We have an opinion piece published in the Ithaca Journal.

2009/8/21

We have an article about filming in Japan published in Metropolis, Japan's biggest English language magazine.

2009/8/03

We have an in-depth write-up about the film published in the Tompkins Weekly (August 3-9). 

2009/07/26

We have a write up about our company and the film in the Lansing Star.

We have also been awarded a matching grant that will match dollar for dollar all donations received up to a total of $3000. 

2009/07/25

Our two tabling events on the Ithaca Commons were successful and we enjoyed meeting people from all over the community and telling them about the film.  Two students from Ithaca College (one in film and one journalism) volunteered to help staff the tables making it a real community event.  We would like to thank the Ithaca community for their support.

2009/07/22

Jesse was interviewed this morning on WHCU 870 AM radio, Ithaca, about Veverka Bros. Productions and "China: The Rebirth of an Empire."

2009/07/18

We will be holding two tabling sessions next week on the Ithaca Commons. The sessions will be an opportunity to learn more about the film, the connection between Chinese economic expansion, US economic trouble and human rights in China (including the Uyghurs and Tibet), as well as a chance to meet us, the filmmakers.  We will be holding the first session on Thursday, July 23 from 4PM to 9PM at the Cayuga St. Pavilion and on Saturday, July 25, from 12PM to 4PM at the Bernie Milton Pavilion on the Ithaca Commons, Ithaca, NY, USA.

2009/06/05

We have been approved for fiscal sponsorship by the International Documentary Association (IDA). The IDA is able to accept tax-deductable donations to the project on our behalf!

2009/06/03

Jesse gave a final presentation in Japanese at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language studies in Yokohama, Japan, about the film. The presentation focused on the role that the US and Japan have played in supporting China's economic growth.

2009/05/30

We interviewed professor Seiichiro Takagi of the School of International Politics, Economics and Communication at Aoyama Daigakuin in Tokyo's Shibuya district.  Professor Takagi expressed optimism with regard to China's economic and political development and further improvements in Sino-Japanese relations, however he also recognized the need for Japan to have a "Plan B" in the event that a future China became hostile. He referred to this strategy as engaging and hedging; engaging China economically and politically while hedging against the possibility of hostilities by maintaining and strengthening Japan’s military alliance with the the United States.

2009/05/18

There is a write-up about Jeremy in the Cornell Chronicle that mentions the film.

2009/05/12

We interviewed Professor Satoshi Amako of the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Japan's prestigious Waseda University about foreign relations between China and Japan and the challenges that lie ahead. Professor Amako generally believes that increased economic and political co-operation between the two countries are both possible and necessary. Photos Courtesy of Jiro Murata

2009/04/18

We have had a couple of articles published online about our interview with Chalmers Johnson here and here and a mention of the film in the Ithaca Journal.

2009/04/01

Jeremy will be speaking at the Tompkins County Public Library, Ithaca, NY on April 18th at 1PM and April 22nd at 6:30 PM about our experience in India.

2009/03/17

We interviewed Professor Chalmers Johnson, author of bestsellers "Blowback," "Sorrows of Empire," and "Nemesis," at his home in San Diego, CA. Dr. Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute. Professor Johnson discussed a wide range of topics including American empire and the country's economic decline, the hypocrisy of criticizing human rights in China, the Chinese economic growth model, and potential rise of a Sino-centric global power structure. Dr. Johnson will be appearing frequently throughout the film.

2009/02/26

We have been invited to attend ChthoniC's 2009 Free Tibet Concert in Taipei, Taiwan to be held in July of this year. (Right: Freddie Lim, lead vocalist of ChthoniC, TAIWANGUTS, August 2008.)

2009/01/03

We traveled to Washington, DC, to speak with exiled Chinese democracy advocate and political dissident Wei Jingsheng, at the Wei Jingsheng Foundation about various topics involving, China, human rights and trade. Mr. Wei placed particular emphasis on the intrinsic relationship between human rights and economic development in China. We next spoke with Ms. Rabiya Kadeer, at the Uyghur American Association. Ms. Kadeer is an prominent human rights advocate and exiled representative of the Uyghur people. Ms. Kadeer spoke openly about discriminatory policies against the Uyghur people by the Chinese government, including the official ban on use of their native language, a practice also employed by Imperial Japan in its colonies prior to World War Two. 

2008/11/22

2008/10/31

2008/7/12

Since our last update we have spent most of our time collecting China related footage and dodging bombs in the Pak/Afghan region.  Between a retaliatory suicide bomb in Lal Masjid (the red Mosque) in Islamabad on July 7 and a series of seven low-intensity bombs in Karachi on July 8 we have certainly been in the vicinity of danger.  However, it was the bombing in Kabul, on the morning of July 8, that would serve as an unforgettable experience for all of us.  An account that Jeremy has written follows below  (please note that some of the attached images are graphic in nature) 8:40 am. I awake suddenly to the thunderous boom of lighting striking a few yards away. The windows rattle, and I hear the sound of shattering glass, the shards cascading on the street below.  My brother Jesse is already sprawled down, taking cover on the floor. There are no thunderstorms this time of year in Kabul. What I’ve just heard was a suicide bomb. A big one, by the sound of it, and not far from the hotel I am staying at. My first thought is to grab my camera and run to the scene as quickly as possible. In a flash of adrenaline we pull on our pants and grab our gear. From the rooftop of the Mustafa Hotel, I can see black smoke rising from the vicinity of the Indian Embassy on Interior Ministry Road, toward Shahr-e Nau Park.  In the unsettling silence that follows before the police and emergency personnel go crazy, I reflect on the terrible loss of life that has just occurred in a single instant. On the street there is chaos. People are shouting and running. Some toward the blast site—police, journalists, concerned bystanders—while others are running away from the horrific epicenter. Some are covered in blood, clutching their hands to their wounded bodies and are heading for the nearby Jamhuriat Hospital. Ambulances and police trucks fill the air with the crying of their sirens as they speed down the road toward the Indian Embassy. The police struggle to control the crowds that have spilled out into the streets, yelling orders for pedestrians to stay away, occasionally resorting to physical force. Even the journalists aren’t being allowed past Chicken Street. I see an ambulance racing toward the hospital, its back door flung open, and I ready my camera to shoot its interior. Inside, lie people covered in blood, there limbs twisted and flung in unnatural positions. As I hit the shutter release, I realize that these people are already dead. Inside the hospital gates the dead and wounded are unloaded on bloodstained stretchers. Another journalist tells me that they have brought 41 people, two of which have already died. They will not be the last. Outside the hospital a woman is screaming. She picks up a rock from the street and hurls it a man with a camera.  She shouts at a group of journalists to get away, and as they retreat to a safe distance, she gives chase wielding a water bottle as a makeshift club from which Jesse narrowly escapes. This manifestation of anger is her way of coping with the loss of a loved one. A man who works for a French press agency suggests that we try a second attempt on the police line, in hopes of getting closer to the embassy. Our assault is successful, and a group of us manage to head up Chicken Street and left down a side street, circumambulating the blockade. Emerging on the other side of embassy, we get a better view of the destructive force of the blast. The twisted metal structure of a nearby building has had all of the glass blown out on the street, the shards obscured by the leaves and branches of felled trees. Mangled cars are already being hoisted on to trucks by heavy equipment, and as a truck passes, I notice the blood smeared on the driver side door. Soon a dump truck arrives loaded with workers in orange jumpsuits. They unload wheelbarrows and shovels, and head towards the embassy, to begin the task of cleaning up the smaller debris. I reflect that in many countries, the site of attack such as this would be treated as a forensic investigation. It would be cordoned off and painstakingly deconstructed until every last piece of evidence was examined and the who, why, and how determined. But here, the city of Kabul is mobilized with speed and efficiency to clean up the debris, put the pieces back together, and move on. As I walk back toward Chicken Street around noon, I see a shopkeeper cleaning up glass with his hands outside his store. Nearby a butcher skins a recently slaughtered sheep.  For Kabul, it seems to be back to business as usual. The way this city can recover so quickly from such a terrible event is both astonishing and heartbreaking.  Ironically, the Jamhuriat Hospital were many of the dead and wounded were taken was a development project by the Chinese government for the Afghan people. 
 

2008/6/29

We are writing this message from the Rose Hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan, insulated from the 40°C (104°F) weather by a clunky Pakistani air conditioner operating at the mercy of the country’s frequent power outages. It’s been just over a month since we started our main production phase and things have been progressing smoothly. After Jeremy met Jesse in Tokyo at the end of last month we have traveled together with Sam (our third crew member) from Japan, to South Korea (Pusan, Daejon and Seoul) , China (Weihai, Beijing, Urumqi, Kashgar and Tashkurgan) to Pakistan (Karimabad,  Gilgit, and Peshawar) and have  conducted some very interesting interviews and gathered some great footage along the way. To mention just some of the highlights: We interviewed a policy advisor to the former president of South Korea (President Roh) on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the role China plays in political and trade negotiation on the Korean peninsula. In China we talked with the general manager of a publicly traded American consumer glassware company that recently opened a state-of the-art factory in China about China’s growing consumer market. We also spoke with a Chinese environmental lawyer, fighting for the rights of peasants in China’s “Cancer Cities,” who has successfully sued local Chinese governmental entities for better enforcement of China’s heretofore paper environmental protections.  In Pakistan we had the pleasure of talking with Chinese goods traders along the Karakorum Highway (connecting China and Pakistan), and Afghan Refugees and a local tribal chief in the North West Frontier Province about their views on China and the US as competing super-powers with influence in the region. Tomorrow we are flying to Kabul, Afghanistan. (We had planned to cross by land over the Khyber Pass, but due to recent military operations by the Pakistani Army against tribal “miscreants” in the Khyber area, we’ve had to alter our mode of transport.) In Afghanistan we are planning to explore the development and effects on the local populace of a Chinese-run copper mine in Aynak, an area that is said to boast the greatest proven copper deposits in the world.  The Chinese sponsored development projects related to the mine will have far reaching effects on Afghanistan and the surrounding region. Afghanistan promises to be an exciting stop on our journey before we continue onward to India and Nepal where we will investigate China-related topics in those countries.