Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky’s documentary, Manufactured Landscapes (2006), did a wonderful job depicting the brave new world of large-scale manufacturing in the early 2000s, particularly in China, with its acres of space, armies of workers and miles of assembly lines stretching out nearly to infinity, producing consumer goods for everyone on Earth.

Ascension, the highly watchable new doc by Chinese-American filmmaker Jessica Kingdon, could almost be seen as a sort of sequel to that earlier film—except that it concerns itself exclusively with China.

We could all learn a lot about how the world functions by watching this narration-less movie. Director/film editor/co-cinematographer Kingdon arranges it in three parts, beginning with a montage portrait of factories where workers create an endless supply of products. Everything we see is a real-life component of the “Chinese Dream” economy: recruiting on a city street —$2.99/hour “sitting work;” a parade of merchandise—smartphones, car accessories, vape pens; rules for prospective workers—“No ear studs for men,” “No tattoos;” high-tech public infrastructure and billboard slogans—“Work hard. And all wishes come true.” Not to mention free public bicycles by the thousands.

The pace never lets up. Workers sort duck parts in a poultry plant. A woman with bandaged fingers punches out plastic fittings. Acres of disposable plastic bottles are readied for use. And, of course, the plastic waste load is tremendous. The effect of witnessing all this vigorous industriousness is hypnotic, especially when accompanied by Dan Deacon’s urgent synthesizer and string music.

Included are some telling differences between Chinese and American business standards. 

“Why don’t you ever buy the boss lunch?” asks a supervisor to a laborer. Try to imagine that exchange in a U.S. factory. In one workplace, employees talk of a haunting, suggesting maybe the boss’s feng shui sword will keep the ghosts away. An argument over hours worked takes place on the floor of a clothing assembly line. A textile foreman urges workers: “Don’t get your slobber on it. Work faster! No more chit-chat!” A load of scarves gets appliqués announcing: Keep America Great. A morning pledge of allegiance to the company, recited by uniformed employees, takes place in front of one manufacturing plant. Other workers perform calisthenics in military fatigues. We begin to wonder how higher-paid, more skilled employees are treated.

Maybe the scene at a specialized type of plastic fabricator answers that question. Here’s how to build a mannequin, starting with a metal skeletal structure, to which is added a variety of plastic physical characteristics. It soon becomes obvious that the workers, all women, are in fact creating sex dolls, anatomically correct—to a degree—female figures with vaginas, absurdly nipped-in waists and enormous, cartoon-like breasts. Some actual artistry is involved—“Come, paint the areola for your own doll,” urges the supervisor. Facial features are painted by hand, heads adorned with colorful wigs. Again, an inquiring mind might speculate ironically: Could a version of these puppets be programmed to perform factory jobs? Or perhaps even to become government operatives? The documentary never overtly editorializes, but the ironies are inescapable.

After observing conditions in Chinese factories, it’s almost a relief to move up the socioeconomic ladder and see people training to sell some of these products to the country’s burgeoning middle class. Yes, there are influencers at work in the Mandarin-speaking internet, primped and drilled to the max. Security guards and waitpersons, same deal. Courses are conducted with Western table manners.

And then a glimpse of life at the top of the heap, China’s moneyed leisure class, with golf driving ranges, shopping malls, water parks and video games. As befits a society of 1.4 billion souls, everything is done en masse. China, once upon a time portrayed as starving, seems to be putting on weight. And it’s intensely aware of the U.S., including comparative rates of consumption. Let’s remember that on our next trip to Shanghai.

In between sweeping scenes above the rooftops of Jerusalem—beyond the golden Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall’s limestone ashlars—cameras capture images of men, women and children living amongst barbed wire, assault weapons, protest signs and megaphones, documenting Palestinians and Israelis’ struggle to call the land home. 

Watching news headlines in recent months, Bob Gliner, a documentarian and San Jose State University professor emeritus of sociology, realized these same clips also appear in “Jerusalem: The Bridge to Peace,” a documentary he helped produce three decades prior.

Upon this realization, he hastily dug up, dusted off and delivered the original 1991 tapes to be digitized.

“I wanted to bring the show back out because it’s only gotten worse—the only thing that’s changed is the timing,” Gliner says.

“Jerusalem: The Bridge to Peace” will now re-air this week on KQED—30 years after the one-hour special first ran on KTEH, San Jose’s public access television station at the time.

Roy Gordon, a Palo Alto-based organizer turned-interviewer, says the memories captured in the film remain acutely relevant without permanent resolutions in sight.

“The goal was really to find out what people were thinking, whether people had hope for solutions to the problem and whether people were trying to make things happen, or whether they were just watching things happen,” Gordon says, noting that passersby were almost always willing and anxious to speak. “We weren’t trying to make a documentary about the conflict. We were trying to make a documentary about the impact the conflict was having on the two societies.”

In between nights spent resting at the YMCA in Jerusalem, Gliner’s lightweight camera captured more than 60 hours of footage as half a dozen Bay Area volunteers arranged meetings with Palestinian and Israeli figure heads and civic leaders, as well as a slew of man-on-the-street interviews in Israel and the West Bank over the course of two weeks in January, 1991.

“When you actually see somebody talking, it contextualizes the words and messages the person is saying—hearing the anger in their voice and seeing their eyes and gestures,” Gliner explains. “That’s the career I’ve had: get people to open up about their situations, possibilities and what role people can play to help to solve issues of social justice and international conflict.”

“Bridge to Peace” sprouted out of the organization Beyond War—known today as Foundation for Global Community—established by a small group of ordinary people in Palo Alto who decided to try to make a change in the world.

The group brought together eleven prominent Palestinians and Israelis—sourced from years of tireless interviews with community members—to the small town of Ben Lomond, tucked away in the Santa Cruz Mountains, for five days of circle discussions and communal living with one goal in mind: develop a peace agreement. 

The conference allowed for people to meet, share personal stories and coexist peacefully outside of the Middle East. Even moments as mundane as washing dishes together allowed an Israeli general and a Palestinian liberation officer to realize they faced each other in battle.

“It was an incredible experience for both of them, and it totally humanized the conflict,” Gordon says. “There is a desire on both sides to end this, but nobody knows how to do it or what it takes—it’s a very challenging thing.” 

Gliner agrees: “The fact that they were able to come here to California and work out this peace agreement shows that peace is possible.”

But the duo admit playing the film back 30 years later is also tragic, seeing that more hasn’t changed. 

Gordon hopes that viewers witnessing the issues seen in modern headlines and social media feeds situated decades earlier will impart an increased urgency to work together—a lesson even more critical today alongside climate change, poverty and the pandemic. 

“For the sake of the young people, we have to provide them with a place and an environment that is helping them grow rather than helping them grow apart,” he says. “That’s the reality in Israel, and it’s the reality on the whole planet now: if we can’t work together with others, we will not survive.”

“Jerusalem: The Bridge to Peace” airs Monday night, Sept. 13, at 11pm on KQED, Sept. 14 at 5:00am, and on KQED Plus on Sept. 23 at 4pm, and Sept 25 at 7:30am.

Fruitvale Station, the film that details the last day of Oscar Grant’s life before he was shot and killed by a BART police officer, opened in theaters across the country this past weekend after premiering in select theaters earlier this month.

The film takes place on New Year’s Eve 2008-09, the night Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man, was shot and killed by a BART policeman in Oakland. Grant’s death and the ensuing investigation sparked protests in the Bay Area, as many felt he was targeted and eventually shot for being African American. The officer who killed Grant, Johannes Mehserle, was later convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, further enflaming racial tensions in Oakland and neighboring cities.

The day Grant was killed also happens to be the birthday of his mother, Wanda Johnson, a vocal critic of the verdict in Mehserle’s trial. After seeing the film, Johnson spoke with Metro about the film and how she appreciated the way it portrayed her son.

“When I saw it the first time at the Sundance [Film Festival], I was sitting right near the cast who acted in the movie, and they were just as nervous as I was,” Johnson said. “I cried. There was such a silence in the film, you could hear people sniffing and crying. It was very emotional.” At the end of the film, Johnson said, people hugged and tears flowed. “You went in one way and came out totally different when you left the theater.”

The cast and crew—Michael B. Jordan plays Grant, Octavia Spencer has the role of Johnson and Ryan Coogler directs—made it a priority to get to know Grant’s family prior to filming. The personal interactions led to what Johnson saw as a wonderful portrayal of her son, as if they knew him.

“They asked questions about Oscar, we shared about Oscar, his sister and his friends,” Johnson said. “I had dinner with Octavia, and Ryan came to a few of our family events.”

The film was accurate in terms of Oscar’s personality and his activities on that day, Johnson said, including the scene in which he purchased crabs for dinner and birthday cards that he and his family would give to Johnson. “He was the type to help people, whatever he could do to help you when you were down, he would do that,” she said. “The personality in the movie is him. It’s right on cue.”

A pivotal moment in the film is a conversation Grant had with his mother, when he realizes he needs to change the direction of his life. In the movie, Grant and Johnson have a conversation at San Quentin State Prison. But in real life, the conversation was over the phone, Johnson said. Regardless, the impact it had on Grant was the same.

“I talked to Oscar and said if he wanted to mess up his life, that was on him. But he had a fiancé and a daughter that needed him. I told him, when he was 18, the police were waiting for him,” Johnson said. “Once you mess up your name, you can’t get it back.” From that point on Grant tried to change the direction of his life.

“This film was intended for you to get to know who Oscar was. He may have had some struggles, but this was for you to get to know him,” Johnson said. “That night, those officers didn’t know him from you, and they shouldn’t have put their thoughts onto who they thought he was.”

Grant’s story has become especially poignant in the wake of the Trayvon Martin slaying, in which George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Martin, a 17-year-old African American boy in Sanford, Florida.

“The officer who shot my son was portrayed as a saint and instead of having Mehserle on trial, my son was on trial, and they did the same with Trayvon Martin,” said Johnson, who met with Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother. The two women talked about Martin’s case, and Johnson said she thought the justice system and some media outlets demonized Martin as they did Grant almost five years ago. Both women lamented the fact that two young men who shouldn’t have lost their lives are now dead.

“If we would just think, things would be different,” Johnson said. “Even with the Trayvon Martin thing, if Zimmerman had just thought, maybe that wouldn’t have happened to Trayvon. So, the judicial system needs to change.”

Johnson said she hopes more people will see the film and accept the message that people should think before they act.

“I am really very grateful that people will see the movie,” she said. “My prayer is that tons of people will see it and that a lot of police officers will see it so that they can think before they pull the trigger to kill someone.”