Red Guards after The Cultural Revolution

10 May 2007 - China's staggering economic growth has overshadowed a more subtle shift in Chinese society. In domestic life, many women are now ignore the advice of their mothers and grandmothers, turning instead to counselling hotlines and, increasingly, divorce.

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.

Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China's first Internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China's first global Internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed and produced by an American who worked in Ma's company for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese Internet startup at a time when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West. Crocodile in the Yangtze draws on 200 hours of archival footage filmed by over 35 sources between 1995 and 2009. The film presents a strikingly candid portrait of Ma and his company, told from the point of view of an “American fly on a Chinese wall” who witnessed the successes and the mistakes Alibaba encountered as it grew from a small apartment into a global company employing 16,000 staff.

Railroad of Hope consists of interviews and footage collected over three days by Ning Ying of migrant agricultural workers traveling from Sichuan in China's interior, to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China's northwest frontier.[1] Through informal interviews aboard the cramped rail cars, Ning Ying explores the hopes and dreams of the workers, many of whom have never left their homes before.

More than two decades after it left our screens, BBC Two’s iconic and much-loved music documentary series, Rock Family Trees, is back for a one-off special. The iconic music documentary series returns to examine the real story behind the birth of Britpop and how a handful of like-minded musicians, struggling to find an authentic voice, would pave the way for a revolution in British music. It is an intricately connected story of three of the biggest bands of the 1990s – Suede, Elastica and Blur – and how, for a brief moment in the middle of that decade, they changed British music forever, kickstarting a movement that still reverberates to this day.

Undercover in Tibet reveals the regime of terror which dominates daily life and makes freedom of expression an impossibility. Tash meets victims of arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and ‘disappearances’ and uncovers evidence of enforced sterilizations on ethnic Tibetan women. He sees for himself the impact of the enormous military and police presence in the region, the hunger and hardship being endured by many Tibetans and hears warnings of the uprising taking place across the provinces now.

The story of a six year old boy from Phoenix, Arizona whose dreams of becoming a Kungfu master lead him to the birthplace of martial arts - the legendary Shaolin Temple in China. His father must now face a heartbreaking decision and follow his son to China leaving the mother behind in America... a choice few parents could ever imagine.

A Rebel Without a Cause for a new generation, and one of the most defiant children to ever grace the big screen, 14-year-old Hai is a teenage terror, a high school dropout and an all-around badass. He is also entirely irresistible. You cannot take your eyes off this kid, complete with a motorbike and an everpresent cigarette butt drooping from the corner of his mouth. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)

Lao Zha’s film examines rural life in Haiyuan County, in Ningxia Province. Unlike the rapidly globalizing urban centres, here life remains largely unchanged for the Hui people, a Muslim ethnic group, whose diverse cultural roots incorporate Arabic and Persian influences that arose out of the Hui’s proximity to the Silk Road. In a remote Hui village, a little boy named Huhu is growing up under the watchful eye of his grandparents, and, occasionally, his less-than-reliable mother. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)

In a quiet village in southern China, Fang Xiuying is sixty-seven years old. Having suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, with advanced symptoms and ineffective treatment, she was sent back home. Now, bedridden, she is surrounded by her relatives and neighbors, as they witness and accompany her through her last days.

An inside look at China working towards the goal of becoming a superpower by the year 2000 via education as the key to modernization. Filmed in Peking, on a rural commune in central China, and in the industrial northeast region, Jack Reynolds interviews Vice Premier Fang Yi and the president of Peking University, as well as students, workers, and peasants.