even in Thailand, in recent years, the number of facilities for the elderly requiring nursing care has been increasing, especially in cities and suburbs. At the elderly homes I visited, the director and staff often raised an eyebrow and said, “These days, more and more children do not want to take care of their parents.” With a declining birthrate, aging population, and increasing average life expectancy, I think the management feels that there are more and more cases of children who are unable to take care of their parents for various reasons. Also, for middle-class elderly people in the cities surrounding the facility, I often encountered the response that the elderly home was a place for “poor elderly people without relatives,” and that they were afraid to go near it to be reminded of the horror of being abandoned by their children. There is no doubt that the first thing that comes to mind among the general public regarding such facilities, whether in Thailand or Malaysia, is why the family is not taking care. In fact, the perceptions of the elderly residents themselves varied widely. Some of them talked about their children with pain, and for some the pain was apparent when they declared they did not want to talk about it. However, in more instances, they have made up their minds on how to talk about their children, such as in this film too where the old woman says she doesn’t want to be a burden to her children. It seemed that at least for many of the elderly residents, talking about their children and family was not their daily concern.
What then was the daily concern among the elderly residents? This is my third point. The most memorable scene in this film for me was where the residents were learning the Qur’an. I thought that the elderly residents showed the most serious and lively expression there. At a facility I visited in Thailand, 90% of the residents were Buddhists, and they seemed to be taking every opportunity to practice towards a better life after death, such as reciting sutras in front of a small Buddha statue every day, meditating, reading books on Buddhism, and giving alms to the monks who pass by every morning. In something I have read about Malaysia, it mentioned that the Pondok, a dormitory for the study of Islam, has seen an increase in the number of elderly people living there in recent years. An overwhelming number among them are elderly women, not a few of whom are lacking care from their families, and they are gathering at the Pondok as a place to spend their old age while practicing religion. The facility in this work is not a pondok, of course, but it shows that the study and practice of Islam is an important opportunity for the elderly.
I would like to ask you the following two questions to the director: 1) In your self-introduction, you wrote about "Aging in place". What kind of “place” is this home for the resident elderly? 2) What do you think is the best form of elderly care in Malaysia into the future?