November 6, 2002
7:00 PM - Wednesday

96 minutes
Original Language: English subtitles accompanying several Burmese languages
Directors: Holly Fisher

KALAMA SUTTA: Seeing is Believing is a 96 minute video documentary in which a trip to Burma is transformed into a meditation on human rights and media. Burma (renamed by the military junta in 1990 to "Union of Myanmar") is ruled by a military dictatorship with one of the world's worst records on human rights. Hence, the restoration of democracy and peace as well as the protection of human rights are fundamental issues in this pristine country that has been isolated from outside influence for nearly four decades. A place where hill-tribes fetch water with hollow bamboo as the junta seeks to do business on the internet, Burma shows through startling contrasts how globalization impacts land and people. Our focus is on Burma, yet Burma also acts as a conduit to explore the impact of militarism, ethnic struggles, (neo-) colonialism, violence, and our common vulnerability in a globalized world.

More living history than travelogue, KALAMA SUTTA explores the gap between the Burma recently opened for tourist consumption and the other, hidden Burma off-limits to the visitor. In a country whose citizens can get long prison terms for possessing a fax or a computer modem, the reality one perceives as a traveler must be a distorted one. Three weeks traveling inside Burma confirmed that the only access to what was really going on was through secondary sources like conversations with refugees and exiles in the West; the internet; and assorted media. Never has so much information been available, at a time when it is equally possible for a tourist to savor The Golden Land without ever knowing about the "trouble in paradise".