AEMS | Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies at Illinois

AEMS Library bookshelves with a hanging scroll on the wall.

Overview

The Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS)’s mission is to promote understanding of Asian cultures and peoples and to assist educators at all levels, from elementary schools to colleges and universities, in finding resources for learning and teaching about Asia. AEMS is a program of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It offers a variety of resources to assist with the promotion of understanding of Asian cultures and peoples.

Please visit our website: aems.illinois.edu

AEMS Library

AEMS is a member of the Illinois Heartland Library System (IHLS), a consortium of over 500 academic, public, and special libraries serving central and southern Illinois. Patrons can access AEMS’s collection of high-quality videos and curriculum materials about Asia directly at our offices on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus or through other members of IHLS. The AEMS Library maintains a collection of high-quality DVDs, videos, and curriculum materials, as well as some CDs, traditional games, and newsletters. These are available for viewing or browsing in the library and for loan to IHLS patrons. The library is open to the public; university affiliation is not required.

Spring 2022 Library Hours: Closed

AEMS and the AEMS Library will be closed to the public following University of Illinois policy. Please contact ceaps@illinois.edu with any questions. We will resume activity in the coming future and thank you for your understanding. Public events have been cancelled as well. Please visit covid19.illinois.edu to see the latest university updates.

For appointments outside of these hours please email aems@illinois.edu

Graduate Assistant - AEMS Librarian: TBD

Phone:

Library Assistance: 217-333-9597

Additional Assistance: 217-333-7273

Address:

105 S. Gregory St.

Room 219 (second floor*)

Urbana, IL 61801

Parking:
Metered parking is available on Gregory Street

AsiaLENS Film Screenings

Since 2008 AEMS has been curating the ongoing documentary and independent film series AsiaLENS at the Spurlock Museum in Urbana. Each film is accompanied by a local or visiting expert who leads the audience in a post-screening discussion. All screenings are free and open to the public.

For full film descriptions, please visit: AEMS AsiaLENS and CEAPS event calendar

AsiaLENS Film Screenings of Spring 2023

AsiaLENS - “CHOSEN” (Film Screening & Discussion w/ Filmmaker Joseph Juhn)
Feb 14, 2023, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to the public

With only two Korean Americans elected to U.S. Congress since 1903, five Korean Americans run for U.S. Congress in 2020. CHOSEN offers a glimpse within the campaigns of these candidates with vastly diverse backgrounds and competing political views including David Kim, the only underdog with limited resources vying to be the first gay Korean American representative.

An award winning lawyer turned filmmaker, Joseph Juhn has a passion for telling diasporic narratives. His second feature documentary “CHOSEN” had its World Premiere at the Jeonju International Film Festival in May 2022. The complex dynamics of Korean American communities represented in the film will be further explored in our post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

(Joseph Juhn | 2022 | USA | 89 minutes)

Co-sponsored by Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

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AsiaLENS - “Alternative Facts: The lies of Executive Order 9066” (Film Screening & Discussion)
Mar 7, 2023, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*In-person event and post-screening discussion with Nikkeijin Illinois curator Jason Finkelman.

This documentary film sheds light on the people and politics that influenced the signing of the infamous Executive Order 9066 which authorized the mass incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans, and exposes the lies used to justify the decision and the cover-up that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

In today’s unsettling climate of fear, "fake news" and targeting of immigrant and religious communities this story is a cautionary tale about democracy in the United States and the dire consequences of allowing politics and misguided rhetoric drive decisions about public policy.

(Jon Osaki | 2019 | USA | 65 minutes)

Co-sponsored by Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

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AsiaLENS - “Far East Deep South” (Film Screening & Discussion w/ Filmmaker Baldwin Chiu)
Apr 11, 2023 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to the public

This award winning film exploring the seldom-told history of Chinese immigrants living in the American South during the late 1800s to mid-1900s presents a very personal and unique perspective on immigration, race and American identity.

When a Chinese-American man from California, travels to Mississippi to visit the grave of his father who abandoned him as a baby, he and his family stumble upon surprising revelations that change their lives. Along the way, they meet a diverse group of local residents and historians, who shed light on the racially complex history of Chinese immigrants in the segregated South. Their emotional journey leads them to discover how deep their roots run in America but how the Chinese Exclusion Act separated their family for generations.

(Larissa Lam and Baldwin Chiu | 2019 | USA | 76 minutes)

Co-sponsored by Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Fall 2022

AsiaLENS - BAATO (Film Screening + Discussion)
Sep 13, 2022, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to public

Baato tells the story of a young village family on an annual migration along the route of a coming transnational highway. Partially complete, the highway project will transform this roadless Himalayan valley permanently and open up a direct transport route between Nepal and China –bringing new challenges, new opportunities, and ultimately a new way of being to those who live along its path. The documentary is a visual feast that glimpses the effects of development and globalization from the perspective of those affected most directly –it is a journey through the heart of a changing Nepal.

(Lucas Millard, Kate Stryker | 2020 | Nepal, USA | 81 minutes)

Co-sponsored by Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

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AsiaLENS - “Jimmy In Saigon” (Screening + Discussion w/ Filmmaker)
Oct 11, 2022, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to public

Jimmy in Saigon is a feature documentary by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Peter McDowell and executive producer Dan Savage. Originally from Illinois, Peter chronicles the story of Jim, his eldest brother, and a Vietnam War veteran. In 1972, when Jim was 24 and Peter was only 5, Jim died under mysterious circumstances while living as a civilian in Saigon.

Through over 200 of Jim’s letters, candid interviews with Jim’s friends and family, and filming of the truth-seeking journey that led him across the United States, Vietnam, and France, Peter creates an elegiac work that examines grief, family secrets, war, drug use, sexuality, and healing, amounting to a celebration of a short but powerful life.

(Peter McDowell | 2022 | 89 minutes)

Both Peter and Jimmy are Urbana-Champaign natives, and both graduated from University of Illinois High School (Uni High) in Urbana. Peter received his BA in French at the University of Illinois in 1989.

Co-sponsored by The Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, The Yuen Tze Lo and Sara De Mundo Lo Scholars Studio Fund, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Any content or views expressed in the material showcased are those of the author(s) or creator(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

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AsiaLENS - “Jimmy In Saigon” (Encore Screening)
Oct 16, 2022, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to public

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AsiaLENS - “Now is the Past – My Father, Java & the Phantom Files” (Film Screening + Discussion)
Nov 15, 2022, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium (600 S Gregory St, Urbana, IL 61801)
*Free and open to public

During the Second World War, Japanese film editor Chounosuke Ise made numerous propaganda films in Japanese-occupied Indonesia. Their purpose was to justify Japan’s hegemony in Asia, claiming liberation of these countries from colonialism. Chounosuke Ise’s son, filmmaker Shin-ichi Ise, traces the path taken by his father, who barely spoke about the war or Indonesia, and was seemingly reluctant to discuss what he had done there.

Shin-ichi Ise’s quest takes him to film studios in Jakarta that were built by forced laborers, to eyewitnesses who recall the atrocities committed by the Japanese military police, and to women who fled from rapists. It turns out that the propaganda films—130 of them—are stored at the Dutch National Archive in The Hague. Here, at last, Shin-ichi Ise can watch his father’s propaganda films, on subjects such as Japanese efforts to control malaria and the work of railway laborers. “Why did he make them?” he wonders. And what would he have done in the same situation? History is clearly not finished; now is the past, and the past is now.

(Shinichi Ise | 2021 | Japan | 88 minutes.)

Co-sponsored by Spurlock Museum of World Cultures.

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Spring 2022

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Spring 2022

AsiaLENS: Americaville/Adam James Smith (In-person screening+conversation with filmmaker)

Americaville
A film by Adam James Smith.
2020. 80 minutes.

In-person screening and conversation with filmmaker Adam James Smith.

February 8, 2022 7pm
Admission Free
FACE MASKS REQUIRED TO BE WORN

SPURLOCK MUSEUM
600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL

“Americaville” is a feature documentary on living the American dream in China's Wild West. Hidden among the mountains north of Beijing, a Wild West themed community promises to deliver the American dream to its several thousand Chinese residents. In Americaville, Annie Liu escapes China’s increasingly uninhabitable capital city to pursue happiness, freedom, romance, and spiritual fulfillment in the town; only to find the American idyll harder to attain than what was promised to her.

More info: www.americavillefilm.com

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AsiaLENS: A is for Agustin/Grace Pimentel Simbulan (In-person screening+conversation with filmmaker)

A is for Agustin
A film by Grace Pimentel Simbulan. 2019. 74 minutes.

In-person screening and conversation with filmmaker Grace Pimentel Simbulan.

Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - 7pm

SPURLOCK MUSEUM
600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL

Admission Free
FACE MASKS REQUIRED TO BE WORN

Living in a remote corner of the Philippine islands, Agustin is a tribesman who loves to sing, but never had the opportunity to learn to read or write. When his boss cheats him out of his wages seemingly for the thousandth time, 40-year old Agustin decides to enroll in grade 1. Over the next six years, however, Agustin becomes increasingly torn between two realities – the children’s world in school, and the increasing challenges of the world outside. This film invites audiences to hope and dream with Agustin, and to understand the harsh reality that makes his optimism and the optimism of many Indigenous peoples ultimately so fragile.

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AsiaLENS: Abandoned/Eri Kitada (In-person screening+Online conversation with scholar)

Abandoned: The Stories of Japanese War Orphans in The Philippines and China
A film by Hiroyasu Obara. 2020. 98 minutes.

In-person screening. Online conversation with scholar Eri Kitada (Rutgers University-New Brunswick)

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - 7pm

SPURLOCK MUSEUM
600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL

Admission Free
FACE MASKS REQUIRED TO BE WORN

Addressing issues around family and transnationalism, citizenship and empire, and history and memory across East and Southeast Asia, this documentary film traces forgotten and disappeared Japanese communities in the Philippines and former Manchuria by shedding light on the perspectives of migrants’ children now approaching the end of their lives. Testimonies in the film illuminate the afterlives of communities and families grappling with the legal, economic, and emotional questions of the historically fraught diaspora.

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Fall 2021

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Spring 2021

AsiaLENS Film Screenings for Fall 2020

Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Film Expo

AAS Film Expo was established as a conference program in 2011 by the Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS) as part of an outreach initiative. Documentary and independent films on issues reflecting contemporary life in Asia are projected in a dedicated screening room with a schedule running from Thursday through Saturday. An “on demand” screening area allows additional viewing opportunities for attendees who miss scheduled screening times.

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annually hosts the premier North American conference of Asia scholars devoted to scheduled programs of scholarly papers, roundtable discussions, workshops, and panel sessions on a wide range of issues in research and teaching, and on Asian affairs in general. The upcoming AAS conference is scheduled on March 19-22, 2020 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.

The AAS Films Expo is open to the public and does not require conference registration. Click here to visit the website.

Digital Asia

An online educator resource presenting excerpts of documentaries about Asia by scholar filmmakers together with original curriculum materials. Developed for the college and high school teacher for easy to use in the classroom, this website contains 3-5 minute excerpts of the films available via live-streaming, accompanied by free downloadable PDFs of curriculum materials, accessible film transcripts, background materials about each film, and a clear method to order the full length films. This website conforms to the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) accessibility standards for people with disabilities.

Link: https://www.digitalasia.illinois.edu

Funding

AEMS has been supported by funding from The Freeman Foundation, The Luce Foundation, National Endowment of Humanities, US Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center Grant, and The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.