WIDE ANGLE multimedia producer Renee Feltz speaks about the loss of GM jobs in Pontiac with 36-year GM veteran worker, Brian Larkin. Larkin is Vice President of the United Auto Workers Union Local 594. He discusses how GM has employed his family for generations, the end of production of the iconic Pontiac brand of cars, and what the loss of GM jobs will mean for workers in Pontiac and the town itself.

Click here to listen to the interview:

I’m Irish, but I’ve lived away from the country for almost ten years. This has helped me recognize what is special about the people there.

The thing that struck me most about the workers at Waterford Crystal was their good humor at a time when they were under immense financial and emotional pressure. Even when things were at their worst the workers, who were not far from retirement, would joke about things like retraining as a pilot or an astronaut. There was constant storytelling and banter as well as endless cups of tea.

We spent most of our time with three men who had worked at the crystal factory since they were teenagers: Tom Power, Ian Paul and Liam O’Rorke. After forty years of hard but rewarding work, they were looking forward to a comfortable retirement for themselves and their families. But all of this has changed.

Such tragedy is now a common global problem, but meeting tragedy with humor is something quintessentially Irish. It may be a small thing, but I think it’s another piece of our cultural heritage worth holding on to.

Lauren Kesner

One of the first people I met when I arrived at the Waterford Crystal Visitor’s Center was Tom Power, a master glass cutter who had spent four decades with the company. He had also helped to lead an eight-week long sit-in to protest the factory’s closing. Power brought me to see his cutting station, switched on the engine, and demonstrated how he carved perfectly symmetrical patterns into glass.

Later that day, he brought us into the empty gallery store, lined with shelves of delicate vases, bowls and glasses and showed us a table where master craftsmen like himself had formerly autographed the crystal pieces for tourists. It turned out that Power was not only a skillful class cutter but also an ambassador of the historic Waterford Crystal brand. For years, he has traveled throughout America setting up tables at department stores where he would explain the crystal making process.

Sitting in the empty store, at an empty desk, it was clear Power wanted to tell the story of Waterford Crystal before it was too late. Fewer workers were showing up at the sit-in, and maybe he sensed the end was near. Like somebody recording a family history, he relived the glory days of learning and perfecting his craft, of cutting Super Bowl trophies, and of the friendships he made traveling across America.

Power’s pride was palatable. It made me want to buy my first piece of crystal, but the gallery store was closed. After the factory tour and glass cutting demonstration Power thanked me for having recorded his last and final cut.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/raise-the-last-glass/filmmaker-notes/4899/feed/ 1 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/field-trip-to-the-dmz/introduction/4529/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/field-trip-to-the-dmz/introduction/4529/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:20:37 +0000 lauren feeney http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4529 Up to 100,000 defectors have fled hunger and political repression in North Korea since a devastating famine in the 1990s. But the border between North and South Korea is impenetrable — the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, separating the two countries is dotted with landmines, bunkers, and nearly a million troops. Defectors’ only way out is to escape across North Korea’s border with China, and from there travel clandestinely to other countries in search of asylum. Along the way, they must live in hiding and work illegally, with constant fear of arrest and repatriation to North Korea, where defection is punishable by torture, labor camps, and even possible execution. For many defectors, the goal is to reach South Korea, where North Koreans are automatically granted citizenship.

FOCAL POINT trains its lens on one of the 15,000 North Korean defectors who have made it to South Korea. Twenty-year-old Haejung (not her real name) was smuggled out of North Korea some years ago in the hope of a better life — leaving her family behind. She now attends Hangyeore High School, a special boarding school an hour outside of Seoul, founded in 2006 to help North Korean teens adjust to life in the South. Most of the school’s 240 students are separated from one or both of their parents back in the North, with little hope of ever seeing them again. They experience severe culture shock transitioning from one of the world’s most isolated Communist states to one of the most technologically and economically advanced societies. The school tries to fill both the emotional void and the cultural gaps. The students eat, sleep, and study on campus. The teachers live with them in the dorms, and many have training as therapists to provide psychological counseling. The curriculum includes everything from history to English to learning how to use a cell phone, computer or credit card. In Field Trip to the DMZ, the students make their annual trip to the border, and Haejung dreams of a time when her family and her homelands will be reunited.

Coming this summer, WIDE ANGLE tells the moving and dramatic stories of refugees crossing the North Korea-China border and the intrepid South Korean journalists who risked their lives filming with them undercover for almost a year.

Wide Angle’s web producer, Lauren Feeney, speaks with Bruce Klingner, the Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia and Expert on North Korea at The Heritage Foundation, about North Korea’s rocket launch, North-South relations, and the prospects for reunification, which is still an official goal of the South Korean government. Klingner spent 20 years working for the CIA, and from 1996-2001, served as the Deputy Chief of the CIA’s Korea Issue Group, advising the president on Korean issues.

Click here to listen to the interview:

EDITOR
Charlotte Mangin

PRODUCTION INTERN
Sunyoung Chon

TRANSLATOR
Hein Seok

FOR WIDE ANGLE

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Tom Casciato

SENIOR PRODUCER
Nina Chaudry

WEB PRODUCER
Lauren Feeney

ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Lauren Geller
Lucy Kennedy

BBC Country Profile: South Korea
Information about South Korea’s history, leadership, and media, with links to BBC stories on the country

New York Times: Topics
Links to archived New York Time’s articles about South Korea

CIA World Factbook: North Korea
Information on North Korea geography, people, military, and economy

BBC Country Profile: North Korea
Information about North Korea’s history, leadership, and media, with links to BBC stories on the country

New York Times: Topics
Links to archived New York Time’s articles about North Korea

The Economist: Special Report
Special report on the relationship between North and South Korea

North Korean Defectors Bewildered by the South
Washington Post article featuring Hangyeore High School

Ministry of Unification
Link to Ministry of Unification in Seoul, South Korea

I was Kim Jong Il’s Teacher – Then He Had My Family Killed
Article written by Kim Hyun Sik, a former tutor of Kim Jong Il

North Korea Freedom Coalition
Link to North Korea Freedom Coalition, a nonpartisan coalition founded in June 2003 to work for the freedom and human rights of the North Korean people

NorthKoreanRefugees.com
Organization dedicated to the support and protection of North Korean Refugees

Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights
The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights is a non-profit human rights, organization founded by human rights activists, intellectuals and North Korean defectors in May 1996

“Family” is the word that came to mind when I first met North Korean students at Hangyeore High School. This is the first time I had been so close to North Koreans in my life. They reminded me of my brother and sister — talking, eating, playing and laughing like my own family. In fact, we are one family that has been living in two different worlds, pointing guns at each other for nearly 60 years.

I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. Both of my parents were born on the north side of border but raised in the South. My grandparents were born and raised in the North but died in the South. The border established after the Korean War in 1953 separated ten million families. Many people have since passed away without having a chance to talk to their family members across the border. No wonder I felt the North Korean students were family, because, actually, any one of them could be one of my distant cousins.

The separation of families continues as North Korean defectors leave family and relatives behind to seek a better life in the South. Thus, this awful national tragedy of dispersed families continues to grow.

Nowadays, reunification is not a critical issue in South Korea. Most of the population born after the war does not have any relationship with the North. But every teacher and student in Hangyeore High School hopes and believes that the reunification of Korea will come sooner or later.

My uncle, who left his brother in the North, also believed that reunification would happen, until his death a couple of years ago. He was on the waiting list for the South/North Separated Family Reunion Meeting for a long time. He had lived his whole life with loss and regret over his brother. Before he died, he asked me to deliver a letter to his brother. I personally wish for the reunification of South and North Korea and an end to this national tragedy, regardless of whatever political or economic conditions reunification might bring. Then, I could deliver my uncle’s letter to his brother in person.

Micah Fink

It was a strange time to be in Seoul.

A few days before I arrived in early February 2009, North Korea unilaterally abandoned all peace agreements with the South and warned that growing tensions might lead to “uncontrollable and unavoidable military conflict and a war.” Over the next few weeks, the North Korean government began preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.

And yet almost no one I met in South Korea seemed particularly concerned.

Most of the people I encountered during my travels seemed utterly disinterested in what was widely dismissed as North Korean saber rattling.

Instead, what I did hear about, constantly, was the economy. South Korea has undergone an economic miracle of sorts over the last two generations — rising from the one of the world’s poorest countries to one of the wealthiest in just forty years. But that growth is dependent on global capital and global markets. And those markets are now in turmoil.

North Korea, it seems, is yesterday’s news here.

The reunification of Korea is further away today than it’s been for a generation — and outside of Hangyeore High School, few of the people I met seemed to mind.

“Reunification was very popular among young people about ten years ago,” one man in his mid-thirties told me, “but nobody is really interested in it now.” He then drew a parallel between the Koreas and Germany, remarking on how hard it had been for the West German economy to absorb the underdeveloped East after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was a story I heard several times, with most people adding that the gap between North and South Korea is many times greater than what it was in Germany.

“Reunification,” another South Korean told me bluntly, “might just ruin our economy.”

Ishan Khan was just a regular guy, an immigrant working as a taxi driver in Washington, D.C. Then he hit the jackpot, winning more than $30 million in a lottery. Most people daydream about what they’d do if they won the lottery. For Khan, this decision would have real consequences. Khan decided to return to his hometown of Batagram, Pakistan, and run for mayor. Days later, an earthquake struck, killing 70,000 people, 4,500 of them in Batagram. Now, as mayor of this economically devastated town, Khan has to govern a constituency that seems to believe that his money can solve all of their problems.

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Abigail Spindel

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Abid Shah

You Cannot Hide from Allah

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Petr Lom

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Said Umar Wazir

TRANSLATORS
Said Nuran Shah Nurani
Babar Khan

CONSULTING EDITORS
Nathaniel Dorsky
Jean Tsien

MUSIC
Sahib Gul

SPECIAL THANKS
Anna Contomitros
Pamela Kilpadi
Syed Mohammad Ali
Esther van Messel
Tauqir Shah
Gail Silva

SUPPORT FOR THIS FILM PROVIDED BY
Berlinale Talent Campus
Danida
Ford Foundation
Goethe Institute

STEPS International
ZDF Arte
and LomFilms

COMMISSIONING EDITOR
Anke Lindenkamp – ZDF

ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Meinholf Zurhorst
Hans Robert Eisenhauer

PRODUCER
Brian Tilley

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Don Edkins

FOR WIDE ANGLE/FOCAL POINT

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Tom Casciato

SENIOR PRODUCER
Nina Chaudry

WEB PRODUCER
Lauren Feeney

COORDINATING PRODUCER
Erin Chapman

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Lucy Kennedy

Zimbabwe is suffering from hyperinflation, chronic food shortages, and a cholera epidemic that has infected almost 70,000 people and killed more than 3,000 since August. Education is in a disastrous state, with 94 percent of rural schools closed as teacher’s complain that their meager salaries don’t even cover the cost of the bus ride to work. Unemployment is estimated at 90 percent. Tsvangirai and his arch-rival Mugabe must now work together to confront the massive humanitarian and economic crisis facing their country.

Underground Zimbabwe, a two-part FOCAL POINT feature, goes undercover with independent journalist and native Zimbabwean Robyn Kriel as she surreptitiously films what life has been like under President Robert Mugabe for activists, journalists, and the millions of Zimbabweans who go to great lengths to get food staples everyday.

In Zimbabwe’s Life Lines, Kriel examines Zimbabwe’s devastating food crisis. She meets with shop owners whose stores are empty and those who try to make a living from Zimbabwe’s thriving black market. In Demonstrating Under Dictatorship, Kriel follows the non-violent street protests of the 40,000 member strong activist group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA).