A loving moving film produced by THINKFilm in association with National Geographic and directed by Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorni, The Story of the Weeping Camel.

I saw this wonderful film on a DVD and I was so moved by it. The story drilled into my heart. Music can instantly make an animal weep and love her colt; can music soften human hearts so that finally all people in the world can live in harmony and peace. The love between human and animal and the nomad’s love of nature are clearly shown. I believe this documentary film will touch everyone’s heart.

The story is telling of a mother camel that rejects her own new born calf. Without the mother’s milk and care, the new born would die from isolation and hunger.

The camel belongs to a family of nomads who live in the Gobi dessert, they try music therapy on the mother camel and they call upon a musician who plays a Morin Huur (A string instrument with a trapezoid body, played with horsehair bow) to play a song and one of the family members sings along to mother camel. Hearing the music and song the mother camel is touched and her eyes fill with tears. Finally the weeping mother accepts the new born colt.

The nomadic people of Mongolia are self-sufficient people, they have their own view of life. As one of the directors Byambasuren Davaa said about the nomads and I quote “They don’t think about money. Their assets are the animals they have. They cherish nature, as they know that they depend on it, and they have a very strong connection with the animals. They understand that we, as humans, have to adjust to nature and not the other way around. That is the philosophy of the nomads.”

Visit:
www.weepingcamel.com
National Geographic’s Website: Weeping Camel
BBC Review of Weeping Camel

A documentary film “China Blue” was presented by The Vancouver 24^th International Film Festival in October, 2005.

Directed and produced by Micha Peled, the film was about a blue jean factory—Lifeng Clothes Co.,Ltd. in Shaxi [ 沙溪 ]. Guangdong province.[ 廣東 ]. The girl workers are forced to work 16 to18 hours a day or even 24 hours straight for three days as the shipment date comes closer. After days with no sleep, the young workers clip up their eyelids to prevent them from falling asleep.

The majority of workers are young females; they are as young as age 13. For workers under age of 16, they have to use false identities proving their legal age of 16. As the local Government and the representatives of International Labour Organizations come for inspection, the owner claims legally that they never hire a single child for labour in their factory

When a worker begins work in the factory, the first month wage will be held as a stake. This is an effective way of stopping labour turnover. The girls cannot just quit the job and go home, or go find another job. Workers get paid from the 2^nd month onward, but the wages are never paid on time; the actual day they get paid is 10 to 15 days after the specified payday, and in some cases, they don’t get paid for months. The wages are used most of the time as cash flow by the factory owner. It saves them interest that is incurred from using bank credit.

The factory owners have ways to boost the worker’s enthusiasm. They post huge slogans on the wall high in the stairwell where every girl passes. It is a cleverly worded sentence—“If you don’t work hard today, you’ll look hard for work tomorrow.” Which literally in Chinese are [ 今日不努力工作， 明天努力找工作 .] Anyone can easily understand the hidden message in these sentences. It is an equally an encouragement and threat.

The film also allows us to see the other side, the one of the owner, and how they make deals with the international giant importers who drive very hard bargains during negotiations.

As an example the film describes a blue jean negotiation. It begins with the factory owner, who is fearful of losing the big order and dares not to ask more than the market competitive price of $4.30 a piece, but the buyer only offers $3.90 a piece. (To my understanding the price is in U.S. dollars per pair of blue jeans.) They finally settle at $4.10. There is a twenty U.S. Cents difference; the factory owner then in turn passes down the price reduction to his workers by cutting labour costs to maintain his profit margin.

I worked in a garment factory years ago, as export manager and I fully understand all the operations and co-ordinations of all departments. During the last-minute rush to meet the shipment date, I tasted sleepless nights in helping all production lines flow; even all the personnel in the management had to help in ironing, folding, inserting into cellophane bags and finally into shipping cartons; the whole factory from top to bottom was like a mad house. I am so familiar of how the owner, every time a new order was accepted, cut down cunningly the piece workers’ wages. Eventually factory workers had to work harder and faster to earn the same amount of wages in a month. China Blue brought back memories of workers trying hard to maintain their income and the owners trying hard to maintain their profit margin. Without the cooperation of both sides, a factory cannot be possibly exist.

It is truly a compelling and honest documentary film that I highly recommended.

More at the Vancouver International Film Festival website.

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